Overview of the role

Ensures that an organisation, product or service consistently functions well.

Details of standard

Occupation summary

This occupation is found in the public and private industries to ensure that their organisations fulfil the requirements of their customers and other stakeholders. A fully competent Quality Practitioner can work in a wide range of organisations (from multi-nationals to SMEs), including automotive, defence, food, pharmaceutical, nuclear, retail, financial services, logistics services, public sector and government. This occupation will also be found across the green economy.

The broad purpose of the occupation is to deploy effective Quality Practices in their responsible area to ensure organisations fulfil the contractual and regulatory requirements of their customers and other stakeholders. This includes four main elements: 1. Quality Planning (planning a delivery system for reliable outputs, such as implementing Quality Management Plans), 2. Quality Assurance (providing confidence to stakeholders that Quality standards are maintained, such as conducting audits), 3. Quality Control (verifying a product or service is meeting agreed specifications, such as carrying out inspections) and 4. Continuous Improvement (preventing recurrence of poor quality through analysis and addressing the root cause of poor quality, such as conducting investigations).

In their daily work, an employee in this occupation interacts with a variety of departments within the organisation (engineering, supply chain/procurement, manufacturing, and service delivery departments) and external organisations, such as customers, suppliers and certification bodies when required. Being the advocate for implementing Quality Practice and Governance. A typical day will likely include internal meetings to review quality performance, such as gathering and analysing quality performance data, inspection or audit findings, carrying out audits or inspections, stakeholder visits, interacting with people from other functions to plan the quality delivery system for their area of responsibility. Individuals will also support and develop people within and outside the Quality Function.

An employee in this occupation will be responsible for All aspects of quality in his/her area of responsibility, such as production or procured goods. This responsibility will be discharged through engagement with those accountable for product/service delivery, such as production / service managers, in order to meet Key Performance Indicators, such as Right First Time measures and Service Level Targets.

Individuals will be responsible for providing Quality duties within the following key areas:
• Support Senior Quality Practitioner and Leaders to formulate Quality Strategy
• Contribute to the management of customer satisfaction and supplier performance
• Deploy Quality Policies and Governance
• Guide and support others to improve quality competency and performance
• Plan and Conduct Audits and other assurance activities
• Develop Quality Control Plans for products/services
• Provide guidance on use of methods/tools to improve quality performance
• Solving Quality problems, such as non-conformances, and overcoming challenges to the implementation of solutions
• Effective application of quality risk management and mitigation to drive new products/services development

Typical job titles include:

Project quality engineer Green leaf Quality assurance officer Green leaf Quality engineer Green leaf Quality officer Green leaf Supplier quality engineer Green leaf

Occupation duties

Duty KSBs

Duty 1 Contribute to the formulation of quality strategy, such as reducing product defects or improving service performance and support the achievement of these by themselves or others, such as other employees or suppliers. This may include environmental performance or sustainability criteria.

K1 K9 K11 K14 K15 K16 K19

S1 S2 S8 S9 S12

B1 B3 B4

Duty 2 Contribute to the formulation of output related customer satisfaction activities, such as Right First Time and On-Time delivery and support the achievement of these by themselves or others, such as customer stakeholders, other employees or suppliers.

K1 K2 K3 K4 K5 K7 K9 K10 K14

S1 S2 S8 S11 S12

B2 B3 B4

Duty 3 Contribute to the formulation of supplier performance measurements, such as improving quality of supplied goods or services and support the achievement of these by themselves or others, such as other company employees or employees throughout a multi-tier supply chain. This may include sustainability criteria.

K1 K4 K5 K7 K14 K15

S1 S2 S8 S9 S12

B2 B3 B4

Duty 4 Responsible for deployment of Quality Policies, Processes and Procedures as defined in the organisation’s Quality Management System and identification of opportunities for improving the Quality Management System.

