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What is Quality?
Quality means user satisfaction: that goods or services satisfy the needs and expectations of the
user. To achieve quality according to this definition, we must consider quality and product policy,
product design, manufacturing, and final use of the product.
Product planning involves decisions about the products and services that a firm will market. The
basic quality level of a product is thus specified by management according to its understanding of the
wants and needs of the market segment. A product or service is a combination of tangible and
intangible characteristics that a company hopes the customer will accept and be willing to pay a price
for.
A firms studies of the marketplace should yield a general specification of the product, outlining the
expected performance, appearance, price, and volume. Product designers must then build into the
product the quality level described in the general specification.
Quality in manufacturing means that, at a minimum, all production must be within specification
limits and the less variation from the nominal the better the quality.
To the user, quality depends on an expectation of how the product should perform. This is
sometimes expressed as fitness for use. Customers do not care why a product is defective, but they
care if it is defective.
use. Maintainability refers to being able to return a product to operating condition after it has
failed.
Features secondary characteristics little extras.
Conformance means meeting established standards or specifications.
Warranty is an organizations public promise to back up its products with a guarantee of
customer satisfaction.
Service is an intangible generally made up of a number of things such as availability, speed
of service, courtesy, and competence of personnel.
Aesthetics means pleasing to the senses; i.e. finish or appearance of a product.
Perceived quality is based on the premise that total customer satisfaction is based on the
complete experience with an organization, not just the product.
Price is what customers pay for value in what they buy. Value is the sum of the benefits the
customer receives and can be more than the product itself.
The six basic concepts in TQM are (further explanations are found on pages 431 through 434):
A committed and involved management. TQM is a continuous process that must become
part of the organizations culture.
Focus on the customer. This means listening to the customer so goods and services meet
customer needs at a low cost. It means improving design and processes to reduce defects and
cost.
Involvement of the total workforce. Total quality management is the responsibility of
everyone in the organization.
Continuous process improvement (covered in chapter 14). Processes can and must be
improved to reduce cost and increase quality.
Supplier partnering rather than adversarial relationship.
Performance measures to measure the results.
Quality costs fall into two broad categories: the cost of failure to control quality and the cost of
controlling quality.
The costs of failing to control quality are the costs of producing material that does not meet
specifications and they can be broken down into:
Internal failure costs are the costs of correcting problems that occur while the goods are still
in the production facility.
External failure costs are the costs of correcting problems after goods or services have been
delivered to the customer.
Investment in prevention will improve productivity by reducing the cost of failure and appraisal.
Investing in prevention will increase total costs in the short run, but in the long run prevention will
eliminate the causes of failure and reduce total quality costs.
In any manufacturing process, we can expect to find a certain amount of chance variation that is
inherent in the process. The causes of the chance variation are broken into six categories: people,
machine, material, method, environment, and measurement. There is no way to alter chance
variation except to change the process. If the process produces too many defects, then it must be
changed.
As long as only chance variation exists, the system is said to be in statistical control. If there is an
assignable cause for variation, the process is not in control. The objective of statistical process
control is to detect the presence of assignable causes of variation. SPC, then, has two objectives:
To help select processes capable of producing the required quality with minimum defects.
To monitor a process to be sure it continues to produce the required quality and no assignable
cause for variation exists.
The output of every process has a unique pattern that can be described by its shape, center, and
spread. The bell-shaped curve is called a normal curve and is commonly encountered in
manufacturing processes that are running under controlled conditions. The center of the distribution
can be calculated as outlined on page 438. To evaluate a process, we must know not only what the
center is, but also something about the spread or variation. This can be measured using either of two
methods, range or standard deviation, and can be calculated as outlined on page 438 and 439.
Process Capability
Tolerances are the limits of deviation from perfection and are established by the product design
engineers to meet a particular design function. In statistical process control, the lower specification
limit (LSL) is the minimum acceptable level of output. Similarly, the upper specification limit
(USL) is defined as the maximum acceptable level of output. Both the USL and LSL are related to
the product specification and are independent of any process.
Besides spread, there is another way a process can produce defects. If there is a shift in the mean
(average), defects will be produced. In summary:
The capability of the process is not related to the product specification tolerance.
A process must be selected that can meet the specifications.
Processes can produce defects in two ways, by having too big a spread (sigma) or by a shift
in the mean (average).
Process Control
Process control attempts to prevent the production of excessive defects by showing when the
probability is high there is an assignable cause for variation.
See Control charts, X bar and R charts and control limits on pages 444, 445, and 446.
Sample Inspection
Statistical process control monitors the process and detects when the process goes out of control, thus
minimizing the production of defective parts. Traditional inspection inspects the batch of parts after
they are made, and on the basis of the inspection, accepts or rejects the batch. 100% inspection
means testing every unit in the lot. In cases in which the cost of failure is exceptionally high, 100%
inspection is vital. Acceptance sampling consists of taking a sample of a batch of product and using
it to estimate the overall quality of the batch.
Sampling plans are designed to provide some assurance of the quality of goods while taking costs
into consideration. Lots are defined as good if they contain no more than a specified level of defects,
called the acceptable quality level (AQL). A plan is designed to have a minimum allowable number
or percent defective in the sample in order to accept the lot. Above this level of defects, the lot will
be rejected.
The probability of accepting a bad lot is called the consumers risk. The probability of rejecting a
good lot is called the producers risk. The objective is to balance the consumers risk and the
producers risk against the cost of the sampling plan.
ISO 9000
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) developed a series of five standards for
quality systems that have become universally accepted and a requirement for doing business. The
standards are intended to prevent nonconformities during all stages of business functions. A third
party, called a registrar, assesses the adequacy of the suppliers quality system. In simple terms, the
standards require the supplier to say what it is doing to ensure quality, do what it says, and prove it
has done so by documentation.
ISO 9000 consists of five standards and explains the basic quality concepts, defines key terms, and
provides guidelines for selecting, using, and modifying ISO 9001, 9002, and 9003. ISO 9004
provides guidance in implementing a quality system. ISO 9001 provides a model for quality
assurance in design, production, installation and servicing. ISO 9002 provides a model for quality
assurance in production and installation. ISO 9003 provides a model for quality assurance in final
inspection. See the ISO elements listed is Table 16.1 on pages 451 and 452.
Benchmarking
Reference