Is your Quality system ready? New AI tools for excellence-led adoption
The pressure is on. Every business, from multinational corporations to sole traders, is being pushed to adopt Artificial Intelligence.
We're told it’s the key to unlocking productivity, efficiency, and growth, with figures like £400 billion in UK economic growth by 2030 being widely cited.
But for professionals dedicated to quality, training, and continuous improvement, this rapid, often-hyped, adoption raises serious questions:
How do we adopt AI without sacrificing quality?
How do we manage the risks of "black box" technology?
How do we ensure our team is competent and a new "skills gap" doesn't lead to non-conformity?
Hasty implementation, driven by fear of missing out, often leads to poor outcomes. We see it in our industry all the time: a new system is rushed in, training is non-existent, and processes break down. The technology, instead of helping, creates new problems, from quality control failures to a loss of originality.
This is precisely the challenge the UK government is now addressing. In a move that champions a structured and safe approach, Skills England has launched a new set of free tools and guidance specifically for SMEs.
For the quality-focused business, this isn't just another tech initiative. This is a framework for excellence.
From Hype to a Structured Process
The new resources are designed to move businesses beyond untrained experimentation and toward a managed, quality-led adoption of AI. The government has partnered with Dr Nisreen Ameen at Royal Holloway, University of London, to develop three key resources:
The AI Skills Framework
The AI Adoption Pathway
An Employer Checklist
For those of us steeped in process and standards, these names are reassuring. They speak the language of continuous improvement:
A Framework implies a structure for managing competency and training.
A Pathway suggests a staged, planned process—not a chaotic scramble.
A Checklist is a foundational tool for verification, validation, and risk management.
Together, these resources offer what many SMEs have been missing: access to training programmes, practical guidance, real-world case studies, and even funding options. They are a toolkit for building competence and managing change effectively.
The Quality Control Warning: Avoiding "Enshittification"
The guidance arrives with a critical—and bluntly named—warning: leaders must ensure their enthusiasm for AI does not cause "enshittification."
While the term is jarring, the concept is all too familiar to quality professionals. It describes the process where a platform or service is degraded in a blind pursuit of efficiency or profit, ultimately resulting in a poorer customer experience.
This is, in essence, a catastrophic failure of quality management.
It's the digital equivalent of switching to a cheaper, inferior component in a manufacturing line without running quality checks, only to find your product recall rates have soared.
These new tools from Skills England are explicitly designed to prevent this. They provide a clear path for SMEs to navigate AI safely, ensuring that efficiency gains do not come at the cost of quality, customer satisfaction, or originality.
A Measured Approach: Using PDCA for AI Adoption
So, how should a business focused on excellence use these new tools? The government’s advice aligns perfectly with the core principles of continuous improvement: start small.
This is the classic Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle in action.
PLAN: Don't try to "adopt AI" all at once. Identify one single process or bottleneck. Use the AI Adoption Pathway and Employer Checklist to plan a small-scale pilot.
Example: Automating the generation of first-draft audit reports, managing training records, or scheduling supplier communications.
DO: Implement the AI tool in that one, controlled area. Use the AI Skills Framework to ensure the team members involved are properly trained.
CHECK: Monitor the output rigorously.
Did it actually improve efficiency?
Did it introduce errors (non-conformities)?
What was the impact on the internal or external customer?
Did you get the desired result?
ACT: Based on your findings, either standardize the new AI-assisted process (because it's proven to be better) or refine your approach and repeat the cycle.
Our View: Work Smarter, Not Harder
This initiative is a valuable opportunity. For years, the TQMS community has championed the mantra of "work smarter, not harder" and AI, when applied correctly, is a powerful enabler of that philosophy.
These new free resources from Skills England provide the structure to do it right. They offer a path to develop team confidence, enhance processes, and stay competitive, all while keeping the principles of quality, training, and excellence at the very core of your operation.
We encourage you to visit the official Skills England site and bookmark these resources. They are not just about new tech; they are about building a more resilient, efficient, and high-quality business.