The Certified Quality Planner

Copyright © 2020 Zulk Shamsuddin, PhD / GAFM ACADEMY

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-7948-7467-1

INTRODUCTION

Quality Planning is a process that applies rigorous quality checks to each stage of product development. It does this through analysis, development, management, and maintenance of quality assurance protocols.

The Certified Quality Planner (CQP) is a gold-standard certification for individuals who demonstrate technical knowledge, skills, and experience in quality engineering that includes quality planning, quality assurance, risk and compliance, leadership management, quality control, and executive communication.

It forms the basis of the assessment that candidates must pass to gain the Certified Quality Planner status and inclusion in the Directory of Certified Professionals of The Global Academy of Finance and Management ®.

Stand out from the crowd with the GAFM® Certified Quality Planner certification and carry the title CQP after your name.

Introduce yourself with this exclusive certification card during networking, business events, conferences, and anywhere. The only card that says all about your professionalism.

Benefits of becoming a Certified Quality Planner

Personal recognition from your peers in quality management.

Enhanced CV to stand out in the job market.

A framework for the development of your career.

International recognition.

Assurance for clients of high standards and ethical practice.

Use of the post-nominal CQP or Certified Quality Planner ™

IMPORTANCE OF CERTIFICATION

Certificates and Certifications, the names for these credentials sound confusingly similar. But there are important differences. Here’s what you need to know about these resume-enhancing options and how they might advance your career.

WHAT IS A CERTIFICATE?

Earning a certificate is about education. Certificates are academic credentials awarded by colleges, universities, or other educational institutions. Students in certificate programs learn new knowledge in a specific subject or discipline and earn a certificate by successfully completing the coursework. An ideal student for a certificate program is someone who is willing to go through the experience of growing their own skillset, being real about what they want to learn, and working with others, says Jennifer Diamond, an instructor for the UW Certificate in Project Management. Many certificate programs have few, if any, admission requirements, making them an excellent option if you want to move forward in your career. The programs are usually noncredit and take less time to complete than a degree. Certificates are commonly listed on resumes as education, and some meet education requirements for first-time or renewed certifications.

WHAT IS A CERTIFICATION?

When you have the professional knowledge you need, a certification allows you to prove it.  Certifications indicate mastery of skills or standards. Professional certifications are granted by industry groups or career-related organizations. These groups assess your qualifications, usually through an exam or application process. Many certifications include the privilege to use a related designation following your professional title. Certification differs from a license, which permits you to work in a certain profession and is usually issued by a government or regulatory agency.

BENEFITS OF CERTIFICATION

Certification helps in learning new technologies, skills, and abilities for a specific promotion. Earning a new certification or an advanced certification in a particular area of expertise can help in advancing your career.

Professional certification shows consumers and potential employers that you are committed to your profession and are well-trained. It gives them confidence in your abilities and knowledge. Certification makes you more valuable to employers, so you can expect to earn more than someone without certification.

Certifications can give you the chance to learn needed skills, and be a quick way to show employers you have those skills. On the other hand, certifications can require studying or coursework, and cost up to several hundred dollars to take.

Highlight Skills in Your Cover Letter

You can incorporate soft skills into your cover letter. Include one or two of the skills mentioned in this article and give specific examples of instances when you demonstrated these traits at work.

Skills Certification

This skills certification program focuses on the following skills and competencies.

Quality Planning

Quality Assurance

Risk and Compliance

Leadership Management

Quality Control

Executive Communication

Application for Certification

https://gafm.com.my/application-for-certification/

Certified Quality Planner

A Certified Quality Planner is a professional quality engineer who is responsible for planning all the quality initiatives of the manufacturing unit. Specific duties of a professional Quality Planner are making a detailed plan for quality control activities, deciding the number of units to be checked for quality check, visiting the manufacturing units, deciding on areas or processes that are major sources of errors, finding erroneous methods or tools being used by workers, rating errors on gravity, deciding on which qualitative tests to check for various desirable characteristics, preparing a step by step written plan or model for quality control process, assigning costs for errors and the quality check process, requisitioning for manpower, and performing other tasks as required by the manufacturing engineer. A professional quality engineer typically reports to senior management personnel.

