Quality Management and Total Quality Management

Topics covered in Textbook Chase, Jacobs, Aquilano  11 Edition

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT
QUALITY SPECIFICATION AND QUALITY COSTS
SIX SIGMA QUALITY
THE SHINGO SYSTEM
ISO 9000
EXTERNAL BENCHMARKING FOR QUALITY IMPROVEMENT
SERVICE QUALITY MEASUREMENT; SERVQUAL

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Total quality management may be defined as "managing the entire organization so that it excels on all dimensions of products and services that are important to the customer." (Chase and Aquilano, 1995).

It has two fundamental operational goals.

1. Careful design of the product or service
2. Ensuring that the organization's systems can consistently produce the design.

To achieve outstanding quality requires quality leadership from senior management, a customer focus, total involvement of the workforce, and continuous improvement based upon rigorous analysis of processes.

It has three important stages or steps.

1. Design of the product or service taking into consideration the customer expectations.
2. Designing a production system capable of delivering to design specifications and maintaining and improving the process capability on a continuous basis.
3. Controlling the production system during the execution phase so that it function according to design and any problems are highlighted so that they can be rectified or eliminated from the production system.

QUALITY SPECIFICATION AND QUALITY COSTS

Dimensions of Design Quality

1. Performance
2. Features
3. Reliability/Durability
4. Serviceability
5. Aesthetics - Sensory characteristics (look, feel, sound etc.)
6. Perceived Quality - Based on the past performance

Cost of Quality Framework

Costs associated with quality are categorized and reported as;

1. Prevention costs
2. Appraisal costs
3. Internal failure costs
4. External failure costs

While the traditional quality systems concentrated on appraisal, the Japanese quality movement focused on prevention level. Now it is understood that prevention is economical. :Philip Crosby gave a benchmark that total quality related costs can be brought down to 2.5 percent of every sales dollar from the estimated 15 to 20 percent of sales dollar.(Crosby, 1979).

SIX SIGMA QUALITY

Six Sigma Quality

Six sigma quality is achieved when the customer's specification limits of the items are twice the natural variation ( = or - 3 sigma) of the process used to produce it. In other words Six sigma (Six*sigma) of the process has to be equal to twice the range of the specification limits given by the customer.

A process that is in Six-Sigma quality control will produce no more than two defects out of every billion units. In practice it is stated as four defects per million units, as the process mean may be somewhere within one sigma of the target specification. This notation provides a common metric to compare processes - defects per million opportunities (DPMO).

Six sigma methodology results in reduction of variance of the process (sigma of the process) so that more and more items can be made with six sigma quality. In six sigma quality improvement process, the relationship between process inputs (X's) and outputs (Y's) is observed through experiments designed using Design of Experiments Methods (DOE). Hypothesis testing methods are used to find significant relations between X's and Y's. Based on this knowledge, optimal levels of X's are selected that give the least sigma. In addition levels of X that will improve Y are also estimated and engineering activity is initiated to make new X level possible.

Six Sigma methodology advocated DMAIC cycle

Define
Measure
Analyze
Improve
Control

The tools used for measuring and analyzing data on defects are flowcharts, run charts, pareto charts, checksheets, cause-and-effect diagrams, opportunity flow charts, control charts. Failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) and design of experiments (DOE) are also used. DOE is used test the relationship between process inputs and outputs. Six Sigma emphasizes the scientific method like operations research and optimizes variance of the processes that minimizes variance of the process by developing various conjectures about the levels of input variables and variability of the process and the conjectures are converted into hypotheses that are tested using design of experiments (DOE) methods. Modern statistical software specially developed to support process analysis has reduced the drudgery of displaying and analyzing data.

Six Sigma has large number of successful applications in various companies and companies like GE claim billions of dollars of saving. Hence it is a very popular technique now in the world and more and more companies are training their employees in Six Sigma methods.

Total quality management is managing the entire organization so it excels on all dimensions of products and services that are important to the customer. In today's competitive marketplace, the production and delivery of high-quality goods and services is a key element of any organization's success. Quality can be used as a competitive advantage or a strategic weapon for an organization. TQM, or total quality management is the advanced stage of quality programs, not only in Japan, but also in Europe and North America. The critical elements of a successful TQM program include leadership, employee involvement, excellence in products or processes, and customer focus.

Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award

The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award is a quality award sponsored by the U.S. Commerce Department to recognize organizations that have achieved excellence in their total quality management program. The Award was created in 1987 to recognize total quality management in American industry and represents the government's endorsement of quality as an essential component of a successful business strategy. The award seeks to improve quality and productivity.

The award consists of comprehensive criteria for evaluating total quality in organizations. A Board of Examiners reviews applicants. The Baldrige is designed to be flexible and it evaluates quality in various business categories including health care, educational institutions as well as manufacturing and service companies and small businesses.

