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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
So you've been asked to lead a quality control initiative? Or maybe you've been assigned to a quality team. Perhaps you're a CEO whose main concern is to make your company faster, more efficient, and less expensive. Whatever your role is, quality control is a critical concept in every industry and profession. Quality Control For Dummies is the straightforward, easy guide to improving your company's quality. It covers all of today's available options and provides expert techniques for introducing quality methods to your company, collecting data, designing quality processes, and more. This hands-on guide gives you all the tools you'll ever need to enhance your company's quality, including: * Understanding the importance of quality standards * Putting fundamental quality control methods to use * Listening to your customer about quality issues * Whipping quality control into shape with Lean * Working with value stream mapping * Focusing on the 5S method * Supplement a process with Kanban * Fixing tough problems with Six Sigma * Using QFD to win customers over * Improving you company with TOC This invaluable reference is written from an unbiased viewpoint, giving you all the facts about each theory with no fuzzy coverings. It also includes steps for incorporating quality into a new product and Web sites packed with quality control tips and techniques. With Quality Control For Dummies, you'll be able to speed up production, eliminate waste, and save money!
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Quality Control For Dummies
by Larry Webber and Michael Wallace
Quality Control For Dummies®
Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. 111 River St. Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2007 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Published simultaneously in Canada
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2006936764
ISBN-13: 978-0-470-06909-7
ISBN-10: 0-470-06909-0
Manufactured in the United States of America
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About the Authors
Larry Webber is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt and holds a Masters of Project Management degree from West Carolina University. He has supported quality initiatives at multiple major manufacturers and in software development companies. He’s currently a Project Manager and Six Sigma Black Belt working for Computer Science Corporation. Larry is also retired from the Army Reserve as an infantry First Sergeant, is a certified Master Business Continuity Planner and a certified Project Manager, and holds an MBA and BSBA from Rockhurst College. He can be reached at [email protected].
Michael Wallace has more than 25 years of experience in the information systems field. He graduated magna cum laude from Wright State University with a bachelor of science degree in Management Science. Michael has worked as an application developer, a systems analyst, and a technical and business consultant and has assisted the state of Ohio in developing statewide IT policies. He’s active in the local technical community, is President of the Columbus International Association of Microsoft Certified Partners (IAMCP), is a Competent Toastmaster with Toastmasters International, and graduated from the Executive MBA program at the Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University. Michael is now the Vice President of Application Engineering at Result Data, which provides its clients with guidance on IT strategy, application development, business intelligence, disaster-recovery planning, and policies and procedures. He’s also an adjunct faculty member at The Ohio State University and at DeVry University’s Keller Graduate School of Management, and he has published several articles and books on business and technology topics. He can be reached at [email protected].
Larry and Michael have co-authored several books, including The Disaster Recovery Handbook (American Management Association, 2004). Here are their annually updated works:
IT Policies and Procedures, 2003–2007 editions (Aspen Publishing)
IS Project Management Handbook, 2004–2006 editions (Aspen Publishing)
Larry recently co-authored a book with his son, Fred, called IT Project Management Essentials (Aspen Publishing, 2007).
Dedication
Larry dedicates this book to his wife, Nancy, in honor of their upcoming 25th anniversary, and Michael dedicates the book to his wife, Tami, and his children, Phillip and Sarah, for their patience and support while this book was being created.
Authors’ Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the contributions of several people who made this book possible. First, Dennis Dreyer (www.DreyerSolutions.com) for his contribution of the chapter on Lean techniques, based on his many years of experience implementing supply-chain-management and logistics solutions at General Motors and at many other organizations. Thanks also to Larry’s son, Fred Webber, for his assistance in researching several of the chapters, and to his daughter, Katrina Webber, for cleaning up his poor grammar and oversized words. We would also like to thank literary agent extraordinaire Marilyn Allen for all her help in getting this book off the ground, acquisitions editor Mike Lewis for sharpening the book’s focus, and editors Georgette Beatty and Josh Dials for guiding us to a safe landing. Finally, we would like to thank Rob Bryant for his many fine-tuning points, which we borrowed heavily from in our chapters.
Publisher’s Acknowledgments
We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.
Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:
Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development
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Technical Editor: Rob Bryant
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Contents
Title
Introduction
About This Book
Conventions Used in This Book
What You’re Not to Read
Foolish Assumptions
How This Book Is Organized
Icons Used in This Book
Where to Go from Here
Part I : Understanding the Basics of Quality Control
Chapter 1: Defining and Explaining Quality Control
Looking at Different Definitions of “Quality”
Setting Quality Standards
Preventing Errors with Quality Assurance
Controlling Quality with Inspection
Applying Fundamental Quality Control Concepts
Trimming Down with Lean Processes
Checking Out Additional Quality Control Techniques
Chapter 2: Understanding the Importance of Quality Standards
Getting the Quality Just Right
Setting Quality Standards as the Rules of the Road
Recognizing the Roles of Quality Standards in Commerce
Securing ISO Certification
Chapter 3: Using Quality Assurance for the Best Results
Understanding the Concept of Quality Assurance
Developing Trusted Suppliers
Focusing on the Process with Plan-Do-Check-Act
Getting What You Really Need with Product or Service Specifications
Chapter 4: The Role of Inspection in Quality Control
Examining the Basics of Inspection
Recognizing and Addressing the Challenges of Quality Inspection
Choosing the Inspection Approach That Fits Your Company’s Needs
Tracking Defects to Improve Your Business
Part II : Putting Fundamental Quality Control Methods to Use
Chapter 5: Starting Down the Road to Quality
What’s New? Introducing Change in Your Company
Having a Sponsor as a Champion of Quality Control
Talk About It: Quality Communication within an Organization
Class Is in Session: Training Employees
Testing the Waters with a Pilot Project
Conquering Obstacles as Your Company Implements Change
Chapter 6: Detecting the Voice of the Customer in Quality Issues
Identifying Critical-to-Customer Quality Issues
Gauging Current Customer Desires with the Kano Model
Digging Up Data from (And about) Your Customers
Chapter 7: Preparing to Measure Your Current Quality Process
Mapping Out Metrics and Measuring Processes
Equipping Yourself with Tools of the Measurement Trade
Chapter 8: Collecting Your Quality Data
Planning and Instituting a Data-Collection Process
Making Sense of Your Data
Chapter 9: Evaluating Quality with Statistics
By the Numbers: Discovering the Basics of Statistics in Quality
Just One of Many: Delving into the Details of Sampling
More Bang for Your Buck: Using Pareto Analysis
The Positive and the Negative: Coming Up with Correlations
Let Me Guess: Predicting Values with Regression Analysis
Consistency Counts: Analyzing Variance
Chapter 10: Assessing Quality with Statistical Process Control
Grasping the Basics of Statistical Process Control
Using Control Charts Effectively
Calculating Process Capability
Part III : Whipping Quality Control into Shape with Lean Processes
Chapter 11: Gathering the Nuts and Bolts of Lean Processes
Boning Up on the Lean Basics
Identifying the Seven Wastes That Can Plague a Process
Moving to the Beat of Takt Time
Getting to the Heart of an Issue with the 5 “Why’s”
Chapter 12: Keeping Your Eyes on the Process: Value Stream Mapping
Sketching the Basics of Value Stream Mapping
To the Drawing Board: Creating a Current State Map
Do It Over: Building a Future State Map
Chapter 13: Focusing on the 5S Method
Understanding the Pros and Cons of 5S
Rolling Out 5S with Communications Boards
The Sort Phase: Separating the Gravel from the Gems
The Straighten Phase: A Place for Everything and Everything in Its Place
The Shine Phase: Polishing It All Up!
The Standardize Phase: Using the Best Practices Everywhere
The Sustain Phase: Upholding the Gains
Chapter 14: Empowering Workers to Make Changes with Rapid Improvement
Considering the Pros and Cons of Rapid Improvement Events
Seek and Improve: Selecting a Process Victim
Finding a Few Good Workers: Staffing an Improvement Team
Before the Fun Really Starts: Documenting the Current Process
The First Day of the Event: Train the Team
The Second Day: Review the Training and Clean the Work Area
The Third Day: Draft the Improvement Plan
The Fourth Day: Test Changes and Document the Results
The Fifth Day: Finalize Changes and Report to Management
One Week Later: Did the RIE Make a Difference?
Chapter 15: Looking at Lean Materials and Kanban
Getting the Gist of Lean Materials and Kanban
Reviewing the Pros and Cons of Lean Materials
Going with the Flow of Lean Materials
Working with Suppliers to Keep Lean Materials on Track
Part IV : Surveying Other Quality Control Techniques
Chapter 16: Combining the Best of All Worlds in Total Quality Management
Total Quality Management in a Nutshell
Shedding Light on TQM Techniques and Tools
It Takes a Village: The Main TQM Players
Perpetual Motion: How to Enjoy Continuous Improvement
Chapter 17: Fixing Tough Problems with Six Sigma
Surveying the Basics of the Six Sigma Way
Taking Important Steps to Implement Six Sigma
Crunching Some Six Sigma Numbers
Putting Everything Together with Process-Review Tools
Chapter 18: Delving into Quality Function Deployment
Organizing the Nuts ’n’ Bolts of Quality Function Deployment
If You Build a House of Quality, Customers Will Come
Chapter 19: Considering the Theory of Constraints
Focusing on the Fundamentals of the Theory of Constraints
Understanding the Drum- Buffer-Rope System
Tackling Constraints in Your Process
Part V : The Part of Tens
Chapter 20: Ten Steps for Incorporating Quality into a New Product and/or Process
Identify a Problem You Can Solve with a New Product or Service
Define the Critical Characteristics of Each Customer Requirement
Translate Customer Requirements into Measurements
Establish a Capable Prototype Process
Make Your Process Lean
Mistake Proof Your Process
Prepare the Kanban
Test the Process
Incorporate Improvements into the Process Design
Create a Customer-Feedback Mechanism
Chapter 21: Ten (Or So) Web Sites with Quality Control Tips and Techniques
International Organization for Standardization
American Society for Quality
Lean Aerospace Initiative
Curious Cat Management Improvement Library
The Northwest Lean Networks
Kaizen Institute
Replenishment Technology Group Inc.
