Intro to Quality Flashcards
(48 cards)
Quality ‘Type 1’
Those features of a product which meet customer needs and thereby provide customer satisfaction. Quality is income related. Provide better and enhanced features at a greater cost. Quality costs more.
Quality ‘Type 2’
Quality can imply freedom from deficiencies, errors, failures, dissatisfaction. Higher quality costs less.
Does higher quality cost more or less
People who disagree are not thinking of the same type of quality. At one bank, management would not support a proposal to reduce waste because it had the name ‘quality improvement’. In their view higher quality meant higher cost. The subordinates were forced to relabel the proposal ‘productivity improvement’ to get approval.
Effect on Income
Income and revenue would increase, greater sales, more customer satisfaction. Product deficiencies can have an effect on income. The customer who encounters a deficiency may take action of a cost related nature; file a complaint, return the product, or file a lawsuit.
Effect on Cost
The cost of poor quality consists of all costs that would disappear is there were no deficiencies, no errors, no rework, no field failures, and so on. The cost of poor quality is shockingly high. This can require rework. Rebuilding systems from scratch, obsolescence etc.
Juran Trilogy
- Quality Planning
- Quality Control
- Quality Improvement
Financial Planning
This process prepares the annual financial budget. It defines the deeds to be done in the year ahead. It translates those deeds into money. It determines the financial consequences of doing all those deeds. The final result establishes the financial goals for the organization and its various divisions and units.
Financial Control
This process consists of evaluating actual financial performance, comparing this with goals and taking action on the difference. There are numerous subprocesses for financial control: cost control, expense control, inventory control and so on.
Financial Improvement
This process aims to improve financial results, it takes many forms; Cost-reduction projects, new facilities to improve productivity.
Key Concepts on Quality ‘Type 1’
- Customer Focus: Providing customer satisfaction became the chief operating goal.
- Quality has top priority: This was written into corporate policies.
- Strategic quality planning: The business plan was opened up to include planning for quality.
- Benchmarking: This approach was adopted in order to set goals based on superior results
- Already achieved by others
- Continuous Improvement: The business plan was opened up to include goals for quality.
- Improvement. Was recognized that quality is a moving target.
- Training in managing for quality: Training was extended beyond the quality department to all functions and levels, including upper managers.
Key Concepts about Quality ‘Type 2’
- Big Q adopted to replace little Q
- Partnering: Through cross-functional teams, partnering was adopted to give priority to company results rather than to functional goals. Partnering was extended to include suppliers and customers.
- Employee empowerment: This was introduced by training and empowering the work force to participate in planning and improvement, including the concept of self-directed teams.
- Motivation: This was supplied through extending the use of recognition and rewards for responding to the changes demanded by the quality revolution.
- Measurements were developed to enable upper managers to follow progress toward providing customer satisfaction, meeting competition, improving quality etc.
- Upper managers took charge of managing for quality by recognizing that certain responsibilities were not delegatable, but to be carried out by upper management personally.
Quality Assurance through Audits
The growth of commerce introduced chains of suppliers and merchants that separated consumers from producers. This required new forms of QA, one being quality warranties. Established product and process standards and then audited to ensure compliance. Some political authorities established independent product inspections to protect their quality reputations as exporters.
Resistance to Mandated Quality Control Systems
Suppliers resisted the mandated quality control systems imposed by customers. None of this could stop quality assurance as the economic power of the buyers was decisive. As suppliers gained experience with the new approach, they realized that many of its provisions were simply good business practice.
Shift of responsibility
It should be noted that the concept of mandating quality control systems involves a major change of responsibility for QA. Under mandated QCSs, the producer becomes responsible for supplying both the product and the QA. The producer supplies the QA by adopting the mandated system for controlling quality and submitting the data that prove that the system is being followed.
The buyers’ audits consist of seeing to it that the mandated system is in place and that it is being followed.
Audit of Supplier’s Quality Control Systems
Recently, steps have been taken toward standardization by professional societies such as ISO. ISO’s 9000 series of standards for quality control systems are now widely accepted among European companies. There is no legal requirement for compliance but it is better for marketing to have the certification. Single audits may become feasible in the future under the emerging process for certification to the ISO 9000 series.
The Quality Planning Solution
- Establish the project
- Identify the customers
- Discover the customer needs
- Develop the product
- Develop the process
- Develop the controls and transfer to operations
Establish The Project
- Identify the project
- Prepare Mission Statement
- Basis for establishing quality goals (specific, measurable, agreed, realistic, time specific)
Customer Needs
- Real Needs
- Perceived Needs
- Cultural Needs
- Unintended Needs
- Safety Needs
- User Friendly Needs
- Promptness of service
- Warranties
Process Quality Management
- Analyzing the existing process
- Analyzing similar or related processes
- Testing alternative processes
- Analyzing new technology
- Acquiring information from customers
- Simulating and estimating
- Benchmarking
Process Quality Improvement
- Eliminate sources of error that lead to rework loops
- Eliminate or reduce redundant subprocesses, activities or tasks
- Decrease the number of handoffs
- Reduce cycle time
- Replace tasks, activities, or processes that have outputs with defects.
- Correct sequencing issues in the process to reduce the amount of activity or rework.
Responsibility for Processes
- Procedures: a series of steps followed in a regular definite order
- Methods: an orderly arrangement of a series of tasks, activities or procedures
- Equipment and supplies: physical devices and other hard goods that will be needed to perform the process
- Materials: tangible elements, data, facts, figures, or information (along with equipment and supplies, also may make up inputs required as well as what is to be done to them).
- People: numbers of individuals, skills they will require, goals, and tasks they will perform
- Training: Skills and knowledge required to complete the process
- Other resources: additional resources that may be needed
- Support processes: can include secretarial support, occasionally other support, such as outsources of printing services, copying services, temporary help and so on
Just as in the case of product design, process design is easier to manage.
Drivers for Quality Assurance in the Workplace
- Fundamental foundation for effective business practice is good customer-supplier relationships
- After WW2, increasing requirement for inspection of products and documentation of procedures defense
- space and nuclear power generation
Reasons for Quality Management Standards
- At first, each customer would audit suppliers practices and procedures.
- There is the need for a widely accepted single route to company-wide certification. This problem was identified.
- National standards for specific products define minimum specifications are required
- Process and production must meet minimum levels of specification and testing.
BS5750 (British Standard)
- Old and used for military applications. New form is ISO9000/9001
- Developed to permit a company to document its commitment to quality and the standard of its quality systems.
