QUALITY MANAGEMENT
Quality management is the act of overseeing all activities and tasks that must be
accomplished to maintain the desired level of excellence. This includes the
determination of a quality policy, creating and implementing quality planning and
assurance, and quality control and quality improvement.
Quality of a production process involves perfection , fast delivery, consistency,
providing a good usable product, eliminating waste, ensuring fitness for use and
total customer service and satisfaction.
Anyone of the following methods should definitely be followed to ensure
excellent & outstanding quality of the production or manufacturing
process.
Inspection
The first basic method of quality management was inspection. This involved
inspection of the correctness & quality of the process output at the producer's end
or the receiver's end. This method did not involve controlling the factors influencing
the process such as the process inputs or noise disturbances.
Statistical Process Control (SPC)
The next method that was adopted for quality management was SPC (Statistical
Process Control). This method involves verifying and measuring the fluctuations in
the output data of the process.
Design of Experiments
The next method that was followed for quality management was DOE (Design Of
Experiments ). This method focused on identifying the cause and the effect of the
quality errors in the process under review. A process may involve the use of several
inputs to obtain an output. Each input may have a different impact on the quality of
the output.
Taguchi method
The next method was introduced by a Japanese researcher named Taguchi. The
Taguchi method involves optimization of the design process involved in designing
the product and the process. Taguchi found that most of the errors and defects that
occurred in the products obtained as the outputs of a process were largely due to
design errors.
Quality Management Systems
The next method that evolved for maintaining quality was quality management
systems. Some of the most popular quality management systems are TQM (Total
Quality Management), ISO 9000, ISO 14000, US 9000. These quality management
systems cannot directly control quality. Instead, they provide a framework that
should be followed while designing a process to ensure the best quality output.
Six Sigma
The latest, most popular method for quality management is Six Sigma. This method
seeks to find and eliminate the causes of defects and errors in manufacturing and
service processes. It focusses on output that are critical to customers and necessary
to provide a clear financial return for the organization. It aims at producing no more
than 3 to 4 PPM defects in the output of the process. This is a benchmark method
for maintaining the quality of the products of a process.
BASICS OF QUALITY
In other words, quality is the level of perfection of a process, service, or product
delivered by your company in such a way that meets the requirements defined by
ISO and of course, by your customers.
In order to understand a little more about quality, this post will cover
three fundamental concepts of quality:
Quality Assurance
Quality assurance is a way of ensuring that the operational quality standards and
requirements already established are used in all future development processes,
whether of a product or service.
Leadership
Leadership is the ability to lead a team in a tactical and targeted manner so that the
team can perform its tasks with quality. Good leadership allows employee
engagement and commitment and ensures that the entire team is aligned with the
company’s purposes.
Quality Control
This concept is aimed at fulfilling the quality requirement and is mainly carried out
through inspections. Quality inspection is a procedure that analyzes and assesses
whether the attributes of a product or service conform to specified requirements to
determine whether a nonconformity has occurred.
Quality Management
Quality management is the coordination of activities in production processes
and services so that they are performed with quality.
This management aims to achieve excellence in the execution of all tasks and
procedures, keeping in mind that the dimensions of quality can be
understood as performance, reliability, perception, durability, characteristics,
conformity, and service.
Focus on customers
Customers are stakeholders in your business, and developing products and services
designed for them is a vital strategy for the growth of any company. Good practice
for this quality principle is quite simple: agree on the customer's needs in the
negotiation, treat them as fundamental requirements to be met, and perform
quality inspections with the help of Specifications (standards established in the
negotiation).
People’s commitment
The participation and commitment of everyone, including top management
members, contributes to an effective Quality Management System. Trained
employees understand the importance of quality in their activities and are thus
qualified and prepared to achieve the established goals. Therefore, the culture of
quality needs to be part of the company's routine.
Approach through processes
This principle is directly related to knowledge, the way a company manages its
processes and how it achieves the results planned beforehand. This method is
fundamental for the smooth running and excellence of a QMS, because a product or
service’s level of perfection will depend on the quality of the process management.
