QM with a difference
QM with a difference
Quality management encounters beer mugs at the Oktoberfest
Quality management encounters beer mugs at the Oktoberfest
Pictures of beer mugs, brass band music, and people in an exuberant mood will come to your mind right away whenever you think of the Oktoberfest (Munich beer festival). But there is more to the world’s greatest funfair than just beer and pretzels – the festival is actually based on a sophisticated system that could even prevail at an audit. Welcome to our slightly different perspective on the subject of quality management!
Experience live complaints management
“This is not an entire liter of beer; that was just a test sip!” – At the Oktoberfest, any complaints about mugs of beer that were not properly filled get processed at a speed some service departments can only dream of. Immediate improvement, no forms to fill out, no waiting time – that sure is lived complaints management!
Non-stop test equipment management
Every quality manager knows that auditors just love the subject of test equipment. And at the Oktoberfest, our favorite test equipment, beer mugs, get used many thousand times over daily. On top of that, beer mugs have fill lines, and that actually makes them calibrated test equipment! Cheers!
Hygiene audits with funfair charm
Party tent kitchens are tantamount to high security areas: everything’s right there, HACCP, temperature checks, and disinfection plans. It’s just that the auditor is wearing leather pants, and he is holding a mug of beer in his hand instead of a clipboard. Nonetheless, required standards are high, and those who don’t meet them will get a visit from the health department faster than you can say, “O’zapft is!”, which means, “The beer has been tapped!”
Process capability with metrics that truly count
- Average tapping speed: one liter and mug every 7 seconds
- Employee satisfaction rises in proportion to the number of drink breaks
- Customer satisfaction can be gauged directly from their applause after each “Prosit” for “Cheers!”
Who needs complicated KPI dashboards when the mood is measurable right then and there at the table?
CIP – continual improvement process – with tradition
The Oktoberfest gets better and better every year:
- New concepts for tents
- Optimized access controls
- Digital beer brands (which we haven’t tried yet…)
CIP comes alive with every mug of beer served faster, cooler, and frothier than the year before.
Internal audits at the beer tent
„Hi, I’m the auditor, and I would like to know if the beer really has 6.3% alcohol per volume!”
Such audits are rare, but conceivable. And who knows – perhaps there will soon be a “beer quality tested and certified to DIN 6650” certificate! Legal knowledge will also prove helpful, since the Bavarian beer purity law, the “Reinheitsgebot”, which was decreed by the Dukes of Bavaria in Ingolstadt back then on April 23, 1516, is the world’s oldest food regulatory requirement that is still in force nowadays.
The bottom line is that QM can be fun if you just know HOW TO…
The Oktoberfest shows that quality management needn’t be dry. It can definitely be loud, cheerful, and full of life – as long as processes are running smoothly and mugs are full of beer!
The Oktoberfest might even be the very best example of integrating efficiency, customer orientation, and tradition in a single event!
On that fun note: here’s to quality – whether at the office or at the beer tent! Cheers!
About PeRoBa®:
PeRoBa® Unternehmensberatung GmbH has specialised in management systems since 1991. The company has been headquartered in Baldham since 2011 and also maintains an office on Prinzregentenstraße in Munich. PeRoBa® advises, audits and assesses to support clients in introducing and implementing their management systems, and also offers audits, QM training, seminars and workshops. Since January 2016, the in-house, patented software iVision® – Smart Remote Audit Solution has been on the market.
Dr. Roland Scherb is the founder and Managing Director of PeRoBa® Unternehmensberatung GmbH, certified to DIN EN ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 27001 and based in Baldham. He is President of the Bundesverband der Auditoren e. V. (German Federal Association of Auditors), head of the ISO Certification Competence Forum at BVMW e. V. (German Association for Small and Medium-sized Businesses) and a member of the DIN working committee NQSZ NA 147-00-07 GA on the revision of DIN EN ISO 19011. He is also a book author as well as a trainer and lecturer at renowned educational institutions on management systems and the associated core methods.
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