Chapter 1-Quality

Total Quality Management is management approaches that originated in the

1950's and has steadily become more popular since the early 1980's.It is a proven
technique to guarantee survival in world-class competition. Only by changing the
actions of management will the culture and actions of an entire organization be
transformed. It is a description of the culture, attitude and organization of a
company that strives to provide customers with products and services that satisfy
their needs.

Some of the examples of companies who have implemented TQM include Ford
Motor Company, Phillips Semiconductor, SGL Carbon, Motorola and Toyota
Motor Company.

Definition-
TQM is a management philosophy that seeks to integrate all organizational
functions (marketing, finance, design, engineering, and production, customer
service, etc.) to focus on meeting customer needs and organizational objectives.

• TQM views an organization as a collection of processes.

• It maintains that organizations must strive to continuously improve these
processes by incorporating the knowledge and experiences of workers.
• The simple objective of TQM is "Do the right things, right the first time,
every time".

Basic Concepts in TQM:

➢ A committed and involved management to provide long term, top to bottom

organisational support.
➢ A focus on customer, both internally and externally.
➢ Effective utilisation & involvement of the work force.
➢ Continuous improvement of the business & production process.
➢ Treating suppliers as partners.
➢ Establish process measures for the process.

Definition of Quality:

As per ISO – 9000:2000: Quality means “The degree to which a set of inherent
characteristics fulfills requirements”. Here,

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Quality also means a totality of characteristics of an entity that bear on its ability to
satisfy stated and implied needs. In some references,

Dimensions of Quality:
Quality has different dimensions; these dimensions are somewhat – Independence.
Therefore a product can be excellent in one dimension and average or poor in
another.

1. Conformance: It is one of the dimensions of Quality. It means Meeting the

specifications of the customer or Industry standards, workmanship. When
new designs or models are developed, dimensions are set for parts and purity
standards for materials. These specifications are normally expressed as a target
or “center”; deviance from the center is permitted within a specified range.
2. Performance: It refers to Primary product functions or characteristics,
subjective preferences for eg. clarity of voice received in mobile phone. In
service businesses—say, fast food and airlines—performance often means
prompt service.
3. Features: Features are those characteristics of product or services that
supplement the basic function of the product. Example includes free drinks
on a plane.
4. Durability: Lifetime of the products, which include repairs. Durability can be
defined as the amount of use one gets from a product before it deteriorates.
After so many hours of use, the filament of a light bulb burns up and the bulb
must be replaced.
5. Reliability: The probability of a product performing its intended duty
under stated conditions without failure for a given period of time. This
dimension reflects the probability of a product malfunctioning or failing
within a specified time period. Example could be reliability of war
equipment.
6. Serviceability: speed, courtesy, competence and ease of repair for a product.
In those cases where problems are not immediately resolved and complaints
are filed, a company’s complaint-handling procedures are also likely to affect
customers’ ultimate evaluation of product and service quality.
7. Reputation: Customer’s perception about the product which can be
understood from a market research survey.
8. Aesthetics: The external finish given to a product to attract the customer. For
eg. For food, it could be tastes natural, good aroma, and looks appetizing.
9. Response: Human to Human interface, such as the courtesy of the dealer.

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 These dimensions were proposed to define strategic quality analysis by breaking
down the word quality into manageable parts.

Importance of Quality:

Good quality of goods and services can provide an organization

with competitive edge.
Good quality reduces costs due to product returns, rework and scrap.
Good quality increases productivity, profits and other measures of success
such as brand image, product image and company goodwill.
Most importantly, good quality generates satisfied customers today and
tomorrow.
Good quality creates an atmosphere for high employee morale, which
improves productivity.
What is a Quality Plan?

A quality plan is a document, or several documents, that helps you schedule all of
the tasks needed to make sure that you meet the needs of your customer. It will
include the definition of quality targets ans milestones when these will be achieved
together with the internal and external reviews will be undertaken to ensure that
this has happened.

Quality plans should define:

• Objectives to be attained (for example, characteristics or specifications,

uniformity, effectiveness, aesthetics, cycle time, cost, natural resources, utilization,
yield, dependability, and so on)
• Steps in the processes that constitute the operating practice or procedures of the
organization
• Allocation of responsibilities, authority, and resources during the different phases
of the process or project
• Specific documented standards, practices, procedures, and instructions to be
applied
• Suitable testing, inspection, examination, and audit programs at appropriate stages
• A documented procedure for changes and modifications to a quality plan as a
process is improved
• A method for measuring the achievement of the quality objectives
• Other actions necessary to meet the objectives
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Essential components of a Quality Plan:

Responsibility of Management:

This describes how the management is responsible for achieving the project
quality. Since management is the controlling and monitoring function for the
project, project quality is mainly a management responsibility.

Document Management and Control:

Documents are the main method of communication in project management.

Documents are used for communication between the team members, project
management, senior management, and the client.

Therefore, the project quality plan should describe a way to manage and control
the documents used in the project. Usually, there can be a common documentation
repository with controlled access in order to store and retrieve the documents.

Requirements Scope:

The correct requirements to be implemented are listed here. This is an abstraction

of the requirements sign-off document. Having requirements noted in the project
quality plan helps the quality assurance team to correctly validate them.

This way, quality assurance function knows what exactly to test and what exactly
to leave out from the scope. Testing the requirements that are not in the scope
maybe a waste for the services provider.

Design Control:

This specifies the controls and procedures used for the design phase of the project.
Usually, there should be design reviews in order to analyse the correctness of the
proposed technical design. For fruitful design reviews, senior designers or the
architects of the respective domain should get involved. Once the designs are
reviewed and agreed, they are signed-off with the client.

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With the time, the client may come up with changes to the requirements or new
requirements. In such cases, designed maybe changed. Every time the design
changes, the changes should be reviewed and signed-off.

Development Control and Rigor:

Once the construction of the project starts, all the processes, procedures, and
activities should be closely monitored and measured. By this type of control, the
project management can make sure that the project is progressing in the correct
path.

Testing and Quality Assurance:

This component of the project quality plan takes precedence over other
components. This is the element which describes the main quality assurance
functions of the project. This section should clearly identify the quality objectives
for the project and the approach to achieve them. .

Risks & Mitigation:

This section identifies the project quality risks. Then, the project management team
should come up with appropriate mitigation plans in order to address each quality
risk.

Quality Audits:

For every project, regardless of its size or the nature, there should be periodic
quality audits to measure the adherence to the quality standards. These audits can
be done by an internal team or an external team. .

Sometimes, the client may employ external audit teams to measure the compliance
to standards and procedures of the project processes and activities. .

Defect Management:

During testing and quality assurance, defects are usually caught. This is quite
common when it comes to software development projects. The project quality plan
should have guidelines and instructions on how to manage the defects. .

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Training Requirements:

Every project team requires some kind of training before the project commences.
For this, a skill gap analysis is done to identify the training requirements at the
project initiation phase. The project quality plan should indicate these training
requirements and necessary steps to get the staff trained. .

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