Skills and Qualifications

The Quality Planner should be self-motivated, extremely organized, and have strong communication and project management aptitude. Employers typically seek candidates with a bachelor’s degree and supported with the following skills:

Quality Assurance skills – A Quality Planner needs a strong understanding of QA processes

QA planning – the primary role of a Quality Planner is to provide the best possible quality assurance plan for a project to get completed within the project quality requirements defined in the Quality Management Plan.

Teamwork – A Quality Planner interacts effectively with cross-functional team members and external stakeholders at various levels of the project

Communication skills – A Quality Planner needs strong verbal and written skills to provide reports to clients and stakeholders as well as articulate quality assurance plans to team members

Project Quality Management

Quality management is the process of ensuring that all project activities necessary to design, plan and implement a project are effective and efficient concerning the purpose of the objective and its performance. Project Quality Management (PQM) is not a separate, independent process that occurs at the end of an activity to measure the level of quality of the output. It is not purchasing the most expensive material or services available on the market. Quality and grade are not the same. Grades are characteristics of a material or service such as additional features. A product may be of good quality (no defects) and be of low grade (few or no extra features).

Quality management is a continuous process that starts and ends with the project. It is more about preventing and avoiding than measuring and fixing poor-quality outputs. It is part of every project management process from the moment the project is initiated to the final steps in the project closure phase.

Quality Management focuses on improving stakeholder satisfaction through continuous and incremental improvements to processes, including removing unnecessary activities; it achieves that by the continuous improvement of the quality of material and services provided to the key project stakeholders. It is not about finding and fixing errors after the fact, quality management is the continuous monitoring and application of quality processes in all aspects of the project.

PQM uses policies and procedures to implement the organization’s quality management system and, as appropriate, it supports continuous process improvement activities as undertaken on behalf of the performing organization.

PQM works to ensure that the project requirements, including product requirements, are met and validated.

PQM Implement quality management which includes quality planning, quality assurance, and quality control.

PQM addresses both the quality management of the project and the quality of the product or service of the project.

Definition of Quality

Quality is defined as the totality of characteristics of an entity that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs. The stated and implied quality needs are the inputs used in defining project requirements from the project sponsor and the key project stakeholders. It is also defined as the Conformance to requirements or fitness for use" which means that the product or services must meet the intended objectives of the project and have value to the project sponsor and key project stakeholders and that the key project stakeholders can use the material or service as it was originally intended. The central focus of quality management is meeting or exceeding stakeholders’ expectations and conforming to the project design and specifications.

The ultimate judge for quality is the beneficiary or the customer representatives of the performing organization who are the key stakeholders, and represent how close the project outputs and deliverables come to meeting the key project stakeholders’ requirements and expectations. How a beneficiary defines quality may be completely subjective, but there are many ways to make quality objective; by defining the individual characteristics and determining one or more metrics that can be collected to mirror the characteristic. For instance, one of the features of a quality product may be that it has a minimum number of errors. This characteristic can be measured by counting errors and defects after the product is used.

Quality management is not an event, it is a process, a consistently high-quality product or service cannot be produced by a defective process. Quality management is a repetitive cycle of measuring quality and updating processes until the desired quality is achieved.

Project Quality Management Processes

The main principle of project quality management is to ensure the project will meet or exceed stakeholders’ needs and expectations. The project team must develop a good relationship with key stakeholders, especially the project sponsor and the key project stakeholders of the project, to understand what quality means to them. One of the causes for poor project evaluations is the project focuses only on meeting the written requirements for the main outputs and ignores other stakeholder needs and expectations for the project.

Quality must be viewed on an equal level with scope, schedule, and budget. If a project sponsor is not satisfied with the quality of how the project is delivering the outcomes, the project team will need to make adjustments to the scope, schedule, and budget to satisfy the project sponsor’s needs and expectations. To deliver the project scope on time and within budget is not enough, to achieve stakeholder satisfaction the project must develop a good working relationship with all stakeholders and understand their stated or implied needs.

Project Quality Management consists of three main processes with reference to PMBOK® body of knowledge:

Plan Quality Management

Plan Quality Management refers to the process of identifying quality requirements and standards for the project and its deliverables