QUALITY SYSTEMS

QUALITY
It is the fitness of a product or service for meeting its intended use as required by the customer.
The three aspects of quality are :

Quality of Design Quality of Conformance

Quality of Performance

Quality of Design

Deals with the conditions that the product or service must manually possess to satisfy the requirements of user. The product or service must be designed to meet at least minimally the needs of the customer.

The design should be simple and least expensive.

Quality of Conformance

Manufacturing product or service rendered must meet the standards selected in the design phase.

Consists of three areas :

Defect prevention

Defect finding
Defect analysis and rectification

Quality of Performance

Concerned with how well the product functions or services performs when put to use. It measures the degree to which the product satisfies the customer. It is a function of both quality of design and quality of conformance.

Total Quality System

The collective plans,activities and events that are provided, to ensure that a product,process or service will satisfy given needs.

Elements of TQS

POLICY,PLANNING,ORGANISATION AND ADMINISTRATION

A quality policy is essential for developing consistency in the company's goals. Once a plan is developed,an organization must be set up for achievement of the plan. Quality manual should be created.Procedures for administrating the plans in practice should be detailed and costs should be idenified.

PRODUCT DESIGN ASSURANCE, SPECIFICATION DEVELOPMENT AND CONTROL A product design is formulated as per customers requirement. Design will undergo modifications until it satisfactorily meets all requirements.

CONTROL OF PURCHASED MATERIAL AND COMPONENT PARTS

Production of a quality product is very much influenced by the quality of raw materials and components used.

PRODUCTION QUALITY CONTROL Involves determining process specifications,selecting equipments, training personnel,designing forms and charts,collecting and analyzing process data to determine whether it is under control.

USER CONTACT AND FIELD PERFORMANCE A system must exist to collect information from the customer and to determine the levels of performance of product.

CORRECTIVE ACTION Timely corrective actions is the key to creating and maintaining a quality system. Problems need to be detected, categorized and systematically documented.

EMPLOYEE SELECTION,TRAINNING AND MOTIVATION

Guidelines should be set to select people for particular jobs. There must be a clear demonstration by management for select,train and motivate employees.

LEGAL REQUIREMENTS This includes product liability and user safety.

SAMPLING AND OTHER STATISTICAL TECHNIQUES This segment of TQS is composed for analytical tools and techniques. Statitical methods are there for determining whether a process is capable of producing items that conform to a standard.

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

TQM is a management philosophy that seeks to integrate all organizational functions to focus on meeting customer needs and organisational objectives.
It refers to a comprehensive approach to quality. It is both a philosophy and a set of guiding principles that comprise the foundtion of a continously improving organization.