K1 K2 K5 K8 K9 K14 K15 K16 K19

S1 S11 S12

B2 B3 B4 B5

Duty 5 Plan and conduct audits/assurance in line with the organisation’s audit plan/programme to meet customer/organisational/regulatory audit requirements.

K1 K2 K3 K4 K5 K7 K11 K12 K19

S2 S5 S6 S8 S9 S12

B2 B3 B4 B5

Duty 6 Identify, investigate and contain non-conformances and advise on actions to prevent recurrence.

K13 K19

S2 S3 S4 S5 S7 S9 S10 S12

B2 B3 B4 B5

Duty 7 Inspect/verify/validate a Product or Service against stated product requirements/acceptance criteria/service levels, such as checking the weight or dimensions of a product or timely delivery of a service.

K3 K4 K5 K6 K8 K10 K11 K19

S7

B2 B3 B4 B5

Duty 8 Develop quality control/assurance plans for the product, service or project they are responsible for, such as product dimensional control, on-time service delivery.

K3 K4 K5 K6 K8 K10 K11 K19

S1 S2 S7 S8 S9 S11 S12

B2 B4 B5

Duty 9 Advise on and/or use tools and techniques to improve quality performance, such as reducing waste, improving right first time delivery, reducing non-compliance.

K6 K7 K10 K13

S2 S3 S4 S7 S9 S11

B1 B3 B5

Duty 10 Gather and analyse routine quality performance data and produce relevant reports to support governance, assurance and improvement activities.

K6 K8 K10 K11 K13 K19

S2 S3 S5 S7 S9 S10

B1 B2 B4 B5

Duty 11 Guide and support others inside the Quality Function or in other functions to improve quality competence and quality performance.

K16 K17 K18

S2 S4 S7 S9 S11 S12

B1 B3 B5

Duty 12 Support the development of new/changed products or services, through identifying/quantifying quality risks and contribute to the analysis and mitigation/prevention of these risks.

K1 K2 K3 K4 K5 K6 K7 K8 K14 K15 K18 K19

S1 S2 S3 S5 S8 S11 S12

B2 B3 B5


KSBs

Knowledge

K1: Understand the organisations operating environment and the factors that may influence its direction and performance, including the markets it operates in, roles and responsibilities, who its stakeholders are and what they require from the organisation. This may include sustainability criteria. Back to Duty

K2: Understand the environment in which the organisation’s products/services are produced or supplied, and the factors that may influence performance, including legislation, customer requirements and regulatory requirements. This may include sustainability or climate change criteria. Back to Duty

K3: How the organisation’s strategy is sensitive to stakeholder perceptions and how this knowledge informs priorities at a tactical level. This may include sustainability, ethical, or climate change related criteria. Back to Duty

K4: How applicable contractual and commercial requirements for quality affect the organisation’s performance objectives for their specific products / services. Back to Duty

K5: The methods and tools for identifying customers/stakeholders and gathering information about their requirements including the tools for analysing and prioritising customer/stakeholder quality requirements using tools such as Kano model. Back to Duty

K6: How to convert quality requirements into performance measures objectives using tools such as Critical to Quality Trees (CTQ Trees), requirements matrices and operational definition. Back to Duty

K7: Risk and opportunity management, including the risk and opportunity management principles, framework and processes, types of risk/opportunity associated with new product/service development and improvement, process and supply chain management and methods and tools for identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks/realising opportunities, such as risk and opportunity register, risk and opportunity matrix, Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), Failure Mode and Effects Analysis. Back to Duty

K8: Products/services life cycle stages (such as Capture, Design and Development, Integration, Production, Support and Closure) and the implication for quality Back to Duty

K9: Concept of process design and how this supports specific organisational objectives using tools such as process flowchart, value stream mapping and SIPOC (Supplier, Input, Process, Output, and Customer). Back to Duty

K10: Tools and techniques for managing the organisation’s specific products / services to meet customer requirements such as Quality Function Deployment, Lean Product Development and Design for Manufacturing. Back to Duty