Continuous improvement
The continuous improvement of services and products can, and should, be
employed in the organizational culture. The purpose of continuous improvement is
to enhance stakeholder satisfaction, because the more the company strives to
improve the quality of its processes, products, and services, the more value it will
deliver to its customers.
Relationship management
Establishing a good relationship with stakeholders, such as suppliers, is very
important to identify needs and avoid risks that impact business strategies. Building
relationships with stakeholders fosters a sense of responsibility when it comes to
organizational growth.
Fact-based decision-making
Decision making based on information allows the security and efficiency of the
actions taken, because with the help of performance indicators, it is possible to
analyze which factors are contributing to good results and which ones require more
attention and improvement points.
QUALITY GURUS
The Quality Gurus—Dr. W. Edwards Deming, Dr. Joseph Juran, Philip Crosby, Armand
V. Feigenbaum, Dr. H. James Harrington, Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa, Dr. Walter A. Shewhart,
Shigeo Shingo, Frederick Taylor, and Dr. Genichi Taguchi—have made a significant
impact on the world through their contributions to improving not only businesses,
but all organizations including state and national governments, military
organizations, educational institutions, healthcare organizations, and many other
establishments and organizations.
Dr. W. Edward Deming is best known for reminding management that most
problems are systemic and that it is management's responsibility to improve
the systems so that workers (management and non-management) can do
their jobs more effectively.
The steps in the Deming PDCA or PDSA Cycle as shown in Figure 1 are as
follows:
Plan a change or test (P).
Do it (D). Carry out the change or test, preferably on a small scale.
Check it (C). Observe the effects of the change or test. Study it (S).
Act on what was learned (A).
Repeat Step 1, with new knowledge.
Repeat Step 2, and onward. Continuously evaluate and improve
Dr. Juran was born on December 24, 1904 in Braila,
Romania. He moved to the United States in 1912 at
the age of 8. Juran's teaching and consulting career
spanned more than seventy years, known as one of the
foremost experts on quality in the world.
A quality professional from the beginning of his career, Juran joined the
inspection branch of the Hawthorne Co. of Western Electric (a Bell manufacturing
company) in 1924, after completing his B.S. in Electrical Engineering.
URAN'S QUALITY TRILOGY.
The Quality Trilogy emphasizes the roles of quality planning, quality control, and
quality improvement. Quality planning's purpose is to provide operators with the
ability to produce goods and services that can meet customers' needs. In the
quality planning stage, an organization must determine who the customers are
and what they need, develop the product or service features that meet
customers' needs, develop processes which are able to deliver those products
and services, and transfer the plans to the operating forces. If quality planning is
deficient, then chronic waste occurs.
JURAN'S QUALITY PLANNING ROAD MAP.
Juran's Quality Planning Road Map can be used by
individuals and teams throughout the world as a
checklist for understanding customer requirements,
establishing measurements based on customer
needs, optimizing
Philip Bayard Crosby was born in Wheeling,
West Virginia, in 1926. After Crosby graduated
from high school, he joined the Navy and
became a hospital corpsman. In 1946 Crosby
entered the Ohio College of Podiatric Medicine
in Cleveland. After graduation, he returned to
Wheeling and practiced podiatry with his
father. He was recalled to military service
during the Korean conflict, this time he served
as a Marine Medical Corpsman.
CROSBY'S COST OF QUALITY.
In his book Quality Is Free, Crosby makes the point that it costs money to
achieve quality, but it costs more money when quality is not achieved. When an
organization designs and builds an item right the first time (or provides a service
without errors), quality is free.
CROSBY'S FOUR ABSOLUTES OF QUALITY.
Crosby espoused his basic theories about quality in four Absolutes of Quality
Management as follows:
Quality means conformance to requirements, not goodness.
The system for causing quality is prevention, not appraisal.
The performance standard must be zero defects, not "that's close
enough."
