QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Evolution of Quality Management Inspection Quality Control Quality Assurance TQM Salvage, sorting, grading, blending, corrective actions, identify sources of non-conformance Develop quality manual, process performance data, self-inspection, product testing, basic quality planning, use of basic statistics, paperwork control. Quality systems development, advanced quality planning, comprehensive quality manuals, use of quality costs, involvement of non-production operations, failure mode and effects analysis, SPC. Policy deployment, involve supplier & customers, involve all operations, process management, performance measurement, teamwork, employee involvement.

 Quality is not an option in most walks of life. For example, it would be unthinkable for airline pilots or hospital midwives to aim for anything less than perfection in what they do, and nonsense to think of only trying for an ‘acceptable’ level of failure – one plane crash in 100 or one baby dropped per 500 deliveries! In similar fashion, no artist who is serious about his or her work would think of producing something that did not reflect their best endeavors and provide an object or artifact of lasting value.

 One of the annoying factors about quality is that seemingly unimportant details can have an astonishing impact on how quality is perceived. For example, when Concorde crashed it was as a result of a lack of attention to a piece of debris on the runway. The consequences to this were both profound and fatal. Concorde had not suddenly become a poor quality product, but the issue of safety (the most important element of travel in our evaluation of service quality) now became paramount.

What is Quality? Quality is “fitness for use” (Joseph Juran) Quality is “conformance to requirements” (Philip B. Crosby) Quality of a product or services is its ability to satisfy the needs and expectations of the customer

Quality…  the degree of excellence which a thing possesses …  is never an accident, it is always a result of intelligent effort  is not a physical attribute, nor a mental concept, but something embodying both  even though quality cannot be defined, you know what it is  is an unusually slippery concept, easy to visualize and yet exasperatingly difficult to define  the total composite product and service characteristics … through which the product or service in use will meet the expectations of the customer

Quality of Design  Represents the intentional quality that designers wish to see produced in order to meet their interpretations of the customer’s needs. It is a multi-attribute definition, but has the advantages of permitting measurement against each of these attributes to assess whether or not the intentional quality level has been achieved.

Quality of Conformance  Represents the degree to which the product when made conforms to the original design specifications. The extent to which this can be achieved will depend in turn on the various elements of manufacturing – people, processes, equipment, incoming raw materials quality, etc. This equates to Crosby’s idea of quality as ‘conformance to requirements’.

Strategic Quality  There are two key reasons why quality has become strategic. The first is due to the number – and capabilities – of new entrants into many markets and industries. The second major factor is that, as a result of this fierce competition, customers now have far greater amounts of choice.

 The number – and capabilities – of new entrants into markets has raised competition between new and existing players, all of whom have to compete to ‘world-class’ standards. This intense competition has helped to redefine the term world class, when applied to quality.

SERVQUAL MODEL