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Quality Management
-Quality Control
- Quality Assurance
-Quality Improvement
Quality
Quality
If a business is providing a quality product or service its product or service would:
- Last a long time; it is durable
- Is free from any defects
- Does everything the advertising claims
Define: Quality management refers to the processes that a business undertakes to ensure consistency, reliability, safety and fitness of purpose of product.
In this part of the syllabus, it is assumed that the business either:
has an existing problem with quality (and the solution to that problem will be one of the quality management strategies), or
they have no quality management processes in place and should put them i place in order to avoid a quality problem in the future.
Irrespective of the approach to quality management used there will be a process of monitoring (collecting data) and controlling (comparing a=data to benchmarks)
Three contemporary approaches to achieving quality in any business:
1. Quality control – inspect, measure and intervene where required (corrective action).
2. Quality assurance – application of international Standards (e.g. ISO 9001 five ticks)
3. Quality improvement – which includes total quality management and the ideal of continuous improvement
1. Quality Control:
1. Quality Control:
uses inspection at various points in the production process
uses inspection at various points in the production process
set defined quality standards/parameters
design a range of tests to assess the quality of processes against the standards.
Once the standards have been set there needs to be a range of tests designed to assess the quality of products and processes against the standard. (This might include an attribute inspection of goods or in a service business, an inspection of employee performance e.g. Phone call recording, mystery shoppers)
To ensure output meets required standards, many businesses carry out inspections of all or part of the total volume of production.
Quality Control at Lego
Quality Control at Lego
"The molds are extremely accurate in that they only allow for a natural variation of 0.001 millimeters in each brick, to ensure connectivity. Nevertheless, the entire molding process itself is so precise that there are about 18 defective bricks in every million produced. And if you thought that was crazy, the company ensures that “all Lego elements are fully compatible, irrespective when they were made during the period from 1958 to the present or by which factory.” Talk about extreme quality control!
The company’s unequaled level of quality, has allowed them to increase brick production from 25 billion in 2008 to 45.7 billion in 2012. “We have the same quality standards all over the globe,” which explains their uniform and consistent products. Hansen also states that their production facilities put each element of a Lego set (from the bricks to the instruction manual) through rigorous tests to make sure that they follow company, consumer, and international standards." https://opsmgt.edublogs.org/2013/05/26/lego-building-on-product-quality-brick-by-brick/
Impacts
Impacts
Good quality control would anticipate and prevent problems before they occur.
If the business were to discover too late that its product was defective this would result in lost customers, damaged goodwill and possibly the recall of products.
During 2009 and 2010 Toyota had to recall over 8 million cars globally after a series of quality issues
Largest ever recall….Ford in the 1980s recalled 21 million vehicles because there was potential to slip from Park into Reverse. Problem linked to 100 deaths (according to CNN)
2. Quality Assurance (QA)
2. Quality Assurance (QA)
A series of quality assurance standards has been developed in response to globalisation and the international emphasis on quality– these standards are applied universally so that a component from
Korea for example, that meets the international standard is theoretically of the same quality as a similar component from say an Australian manufacturer that meets the standard. This is important for ‘global’ companies. The certification symbol is easily recognisable (5 ticks)
A widely used international standard is the ISO 9001 series of quality certifications. ‘ISO’ stands for International Organisation for Standardisation.
ISO standards are voluntary but many businesses comply with their requirements to enhance their domestic and international competitiveness.
ISO 9001 – indicates quality assurance in product design and development.
ISO 9002 – indicates quality assurance in manufacturing
ISO 9003 - covers service-based industries.
3. Quality Improvement
3. Quality Improvement
This is the belief that over time processes will be made more efficient and effective.
•This can be achieved through:
•Continuous improvement: (Click to watch a video explanation)
•Total Quality Management (TQM)
•To achieve TQM objectives requires four elements:
Benchmarking, Employee empowerment, Focus on the customer and Continuous improvement.
The concept of quality circles is relevant to TQM.
Quality circles are regular meetings of a group of employees from different sections of the business to discuss issues arising in the workplace.
These groups try to clearly identify problem areas and come up with possible solutions to the problems.
TQM necessitates careful review of the actions of competitors and possible innovative measures.
Metrics to determine if the strategy is effective
Metrics to determine if the strategy is effective
reduction in average cost of production as a result of decreased waste
Reduced defect rate
Reduction in unplanned production line downtime
Reduction in warranty claims
Increased customer satisfaction
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