Anyone who knows me knows I am a Star Wars geek. I spend way additional time than I care to admit obsessing about the Star Wars films, collecting random star wars toys, and musing about the “what ifs” in the Star Wars universe. The other day, it occurred to me, “What if The Empire had implemented a High-quality Management Technique on the Death Star?” So I thought a bit on this, and here’s what I feel might have helped The Empire in their endeavor to rule the galaxy if they only had place Good quality Management as a strategic initiative.
Project Management: From the time that the death star plan were conceived, it took The Empire almost 20 years to total the Death star. A project this big demands multiple roles involved, and delegation of activities. The Death Star project management group consisted of three crucial folks – Grand Moff Tarkin, Darth Vader, and Emperor Palpatine. These are not the extra versatile managers, and are not above taking employee errors or missed deadlines with the help of a lightsaber, force lightning or a death ray.
Probably if The Empire implemented a Quality-Primarily based Project Management Program, they would be able to clearly define the roles involved in the project, assign tasks to these roles, and handle the project from an aggregate level. nonconformance management software keeps the project deliverables on track, and maybe this level of visibility would allow them to keep handle, without getting to resort to the Dark Side as their only signifies of clairvoyance.
Document Management: Let’s be sincere – even The Empire could’ve employed a robust document management method. Given the sheer size of the Death Star, with the thousands of “workers” that worked there, there would have been tens of thousands of records that would will need to be controlled – Work Directions, Job Descriptions, Procedures, Floor Plans, and the like. You would assume that with this “technological terror” The Empire constructed, there would be safe Document Management Program in place.
Then how did a tiny droid like R2-D2 plug into the network and was in a position to download the Death Star plans like it was a space stroll in the park? My guess is that The Empire, in all its glory, was using a file system to shop documents. If The Empire would have utilised a Document Manage program like these in a High quality Management Technique, access to these especially sensitive documents would have been limited to those who had the suitable access rights. Additionally, document control can limit the details of particular fields within the information, so that no sensitive information is accessed.
Employee Education Technique: Without having appropriate employee training, then a lot of organization run the danger of Excellent incidents, Security incidents, and other risks to the company. It seems to me that The Empire was not tracking education in a centralized program. If they had been, then they would have been in a position to see that almost 80% of the Stormtroopers in The Empire couldn’t hit a target with a blaster if their lives depended on it (and it frequently did). Or possibly they would have uncovered the fact that their patrol procedures clearly miss safety breaches – Like 80 year old Jedis skulking around the tractor beam. Appropriate instruction technique enable managers to see visibility into not only who is trained, but also how nicely they are educated and no matter if actions need to be taken to update coaching records for poor performance.
Supplier Management and Supplier Rating: Let’s face it – The Empire had to have contracted out to make this Death Star. All the elements that go into constructing a completed item rely on suppliers and contractors to help total the course of action. When watching the movie, we know that the Rebels discovered a weakness in the design of the Death Star (thanks to the weak document management program). If The Empire would have had a real-time inspection and rating method, they would have been able to inspect that access port, and send out a Corrective Action to the knuckleheads who thought placing a direct access to the Death Star core was a superior thought.
Nonconformance, Audits and Corrective and Preventive Action: Let’s remain on this, then. Obviously, we know that the Death Star had a defect. It was only in the final hour did The Empire comprehend the danger, and by that point it was as well late. If they had a excellent program in place, they would have located this flaw, whether via typical space Audits (or at the extremely least an Audit by means of tremors in the Force), or a Nonconformance when the defect was installed, and issued a Corrective Action to fix the trouble. Clearly, High quality took a backseat to their overconfidence, and eventually resulting in, properly… you know the rest.
Management Overview and Reporting: As I said prior to, the primary project managers utilized fear as their major motivator, and seldom relied on the data to help them with Good quality. In the movie, you see the officers of the Death Star sitting in a conference room, and not one of them produced a report – If they had a robust reporting method that collects excellent data from all regions of the Death Star, and rolls this data up to aid determine the top rated dangers and leading quality challenges, then maybe that meeting would have gone differently. Perhaps if that poor guy had shown Darth Vader his newest Top quality Report, he wouldn’t have gotten the old “force choke” from the Dark Lord of The Sith. Obtaining a leading-level reporting system that presents the High quality Technique challenges in a single view could have mitigated their risks.
