Please indicate the source for the original reprint of Yunzhi QMS
Author: Wang Hongshi
Introduction The quality door of a hundred-year-old store
The recent incident of Zhang Xiaoquan taking garlic and breaking the knife has attracted the attention of the whole people. Although a "calling order for breaking the knife" was issued later, Zhang Xiaoquan must have "lost the garlic" from the incident to the follow-up procrastination and unprofessional response.
Zhang Xiaoquan, a century-old brand, started from scissors and has not been making kitchen knives for too long. The century-old brand focuses more on the inheritance of brand culture, which does not represent the good or bad of product quality.
Zhang Xiaoquan’s public opinion crisis caused by customer complaints about quality problems seems to be a small matter, but in the end it was fully fermented, which reflected many problems in Zhang Xiaoquan’s internal management, including quality management. This is Zhang Xiaoquan’s quality crisis .
1.1 Dare to correct mistakes and solve problems
On the evening of July 15, 2022, Zhang Xiaoquan’s official Weibo account issued a public statement on the incident, saying, “The name of the company’s product purchased by consumers in this incident is ‘Dragon Bird Chopping Knife’, and the blade is made of 50Cr15MoV stainless steel. It is a household knife with high cost performance for ordinary household kitchen daily use. The product features high sharpness, good durability, and is longer than food slices and modified knives. "Dragon Bird Cutting and Cutting Dual-purpose Knife" has been on the market since 2018 Sales, as of the end of June 2022, the sales volume has exceeded 60,000 handles. Since its launch, 11 official customer complaints have been received from consumers, and the customer complaint rate is about 0.0183%.”
After the incident of breaking the knife when shooting garlic, people broke out on the Internet that shooting cucumbers, chopping chicken legs, cutting taro, etc. caused the knife to be broken, and Zhang Xiaoquan was without exception. Are these follow-up cases of filming and breaking included in Zhang Xiaoquan's customer complaint statistics? Is it also a "Dragon Sparrow Cutting and Cutting Knife"? We currently have no way of knowing.
What was exposed on the Internet was only a limited conversation between the customer and Zhang Xiaoquan’s customer service. If the incident of breaking the knife happened in the hands of a quality person, it might have been even more lively. A quality tool comes to the fore. In a word, if it falls into the hands of quality people, its stock price will not be as simple as falling by 5% in a few days, or it will be cut in half.
It was revealed on the Internet that about 75% of the knives produced by Zhang Xiaoquan are OEM OEM, and the investment in research and development is very small, but this is not the cause of quality problems. very good. Apple's mobile phone is an OEM, but its quality level has not declined.
A very small shot of garlic and broken knife had a very large negative impact on Zhang Xiaoquan. Not only was the competitor taking advantage of the opportunity to "shoot the garlic show", the marketing traffic went wave after wave, and became a free marketing piece for other knife companies, and the brand reputation accumulated for a century also collapsed rapidly, wanting to return to the original Brand pinnacle is not so easy.
If you shoot garlic and break the knife, you know it is not a blessing.
The greatness of a great company is not the ability to cover up mistakes and problems, but the ability to correct mistakes and solve problems. Zhang Xiaoquan can completely turn bad things into good things, come back from the ashes, and the top management will carry out drastic corporate reforms and quality innovations, reshaping the "knife and scissors first stock".
1.2 Soul questioning under the broken knife
Compared with Suanxiu, as a quality person, I want to know the truth behind the knife-breaking incident, although I may never get the answer.
On Zhang Xiaoquan's official website http://www.zhangxiaoquan.cn (Zhang Xiaoquan Co., Ltd.), no information on quality system certification can be found.
Search for "Zhang Xiaoquan" in the management system certification page of the "National Certification and Accreditation Information Public Service Platform http://cx.cnca.cn ", there are 4 certification entities, and their certification information is summarized as follows:
In 2014, after Zhang Xiaoquan solved the problems left over from brand history, Shanghai Zhang Xiaoquan Knives and Scissors Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and Hangzhou Zhang Xiaoquan Industrial Development Co., Ltd. gradually withdrew from the stage of history.
The remaining two effective subjects have both passed the ISO9001 quality system certification, but the scope of certification is different. One subject is responsible for design, development and manufacturing, and the other is responsible for sales. Among the two effective entities, the general manager of Zhang Xiaoquan Co., Ltd. is Xia Qianliang, and Shanghai Zhang Xiaoquan Knives and Scissors Main Store Co., Ltd. is 100% controlled by Zhang Xiaoquan Co., Ltd., and its legal representative and general manager are both Xia Qianliang.
