"Improve quality, and productivity automatically improves."  --W. Edwards Deming

Every enterprise, regardless of type and size, has but two intrinsic areas of opportunity for quality improvement, as represented by the What view of its structure and any How views of its behavior constrained by its environment.

The What view of the enterprise is of the things the enterprise involves in its business to give the enterprise foundational structure and rules.  Any sensible statement about the enterprise shows this.  Moreover, it is impossible to make a sensible statement about the enterprise without mentioning at least two related things.

For example, the statement "Only the Human Resources Department hires persons into employment." mentions three things, all related.   Even though it is sensible, the statement also can be correct and enforced, correct and unenforced, wrong and enforced, or wrong and unenforced.

Any How views of the enterprise are of the processes by which the enterprise produces, consumes, and uses things, and why.

For example, the statement "The Human Resources Department brings persons into employment with the enterprise in accordance with the hiring policy and external regulations" defines a process.  This process statement names the things produced (employment), consumed (persons), used (Human Resources Department), and indicates why (hiring policy and external regulations).  This statement, too, is sensible, and also can be correct and enforced, correct and unenforced, wrong and enforced, or wrong and unenforced.

To improve the quality of a thing produced requires, first, improving the quality of the process that produces the thing.  Always working to improve, say, employment after the hiring process has produced employment will always amount to low-yield, cost-wasting work.  Because the hiring process is completely interdependent with its environment, it might also be necessary to improve the process that produces hiring policy, or to work outside the enterprise in cooperation with other enterprises to improve the processes that produce external regulations.

This powerful understanding holds notable relevance for the IT organization facing challenges arising from poor data quality and poor information quality.

QIS facilitates Enterprise Quality Improvement with holistic understandings of the enterprise that result from Enterprise Business Modeling and Enterprise Business Analysis.