Quality Management

14 Points

W. Edwards Deming's list of management practices to help companies increase their quality and productivity.

Appraisal Costs

Costs associated with the formal evaluation of quality in the firm, including inspection, quality audits, testing, calibration and checking time.

Benchmarking

Comparing one's business processes and performance metrics to industry bests and best practices from other companies.

Checklist

A TQM tool used to ensure that important steps have been taken.

Control Chart

A TQM tool that provides a graphic comparison of process performance data with predetermined computed limits.

Cost of Poor Quality

These costs fall into four categories: (1) internal failure costs, (2) external failure costs, (3) appraisal costs, and (4) prevention costs.

Eight Dimensions of Quality

Aspects which define a product or service and include: aesthetics, conformance, durability, features, perceived quality, performance, reliability, and serviceability.

External Failure Costs

Costs associated with problems found after the product reaches the customer.

Fishbone Diagram

A TQM tool used to identify the main causes and subcauses leading to an effect (symptom).

Flowchart

A TQM tool that shows the operations, transportation, storages, delays, inspections, and so on related to a process.

Histogram

A TQM tool that provides a graph of contiguous vertical bars representing a frequency distribution.

Internal Failure Costs

Costs of things that go wrong before the product reaches the customer. These include rework, scrap, downgrades, retesting, and so forth.

Pareto Chart

A TQM tool that is a bar graph which displays the results of an analysis that shows a distinct variation from the few compared to the many.

PDCA

Also known as the Deming cycle, a four-step process for making improvements (Plan-Do-Check-Act).

Prevention Costs

Costs for the proactive activities that focus on the reduction of process failures including education, training, and supplier certification.

Quality Circle

A small group of people who meet to uncover and fix problems related product or service delivery processes.

Quality Loss Function

A parabolic approximation of the cost of a quality characteristic that deviates from the target value. This concept was introduced by Genichi Taguchi and is the impetus behind target-oriented quality.

Scatter Diagram

A graphical TQM tool to analyze the relationship between two sets of data.

Six Sigma

A philosophy and approach that provides tools for the improvement of business processes with the goal of reducing defects to fewer than 3.4 in 1 million attempts.

TQM (Total Quality Management)

A management approach to long-term success through customer satisfaction, based on the participation of all members in an organization contributing to the improvement of processes, goods, and services.