The measurement of quality is the price of nonconformance, not indexes.
Crosby's Absolutes of Quality Management are further delineated in his
Fourteen Steps of Quality Improvement as shown below:
Step 1. Management Commitment
Step 2. Quality Improvement Teams
Step 3. Quality Measurement
Step 4. Cost of Quality Evaluation
Step 5. Quality Awareness
Step 6. Corrective Action
Step 7. Zero-Defects Planning
Step 8. Supervisory Training
Step 9. Zero Defects
Step 10. Goal Setting
Step 11. Error Cause Removal
Step 12. Recognition
Step 13. Quality Councils
Step 14. Do It All Over Again
Feigenbaum was still a doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology when he completed the first edition of Total Quality Control (1951). An
engineer at General Electric during World War II, Feigenbaum, used statistical
techniques to determine what was wrong with early jet airplane engines. For ten
years he served as manager of worldwide manufacturing operations and quality
control at GE.
DR. H. JAMES HARRINGTON
An author and consultant in the area of process improvement, Harrington spent
forty years with IBM. His career included serving as Senior Engineer and Project
Manager of Quality Assurance for IBM, San Jose, California. He was President of
Harrington, Hurd and Reicker, a well-known performance improvement consulting
firm until Ernst & Young bought the organization. He is the international quality
advisor for Ernst and Young and on the board of directors of various national and
international companies
DR. KAORU ISHIKAWA (1915–1989)
A professor of engineering at the University of Tokyo and a student of Dr. W.
Edwards Deming, Ishikawa was active in the quality movement in Japan, and was a
member of the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers. He was awarded the
Deming Prize, the Nihon Keizai Press Prize, and the Industrial Standardization Prize
for his writings on quality control, and the Grant Award from the American Society
for Quality Control for his educational program on quality control.
DR. WALTER A. SHEWHART (1891–1967)
A statistician who worked at Western Electric, Bell Laboratories, Dr. Walter A.
Shewhart used statistics to explain process variability. It was Dr. W. Edward Deming
who publicized the usefulness of control charts, as well as the Shewhart Cycle.
However, Deming rightfully credited Shewhart with the development of theories of
process control as well as the Shewhart transformation process on which the
Deming PDCA (Plan-Do-Check or Study-Act) Cycle is based. Shewhart's theories
were first published in his book Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product
(1931).
DR. WALTER A. SHEWHART (1891–1967)
A statistician who worked at Western Electric, Bell Laboratories, Dr. Walter A.
Shewhart used statistics to explain process variability. It was Dr. W. Edward Deming
who publicized the usefulness of control charts, as well as the Shewhart Cycle.
However, Deming rightfully credited Shewhart with the development of theories of
process control as well as the Shewhart transformation process on which the
Deming PDCA (Plan-Do-Check or Study-Act) Cycle is based. Shewhart's theories
were first published in his book Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product
(1931).
Quality awards are recognitions of excellence in products, services, processes, or
practices that meet or exceed customer expectations and industry standards. They
can provide many benefits for businesses, such as improving customer satisfaction,
enhancing reputation, increasing productivity, and reducing costs.
Quality Certification is a general term that is used for two main things: certifying
the knowledge of individuals and certifying a company’s system of quality
management.
Quality certifications for individuals can be granted through organizations such as
the American Society for Quality (ASQ). Other certifications that can be obtained are
ISO 9001 Lead Auditor, ISO 9001 Lead Implementer, or ISO 9001 Internal Auditor.
What is Quality Control (QC)?
Quality control is the process by which services/products are measured and tested
to ensure they are as uniform as possible and meet a standard. It helps businesses
minimize inconsistencies and improve product quality.
What are the four types of Quality Control?
The four types of quality control are process control, control charts,
acceptance sampling, and product quality control. While a control chart
helps study changing processes over time, process control and product quality
control help monitor and adjust products as per the standards. Acceptance
sampling is a unique type that involves a statistical measure to determine whether
a batch or sample of products satisfies the standards.
