WorldWide Drilling Resource

Northern Plains Chapter of the ISEE President: Ron Eastman Tel: 307-680-8805 www.npcisee.org 29 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® MAY 2013 Why is Quality Important? by JD Sullivan Brunner & Lay, Inc. Wo r ldWi de Dr i l l i ng Re sour c e ® welcomes JD Sullivan as a contributing writer. JD has been involved in construc- tion and mining for over 30 years. He is currently a national sales manager, and regularly visits jobsites and drilling con- tractors across the United States. I was returning from a recent trade show and convention, reviewing the at- tendance and exhibitor list. I started thinking about why people attend such shows, and the question of multiple prod- ucts competing for multiple attendees’ attention struck me. What differentiates these products or services? What is the purchasing decision based on? To use this product over that product? Obviously, the first criterion is generally price, then availability, then something else seem- ingly important to the user or buyer. I thought about why quality is impor- tant. Oftentimes, it is overshadowed by other criteria. Let’s look at the issue of quality and its relative importance over other criteria used in selecting goods or services. Quality allows the buyer to expect a reasonable likelihood the job or use will be completed in a reasonable time and reasonable manner. This translates into less likely injury and less labor to complete the intended use. Less chance of injury means a lower risk, and thus perhaps lower workmans’ compensation claims, out of pocket medical expenses, copays, deductibles, lost wages, and lost time on the job. Looking at it another way, quality increases productivity and, thus ultimately profitability. Next, quality tells your customers you don’t cut corners, tolerate risks, or do the job haphazardly. It allows your customers to have faith in their decision to give you the work, award the contract, or hire you. Quality validates you and your firm’s professionalism. It means you can move ahead of competitors who don’t use quality products. It means more opportunities, repeat business, and more requests for quotes come your way. Quality allows you to hire better per- sonnel and retain them for longer. It means your employees will be held to a certain standard. It means you value their work efforts and don’t want them to shortcut customers. It sends a sub- liminal message about what is expected from them. It means less downtime, less rehiring and retraining costs, and shorter learning curves. Quality leads employees to have pride in their work, reduces boredom and job frustration, and lessens compla- cency. Making quality a standard builds corporate respect, image, and pride. Those qualities create stronger compa- nies able to compete in the most chal- lenging environments. Worried about foreign competition, outsourcing, and declining sales? Quality distances you from those issues. Most customers, given the choice between two dissimilar goods of lesser and greater quality, will ultimately opt for the higher quality item or service. A lower quality item with a lower price will often win ini- tial business, but lose repeat business as the inherent lower quality product fails to meet buyer expectations. Quality will allow you to focus on business objectives without getting side- tracked by customer complaints, war- ranty issues, or worse - lawsuits. It allows you to invest money, time, energy, and creativity into improving your business. Money that might be spent on litigation, expert witnesses, increased product liability insurance premiums, and lost sales could be diverted into expanding production, new hiring, research and development, improved benefits for work- ers, and expanding to new markets. Poor quality leads to the need to constantly replace dissatisfied customers, search for new markets, and sell into that market. Poor quality ties up sales- people, forcing them to spend valuable time handling upset customers, offer- ing discounts or credits, and managing accounts. This time is used by sales- people selling quality to introduce new products, reach new markets or cus- tomers, or improve service, further dis- tancing themselves from poor-quality competitors. Someone once said, "It's unwise to pay too much, but it’s worse to pay too little.” When you pay too much, you lose a little money. That is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was in- capable of doing the thing you purchased it to do. JD JD Sullivan may be contacted via e-mail at admin@ worldwidedrillingresource.com Sullivan trans. cont’d on page 32.