DP6 Quality management

Quality

The degree of excellence in a product or service and its ability to satisfy the customer

Quality management strategies aim to:

• Minimise waste & defect rates in production → maximising operational E&E

• Achieve set quality standards or benchmarks

• Obtain consistently high standards of product and service at every stage of production

Quality control (QC)

Process of checking the quality standards of work done or quality of raw materials or component parts.

Aim: to detect and eliminate defects after they occur

• E.g. when Ferrari saw there was an error, they broke those metals up and melt them to be able to reuse

Quality assurance (QA)

A system established to ensure that predetermined quality standards are achieved.

Aim: to build quality into work processes, thereby avoiding errors before occurrence

• The right to use recognised certification marks give confidence to stakeholders + potential for selling into export markets + big competitive advantage in global markets

Total Quality Management (TQM)

A holistic approach to quality where all members of an organisation aim to participate in ongoing improvement or organisation culture and production processes.

TQM involves:

• Employees being placed in quality circles + required to meet & discuss proposed changes & methods to achieve quality improvements on a daily basis.

Key concepts of TQM:

DUCC

• Defect prevention

• Universal responsibility

• Continuous process improvement

• Customer focus

TQM - Defect prevention

TQM aims to prevent defects in products before they occur.

TQM - Universal responsibility

Every work group is concerned with seeking to improve the quality of their own product.

TQM - Continuous process improvement

Viewing work as a one step process in a continuous process rather than an isolated task

• Improving quality by identifying the customer + their needs, then improving processes to meet these needs

• Establish teams to analyse problems & processes

TQM - Customer focus

Involves finding out exactly what the user needs & wants + ensuring the process provides it.

Advantages of QA, QC, TQM

• Reduction in defects/recalls

• Increased quality of output

• Improved competitiveness

• Increased quality = increased profit

Disadvantages of QA, QC, TQM

• Time-consuming

• Costly

• Resistance form employees (particularly TQM which requires full business commitment)