Total Quality Management
i Six Sigma
QFD Institute
AGI
: Further Reading
Introduction
Welcome to Quality Control For Dummies, the book that helps anyone unfamiliar with quality control find their way around a quality program. Quality improvement techniques have been around for a very long time. They apply to every type of endeavor — business (most likely why you’re here), educational (the reason you may have taken those test-taking courses or joined study groups), and even personal (self-help books, anyone?). We all want to do things faster and for less cost while getting more desirable results. A company’s quality system strives for the same goals: better, faster, and cheaper. With this book, you’ll be able to understand the various and ever-changing quality initiatives underway or under discussion at your company.
About This Book
Most quality control books have a single theme: They push their own theory as the “one right way” to solve all of a company’s problems. But this book isn’t like that. It addresses every major quality improvement program and describes how to choose the applicable parts for a company.
The design of this book allows you to pick it up and begin reading at any point — much like a reference book — so we suggest you start with a topic that interests you. You can use the table of contents to identify general areas of interest or broad topics. You’ll come to find, however, that the index is your best friend for identifying detailed concepts, related topics, or particular quality issues. After you find what you need, you can toss the book on a shelf on your way out the door and tackle whatever tasks you set for yourself with confidence — and without wading through unrelated details.
Conventions Used in This Book
To guide you through this book, we include the following conventions:
Italics point out defined terms and emphasize certain words.
Boldface text indicates key words in bulleted lists and actions to take in numbered lists.
Monofont highlights Web addresses.
During printing of this book, some Web addresses may have broken across two lines of text. If you come across a Web address spread over two lines, rest assured that we haven’t put in any extra characters (such as hyphens) to indicate the break. Just type in exactly what you see, pretending as though the line break doesn’t exist.
What You’re Not to Read
You can safely skip any text that we mark with the Technical Stuff icon; the information is interesting, to be sure, but it’s not essential to your understanding of quality issues. You can also skip sidebars (those shaded gray boxes within the chapters); we like the stories in them, but we won’t be offended if you don’t read them.
Foolish Assumptions
We don’t think that anything in this book is foolish, but we have made the following assumptions about our readers:
You’re a business owner or CEO who needs to know more about quality and the right quality methods for your organization.
You’re a staff member or mid-level manager who’s in charge of introducing quality methods to your organization.
You’re a team leader looking for ideas on improving how a team works to reduce costs and improve service.
You’re an average worker trying to figure out what all the funny names for the different quality techniques really mean.
How This Book Is Organized
This book is organized into the following five parts, each of which has several chapters. Each chapter discusses a major topic related to quality control, and we divide the chapters into sections, which discuss particular issues related to those topics. The book is organized to support both a linear and modular read, but how you read it is up to you. Choose a part, a chapter, or a related topic — whatever floats your boat — and start reading!
Part I: Understanding the Basics of Quality Control
Part I reviews the basic concept of “quality” and how it fits into an organization’s products, services, and strategies. We provide an overview of what quality really means, why it’s important in the modern business world, and the standards used to govern it. We also cover quality assurance, which examines the tools used to create a product or service, and inspection, which examines the results of a process to determine the degree to which it conforms to what it’s supposed to be.
Part II: Putting Fundamental Quality Control Methods to Use
In Part II, we explore some fundamental processes for improving quality. For example, we explain how the customer defines quality with what’s called the voice of the customer. We also explore ways to measure and evaluate quality characteristics, such as Statistical Process Control (not as scary as it sounds).
Part III: Whipping Quality Control into Shape with Lean Processes
Part III provides you with an explanation of the various Lean techniques in order to show how they build on one another. A Lean organization has examined all its processes and has squeezed out all the waste by cleaning up the workplace. Identifying waste and squeezing it out of your processes provides many savings, because a big money sink in many companies is an excess-materials inventory. Eliminating this bloat saves money and improves quality all around. Let us show you how!