Through the enterprise search, it can be found that Zhang Xiaoquan also has another company entity - Hangzhou Zhang Xiaoquan E-Commerce Co., Ltd. This company entity is 100% controlled by Zhang Xiaoquan Co., Ltd., and its legal representative and general manager are also Xia Qianliang, who should be in charge E-commerce platform, but did not find any quality system certification information.
The main body of consumer complaints is the brand Zhang Xiaoquan, regardless of whether it is a channel distributor, e-commerce Zhang Xiaoquan, store Zhang Xiaoquan or other Zhang Xiaoquan. Consumers don't care which Zhang Xiaoquan is responsible for the knife-breaking incident.
This is very interesting. Ms. Wang in Guangzhou should have fed back the problem of garlic-cutting and knife-breaking to Zhang Xiaoquan’s channel dealer, and the transmission path of her customer complaint information is roughly Zhang Xiaoquan’s channel dealer→Hangzhou Zhang Xiaoquan E-Commerce Co., Ltd. (Shanghai Zhang Xiaoquan Knives and Scissors Head Office Co., Ltd.), 2022.7.15 Zhang Xiaoquan's official Weibo statement was issued by "Zhang Xiaoquan Co., Ltd." From the perspective of quality management system certification, e-commerce platforms do not have the ability to completely handle customer complaints and emergencies, and customer service may just follow the script, and improper responses are also expected.
1. Has Zhang Xiaoquan been included in the statistics of customer complaints for the subsequent cases of filming and breaking on the Internet? Is it also a "Dragon Sparrow Cutting and Cutting Knife"?
Zhang Xiaoquan has two main sales channels - the store and the e-commerce platform; the complaints should be collected from the store and the e-commerce platform, and "Zhang Xiaoquan Co., Ltd." will summarize, analyze and take countermeasures.
2. Is there any problem with the quality of Zhang Xiaoquan? That is, can the dual-purpose knife for chopping and cutting be used for chopping garlic?
It is not ruled out that the best guess is that there is a problem with a certain quality control link of the kitchen knife; it may also be a design problem (refer to GB/T 40356-2021 "Kitchen Knives" standard), which is the worst guess.
3. Is this knife produced by Zhang Xiaoquan himself or by OEM?
Whether it is self-production or OEM, there must be a strict quality control system; if it is OEM production, it is a routine method for the procurement center to send personnel to the site for quality monitoring and shipment inspection.
4. Is there a complete quality traceability system, and can it be traced back to all links and even the source of the supply chain?
In terms of quality data, no matter whether it is an OEM or not, you can check the corresponding orders, batches, inspection records, experiment reports, etc., and all can be traced back in a chain; if they cannot be traced back, it means that the system has failed.
5. Will the kitchen knives of the same production batch break in batches or in individual cases?
Complaints should be made on a case-by-case basis to thoroughly investigate whether there is a problem with this batch of kitchen knives; if it is really a batch quality problem, although there is no recall mechanism for kitchen knives, a recall can be done, which can greatly restore the public image.
6. Does Zhang Xiaoquan have a complete customer complaint handling mechanism?
The fast counter-containment is definitely not fast enough, and the response is definitely slow; customer complaint information is transmitted from Zhang Xiaoquan’s Jingdong channel distributor to Zhang Xiaoquan’s headquarters, and there may be many links in the process. The quality data of customer complaints has not been connected. The processing mechanism, when the headquarters knew about the customer complaint information, public opinion on the Internet had already fermented.
7. What complaints about broken knives has Zhang Xiaoquan received in these years? Is there any statistical analysis of different dimensions?
How are these complaints about broken knives handled? What are the materials of these broken knives? Changing the knife for customers can only solve the superficial problem. Only by discovering the root cause of the problem and taking corrective and preventive measures can the problem be avoided from reoccurring.
In the public statement on the official microblog, it is confirmed that the material of the broken blade is 50Cr15MoV stainless steel, and there is another data that the customer complaint rate is about 0.0183%. In fact, this is a very high customer complaint data. I don’t know what Zhang Xiaoquan’s customer complaint rate target is. ? Compared with some industries, this data gap is too big.
1.3 What are the requirements in the national standard of kitchen knives
So how to measure the quality of a kitchen knife is good or bad?
We can start with the national standards or industry standards it implements to see if the broken knife meets the requirements.
my country just revised and released the national standard GB/T 40356-2021 "Kitchen Knives" last year, replacing the previously used light industry standard QB/T 1924-1993 "Chef Knives". From the remarks of Zhang Xiaoquan's customer service and the general manager, it can be concluded that they are definitely not familiar with this new national standard.