The quality criteria focus on seven broad topical areas that are integrally and dynamically related. The seven areas are: Leadership, Strategic planning, Customer and Market Focus, Information and Analytics, Human Resource Focus, Process Management and Business Results. Customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal of the quality program.

The categories addressed in the award were selected because of their importance to all businesses. Companies not applying for the award can use the criteria to assess their current operations, design a total quality system, evaluate internal relationships, and to assess customer satisfaction. Participation in the award program is declining but many state-sponsored quality programs and awards are growing. The Deming Prize recognizes quality excellence in Japanese companies. A European Quality Award exists as well and is similar to the Baldrige Award.

Leaders in the quality revolution include Deming, Juran, and Crosby. These three gurus researched and advanced the role of quality. When considering quality, the concept has many dimensions. One is the performance of a product. Another dimension is the features of a product. Still other important quality variables include reliability, conformity, durability, serviceability, aesthetics, and finally perceived quality. The customer perceives quality. That is why a customer-focus is critical to any quality implementation.

Operations Managers

Operation managers have to evaluate their designs for quality output. Do the specification of the product satisfy the customers? Is the design capable of providing satisfaction to the users? Is the production system capable of producing the specification. The operations managers are responsible for the design of processes and they have to certify that processes are capable of producing the designed specification. Even though processes are designed with the ability to produce the desired quality, there has to be control during the execution phase so that machines are reset whenever the performance deteriorates. Similarly operators must take adequate care in operating the machine. Management should not force operators to work when they are exhausted as the probability of making errors increases whenever operators feel fatigued or bored.

A key to a successful quality initiative is the use of planning and management tools and procedures to track quality progress. Both quantitative and non-quantitative measures are used to track initial quality and quantity improvements over time. An important quantitative method for monitoring a process is statistical process control. SPC allows employees to distinguish between random fluctuations in machines and processes and to determine when variations signal that corrective action is needed. Some of recent ideas that emerged in quality improvement or management field are the process of developing quality specifications by understanding customer requirements,  understanding the cost of quality concept, conformance quality concept, quality at the source, and the goal of zero defects.

Continuous improvement has its own tools and procedures including the concept of Kaizen borrowed from the Japanese, the PDCA Cycle, and benchmarking both internally and externally in the industry.

THE SHINGO SYSTEM

Shingo system

An alternative to the statistically based approach is the Shingo system, developed in Japan. It focuses on self-checks, source inspections, and successive checks to ensure quality. Key features of the Shingo system include fail safe or poka-yoke systems that prevent defects.

ISO 9000 is a series of standards agreed upon by the International Organization for Standards. Adopted in 1987 these standards consist of five primary parts and more than 100 countries now recognize the 9000 series for quality standards and certification for international trade. ISO 14000 standards cover environmental compliance by manufacturing companies. ISO 9000 standards are compared to the Baldrige Criteria in this section.

SERVICE QUALITY MEASUREMENT; SERVQUAL

SERVQUAL - service quality

SERVQUAL is a questionnaire used to poll customers about service quality. It is an important tool for customer satisfaction. Many methods are available to production practitioners to measure quality. However, quality is a strategic issue and the internal capabilities and  the external environment requirements have to be taken into consideration in decisions related to quality. Internal capability needs to be developed as required and also external commitments must be based on internal capability at any point in time.  Quality programs are valuable in all organizations -- both service and manufacturing.



Bibliography

Software Quality Management  - Narayana Rao

Handbook of Total Quality Management
Christian N. Madu
Springer Science & Business Media, 06-Dec-2012 - Technology & Engineering - 801 pages

Quality issues are occupying an increasingly prominent position in today's global business market, with firms seeking to compete on an international level on both price and quality. Consumers are demanding higher quality standards from manufacturers and service providers, while virtually all industrialized nations have instituted quality programs to help indigenous corporations. A proliferation in nation-wide and regional quality awards such as the Baldridge award and certification to ISO 9000 series are making corporations world-wide quality-conscious and eager to implement programs of continuous improvement. To achieve competitiveness, quality practice is a necessity and this book offers an exposition of how quality can be attained.

The Handbook of Total Quality Management explores in separate chapters new topics such as re-engineering, concurrent engineering, ISO standards, QFD, the Internet, the environment, advanced manufacturing technology and benchmarking

It discusses the views of leading quality practitioners such as Derning, Juran, Ishikawa, Crosby and Taguchi throughout the book.

Important strategies for quality improvement, including initiation and performance evaluation through auditing, re-engineering, and process and design innovations are explained in the book.

With contributions from 47 authors in 13 different countries, the Handbook of Total Quality Management is invaluable as a reference guide for anyone involved with quality management and deployment, including consultants, practitioners and engineers in the professional sector, and students and lecturers of information systems, management and industrial engineering.
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=4UjuBwAAQBAJ

The Quality Management of New Product Design and Development
Wang, H. M.
PhD Thesis, Cranfield University
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/1826/3559
Date: 1993-04
https://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/3559

Ud 9 September 2021,   31 July 2021

pub 19 April 2019