K11: How to plan, measure, manage and monitor organisation’s quality objectives. Back to Duty

K12: Understand the purposes for auditing and how to plan, conduct, report and follow up an audit. Back to Duty

K13: When to apply a range of business improvement approaches tools and techniques such as Problem definition, measurement systems analysis, Basic data analysis, graphical data analysis, use of software tools for data analysis, root cause analysis, identification and assessment of improvement options, process control tools. Back to Duty

K14: The key considerations (such as political, economical, social, technological, legal and environmental) and approaches necessary (such as Tuckman’s Storming, Norming, Forming and Performing) to enable change in organisations, products or services. Back to Duty

K15: The company’s key drivers for change (internal and external) may influence priorities and objectives. Back to Duty

K16: How to promote the right behaviours to create a quality culture in the organisation and how this leads to organisational performance improvements. Back to Duty

K17: The techniques used for improving awareness and performance in relation to quality objectives and requirements. Back to Duty

K18: Learn how different sources and methods will aid in maintaining own development in the quality profession. Back to Duty

K19: Principles of the foundation of Quality and Quality Management System. Back to Duty

Skills

S1: Identify, interpret and apply relevant legal, governmental or industry regulations affecting the organisation. Back to Duty

S2: Communicate using appropriate methods (verbal, written, visual) to influence internal and external stakeholders, using appropriate questioning techniques such as open questions, leading questions. Back to Duty

S3: Identify, collect and analyse relevant quality data using appropriate tools and techniques such as Pareto analysis, statistical methods and trending analysis. Back to Duty

S4: Apply methods and tools to improve the quality performance of processes, products and services such as production control plans, standardised work, use of failure modes and effects. Back to Duty

S5: Identify, analyse and prioritise quality specific risks and opportunities. Support the development, implementation and effectiveness of resulting actions. Back to Duty

S6: Plan and conduct system, product or process audits. Back to Duty

S7: Assess the effectiveness of the measurement systems using tool such as Measurement Systems Analysis. Back to Duty

S8: Identify requirements from technical documents, commercial input or stakeholder statements and converting to definitions that can drive the organisations processes Back to Duty

S9: Identify gaps in process performance and develop improvement plans to close gaps. Back to Duty

S10: Apply structured problem solving including identification, definition, measurement, analysis, improvement and control methods and tools. Back to Duty

S11: Communicate organisational quality strategy to all levels of the organisation. Back to Duty

S12: Identify who the internal and external stakeholders are and their current and optimal positions (such as hostile, help it work, opposed, uncooperative, indifferent, hesitant, enthusiastic support) required to support quality related activities. Back to Duty

Behaviours

B1: Promote actively best practices and continuous improvement. Back to Duty

B2: Operates diligently with professionalism considering a wider picture. Back to Duty

B3: Act with integrity by being open and honest. Back to Duty

B4: Always put customers at the heart of every task. Back to Duty

B5: Seek continuous professional development opportunities such as self-reflection, gathering information, producing personal development plans and keeping up to date on sector/organisation regulation. Back to Duty


Qualifications

English and Maths

Professional recognition

This standard aligns with the following professional recognition:

  • Chartered Quality Institute for Practitioner


Additional details

Occupational Level:

4

Duration (months):

14

Review

Status: Approved for delivery (available for starts)
Level: 4
Reference: ST0853
Version: 1.0
Date updated: 31/05/2022
Approved for delivery: 10 September 2020
Route: Business and administration
Typical duration to gateway: 14 months (this does not include EPA period)
Maximum funding: £6000
LARS Code: 602
EQA Provider: Ofqual
Employers involved in creating the standard: Intertek, N G Bailey, Lab corp, Wincanton-DSE, Toyota UK, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, Royal Mail, BAE Systems, Ministry of Defence (MOD), Balfour Beatty

Version log

Version Change detail Earliest start date Latest start date
1.0 10/09/2020 Not set

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