Let's take a look at the requirements for "kitchen knives" in the new national standard GB/T 40356-2021 released last year.
Chapter 5 " Requirements " of the standard clearly describes the requirements for kitchen knives from various aspects, including:
· Material
· Appearance
· Component fit quality
· Surface roughness
· Blade wrap angle
· Blade Thickness
· Corrosion resistance
· Tool Strength
· The connection firmness of the handle
· Hardness
· Sharpness and durability
· Drop resistance
The reasons for the breakage of kitchen knives must be varied.
50Cr15MoV stainless steel is mainly used to make high-grade knives, medical equipment, etc. Due to the high carbon content, the hardness after quenching can reach HRC58. Zhang Xiaoquan's official reply said that if some specific-purpose kitchen knives have requirements on hardness, they may indeed break.
For other requirements including hardness specified in GB/T 40356-2021, we will not make specific analysis. It is just suggested that after Zhang Xiaoquan gets the knife's body, according to the national standard and the specific technical requirements of 50Cr15MoV stainless steel kitchen knives, see what other testing items can be done, entrust a third-party authoritative testing organization to make a test report, and make it public in the media. Audio-visual, this can also restore a large wave of public traffic.
Let's talk about the strength of the tool. Chapter 5.8 of GB/T 40356-2021 has clear regulations on the strength of the tool: the tool is tested according to 6.2.7 and should meet the following requirements:
a) The blade and knife neck should not be broken or cracked;
b) There should be no looseness at the connection between the knife handle or its parts and the knife tenon;
c) There shall be no permanent deformation of the blade greater than 3°.
From the requirements of chapter 5.8 in GB/T 40356-2021, it can be seen that the national standard clearly stipulates that the corresponding parts of kitchen knives should not be broken, cracked, loose, deformed, etc.
Section 6.2.7 of GB/T 40356-2021 stipulates that whether it is a thin tough blade or other blades, the tool strength is tested according to 5.5.1 in GB/T 15067.2-2016, but the test force is different.
Since the customer complained that the knife had been broken and was not a complete sample, the knife strength test could not be done, but the material and hardness and other related tests could be done, and it was still possible to make a comprehensive judgment on the quality of the knife.
1.4 Customary practices are equal to customer requirements
People from all over the world have their own habits and hobbies. Every business will encounter all kinds of problems. It is wiser to adapt to the actual local conditions and improve itself instead of educating local customers.
To give a few practical examples:
1. Mexicans like to eat raw rice. Then the rice cookers made in China cannot be directly sold in Mexico, and some improvements are needed. Because we Chinese do not have the habit of eating raw rice, in order to satisfy customers, when developing products, we need to let Mexican locals taste whether the rice made in this pot makes Mexican locals feel that the raw rice is "just right".
2. In Chinese families, very few people would use an orange juicer to squeeze a basket of oranges. However, there are a lot of oranges in Brazil, and the locals also like to drink orange juice at parties, so they will squeeze orange juice continuously. At this time, we need to add a temperature protector to the orange juice machine sold in Brazil to prevent the motor from being burned. .
3. Most American homes are made of wood. When designing products, we will take into account that no matter how the user uses our electrical appliances indiscriminately, it is a rigid indicator that it cannot cause a fire.
There are many more such examples, so I won't list them one by one.
For the vast majority of Chinese people, shooting garlic with a knife is almost innate. To put it jokingly, the three things of shooting garlic, growing vegetables, and buying a house are probably solidified in the genes of Chinese people.
Take a knife to shoot garlic, no customer will ask when buying a knife, but it cannot be said that customers do not have this demand. Just like when customers choose a TV, most of them pay attention to the color and size. It is a reason why no one will ask if they can tune the TV.
Zhang Xiaoquan not only ignores the needs of the majority of customers, I don't think they can be described as arrogant, they seem to be more intelligent.
Postscript Quality management also needs a moat
Many companies pass ISO9001 or other quality system certifications just to get that certificate; many bosses think that the quality management system is equal to the certificate, and the daily quality management is just for show, which is actually useless. This is the essence of quality system certification. It is completely contrary to the fact that it is not really building a quality management system suitable for its own enterprise around ISO9001.
If an enterprise wants to be built to last, it must establish various moats, such as brand moats, patent moats, and more importantly, it needs to establish and build its own quality management moat.
If you want to do a good job in quality management, you must lay a solid foundation, start from a little bit, accumulate over time, gradually form the quality culture of the enterprise, and finally integrate it into the corporate culture, so as to complete the transformation from a century-old store to a century-old Enterprise metamorphosis .