fbtechreview.comAUGUST 20208The Qualicopter--Two Freedoms, Three Trends, and the Future of Quality. Are you ready?BY JOHN CARTER, AREA EUROPE QUALITY DIRECTOR, FERREROAs a senior leader in the food industry, managing food safety and quality, I often tell people in our function that we have the best job in the world because we have two gifts: the freedom to move and the freedom to think. The first giftLet me explain: the first gift is mobility - in our quality assurance roles, we are free to go anywhere in our supply chains within our networks and ask anyone anything. Think about it: we are accountable for compliance and excellence as food is grown, procured, manufactured, and distributed in perfect condition, and we maintain that sense of ownership through the chain to the moment a consumer eats our product.The QualicopterWe are the only faction with this unique overview and perspective. We can fly above farms and fisheries; we fly above factories and warehouses, trucks and stores, and delivery networks. Nevertheless, we can also land and then dive into the detail of a specific issue. Anywhere, anytime, the quality folks have a responsibility to identify and eliminate the root cause of problems, to make the world a safer, better place in the name of continuous improvement. This is the behavior that I call the "Qualicopter."The second giftThe second gift is what I call `freedom to think'. It may not seem like it when you are firefighting and troubleshooting, but as a rule, quality staffs are not under the same relentless pressure to make the numbers, compared to other parts of the business. Quality has an opportunity and therefore an obligation to see the big picture and think. As you travel with your Qualicopter above an organization, above the network, you can John Carterin myview
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