Absolutely Not!

I've asked Quality colleagues a lot of questions over the years.

Can we do this?

What if we did it this way?

Are we allowed to move this from here to there?

Quite often, the answer starts with:

"Yes, but..."

Sometimes:

"Possibly, provided..."

And every now and again:

"Absolutely not!"

I've actually come to appreciate those conversations enormously.

Because if you work in Supply Chain, it's surprising how many decisions that appear to be supply chain decisions aren't just supply-chain decisions at all.

Source a new supplier.

Use a subcontractor.

Change a manufacturing plan.

Move stock between countries.

Change the way something is transported.

Find an alternative source when supply fails.

There's the obvious supply chain question:

Can we do it?

But quite often there's another one:

Are we allowed to?

I've worked across several different industries during my career.

And one thing that becomes obvious when you move between them is just how different the rules can be.

Something perfectly normal in one industry might require a completely different level of consideration in another.

I remember experiencing this particularly clearly in pharmaceuticals.

There was demand for a product somewhere in the world.

We had stock sitting in a warehouse in the UK.

My supply chain brain looked at the problem and came up with what seemed like the obvious answer.

We've got stock here.

They need stock there.

Let's move it.

Except...

not so fast.

There were regulatory requirements to consider.

Documentation.

The status of the product.

Where it had come from.

Where it was going.

How it could move.

Suddenly, something that looked like a relatively straightforward inventory and logistics decision wasn't straightforward at all.

There were ways we potentially could have achieved it.

But once we understood everything involved, sourcing the product closer to where it was needed became the more sensible solution.

Quality hadn't stopped us solving the problem.

Quality had changed our understanding of what the problem actually was.

The question was no longer:

How do we move this stock?

It was:

What's the right way to satisfy this demand?

That's quite a different question.

I've been thinking about that recently because I watched a documentary about Boeing on Netflix.

I started watching it as someone who gets on aeroplanes.

But fairly quickly I realised I was also watching it as someone who has spent a career working in and around Quality, Safety and Compliance.

And that made it fascinating.

I'm not going to attempt to review the documentary here.

Nor am I qualified to adjudicate all of the rights and wrongs of Boeing, its aircraft or the events portrayed.

But the documentary shines an incredibly bright light on something that applies far beyond aviation:

the importance of quality and safety culture.

And the stakes in aviation make that impossible to ignore.

Following the 737 MAX 9 door plug incident in 2024, regulatory scrutiny identified issues extending beyond one individual defect.

Manufacturing controls.

Training.

Oversight.

Quality systems.

And wider questions about safety culture.

The FAA subsequently required Boeing to develop a comprehensive plan to address systemic production quality issues and strengthen its safety and quality systems.

That interested me.

Because when serious quality problems occur, it's tempting to think about the defect.

What went wrong with the product?

But perhaps the more interesting question is:

What was happening in the system that produced it?

Quality is sometimes treated as though it's something that happens at the end.

Make the product.

Inspect it.

Check it.

Release it.

But quality decisions happen much earlier than that.

A buyer choosing a supplier is making a decision that can affect quality.

A sourcing professional choosing a subcontractor is making one.

A planner changing a production sequence might be making one.

A logistics team deciding how something moves might be making one.

A leader setting a production target might be making one.

Which means Quality can't simply belong to the people with Quality in their job title.

The organisation creates the conditions in which quality succeeds or fails.

But let's be realistic.

Businesses aren't designed solely to eliminate risk.

They're there to make things.

Sell things.

Serve customers.

Grow.

Make money.

And that creates tension.

I've felt it plenty of times.

You've got demand.

A customer wants something.

There's a commercial opportunity.

You need more output.

And then a process or rule appears to be standing between you and the thing you're trying to achieve.

Quality can sometimes feel like friction.

Another approval.

Another check.

Another piece of documentation.

Another reason why something can't happen yet.

And occasionally you find yourself thinking:

Can we please just get on with it?

I've certainly been there.

But experience has taught me to be very careful with that feeling.

Because sometimes the thing that looks like a barrier is there for a very good reason.

I remember one example from a chemicals business earlier in my career.

We had a product the business wanted to manufacture.

There was demand for it, and commercially we wanted to find a way of getting it into the production plan.

The problem was that the right window wasn't presenting itself.

At first glance, production planning can sometimes look a little like Tetris.

There's a gap.

We've got something we need to make.

Put it in the gap.

Except manufacturing doesn't work like that.

And this particular process definitely didn't.

There were rules around which products should follow others through the reactors.

Residual chemicals from one batch could potentially interact with the next.

Get the sequence wrong and you weren't simply risking a line on a planning spreadsheet.

You could risk the quality of the product.

Potentially create the need for a full clean down.

Potentially trigger maintenance checks.

And perhaps lose far more production than the batch you were trying to squeeze in.

Suddenly:

Can we fit this batch into the plan?

wasn't really the question anymore.

The better question was:

What risk would we introduce if we did?

What I like about that example is what happened next.

We didn't simply say:

"Quality says no. Forget it."

And we didn't say:

"The business needs it. Do it anyway."

We talked.

What exactly was the risk?

What was the sequencing rule protecting us from?

Could something else change?

Eventually we found a way.

But doing that required adjustments to the production plan and to the batch immediately before the one we wanted to make.

The commercial objective didn't disappear.

Neither did the quality requirement.

We found a solution that respected both.

And I think that's an important distinction.

The objective wasn't to find a way around the rule.

It was to understand what the rule was protecting us from.

That's why I've always tried to build good relationships with Quality teams.

The best Quality people I've worked with haven't simply been people who say no.

Although, to be clear...

some things absolutely deserve an:

"Absolutely not!"

But more often, the conversation is much more productive than that.

"Could we do this?"

"Yes, but we'd need to..."

"What if we changed this?"

"Possibly. Let me check..."

"Could we do it this way instead?"

"Yes. That would work."

That's how I've preferred those relationships to operate.

Supply Chain brings the problem we're trying to solve.

Quality brings expertise that we may not have.

And together we work out the boundaries within which a good solution can exist.

Sometimes the answer is still no.

That's okay.

Because understanding why something can't be done is very different from simply being told that it can't.

And perhaps that's where the Boeing documentary made me think most.

Not specifically about aircraft.

About culture.

Processes matter.

Specifications matter.

Audits matter.

Documentation matters.

Inspections matter.

But people make thousands of decisions inside those systems.

And every organisation sends signals about what it really values.

Speed.

Cost.

Output.

Service.

Revenue.

Deadlines.

Quality.

Safety.

What happens when some of those signals start competing with each other?

What happens when the production number says go but somebody responsible for quality says stop?

What happens when someone raises a concern?

Are they listened to?

Do people ask why?

Do they try to understand the risk?

Or does the organisation gradually learn that the real priority is simply to keep things moving?

That's where quality stops being a process question.

It becomes a culture question.

I don't think the answer is for every supply chain professional to become a Quality expert.

I'm certainly not one.

But I do think we need to understand enough.

Enough to recognise when a decision has consequences beyond cost, inventory or service.

Enough to know when regulation matters.

Enough to understand why a control exists.

Enough to recognise when we need expertise that we don't have.

Enough to jump on a call and ask:

"Are we allowed to do this?"

And enough to listen carefully to the answer.

Because sometimes the answer will be yes.

Sometimes it will be:

"Yes, but..."

And occasionally...

"Absolutely not!"

I've learned not to see that as Quality stopping me from doing my job.

Sometimes they're helping me do it properly.

Theme

Quality

Signal

Quality isn't the final check. It's part of every decision that comes before it.

Reflection

Supply Chain makes decisions every day that can affect quality, safety and compliance.

Selecting suppliers.

Changing manufacturing plans.

Moving products.

Responding to shortages.

Finding alternative solutions.

The fact that something is physically possible doesn't necessarily mean it's the right thing to do.

And a quality constraint doesn't always mean the answer is no.

Sometimes it means we haven't found the right solution yet.

The best relationships I've had with Quality haven't been about asking them to approve something after we've already decided what we want to do.

They've been about bringing the right expertise into the problem early enough to help shape the answer.

Because sometimes the constraint isn't stopping you doing business.

It's stopping you doing business badly.

Question

The next time a quality requirement appears to be standing in the way...

Do you understand what it's protecting you from?

The Demand Signal

Lessons from the front line of supply chain.