Part IV: Surveying Other Quality Control Techniques
Part IV looks at some of the better-known quality methodologies that have been in fashion recently. Interestingly enough, the methods we outline here seem to use varying amounts of the Lean tools we identify in Part III — they just add their own spins on how to use them. And as you’re probably aware, all “expert” consultants have their own spins on things because that’s how they justify their fat salaries.
Part V: The Part of Tens
Part V follows in the grand tradition of For Dummies books providing Parts of Tens. Here you find ten steps for incorporating quality into a new process and ten Web sites that give you some quality control tips and present some quality techniques. This supplemental information is designed to be both helpful and informative.
Icons Used in This Book
The icons used in this book point you to important (and not so important) topics in the text:
Keep these facts in mind when making decisions about different aspects of the quality control process.
This icon signals that helpful advice is at hand. We use it to offer insights that we hope make quality control interesting or easier.
This icon means what it says and says what it means — you’d better be careful with the information that comes after. It warns you to avoid situations that can have nasty consequences for your organization.
This icon tips you off to interesting but nonessential information. Read it or skip it — the choice is yours.
Where to Go from Here
Each chapter in this book can stand on its own and will provide you with unique, useful information. So, find a subject that interests you or that you need to bone up on, turn to the page, and be ready to learn! Feel free to mark up the book, fill in the blanks, copy any tables, dog-ear the pages, or do anything else that would make a librarian blush. The important thing is that you make good use of the book and enjoy yourself in the process.
If you’re new to quality systems, we suggest that you read Parts I and II in their entirety. You’ll find that many quality improvement techniques are built on previous models, and they all point back to the basics of quality control.
One last thing: Check out the Web page at www.dummies.com. Feel free to take the opportunity to register your purchase online or to send the authors e-mail with feedback about your reading experience.
Part I
Understanding the Basics of Quality Control
In this part . . .
Q uality control is a term often used to cover the entire concept of product quality. Every businessperson has a unique idea of what a “quality” product should be. In this part, we explore the basics of what makes up quality along with examples of how you can apply it.
We cover quality standards, which are like “the rules of the road.” If every employee understands and follows them, every employee knows what to expect. We also discuss quality assurance, which examines the materials you use to create a product or service. “Good cakes require good ingredients,” and so do good business products.
To wrap up the first part, we explain how quality control examines the results of a process to determine the degree to which it conforms to expectations. In many companies, this process is the “final inspection” to ensure that they pass on only good results to customers. However, catching poor quality means that you’ve already wasted the money making a product that isn’t ready for sale. The ideal situation is to prevent an error from ever occurring.
Chapter 1
Defining and Explaining Quality Control
In This Chapter
Reviewing customer- and statistics-based definitions of quality
Applying your industry’s quality standards
Discovering how to prevent errors and inspect processes
Focusing on the fundamentals of quality control
Brushing up on the basics of Lean
Surveying additional quality control processes
Welcome! Because you’re reading this book, you’ve probably
Been asked to lead a quality control initiative.
Been assigned to a quality team.
Heard your company CEO say quality is job #1.
Heard rumors about new quality programs at your company.
Of course, you may simply be curious about the topic of quality control, and you want to discover more about how quality control affects your company and your job. We commend your dedication and initiative!
Quality control is a critical concept in every industry and profession. As globalization continues and the world becomes smaller, making it possible for consumers to pick and choose from the best products worldwide, the survival of your job and of your company depends on your ability to produce a quality product or service. In this chapter, we define the term “quality,” and we introduce some important quality control concepts and methods.
Looking at Different Definitions of “Quality”
Everyone says that they want quality products or services, or a high level of quality, but what do they really mean? Is it possible to have too much quality? Without a clear definition of quality, you can’t even begin to measure and evaluate it. In the following sections, we define quality in customer-oriented and statistical terms.
A customer-based definition of quality
What does the word quality mean to you? For most people, quality is associated with the idea of a product or service that’s well done, looks good, and does its job well. We think of a quality product as one that lasts, holds up well under use, and doesn’t require constant repair. A quality product or service should meet a high standard in many areas, such as form, features, fit and finish, reliability, and usability.
Most people use the word quality to mean “having a high degree of excellence,” but like beauty, quality is in the eye of the beholder. If a consumer’s desire is to have basic transportation at a low price, he would buy a Toyota rather than a Lexus. The Toyota may be a lesser grade of car, but is it of lower quality than the Lexus? That’s up to the consumer to decide.
To complicate matters, the definition of quality changes over time. The Ford Model T was once thought of as a quality product, but if a dealership sold it today, it would be in the same quality class as the Yugo. Consumers’ quality standards for cars have changed over time, just like they have for other products. As products and services evolve, consumer expectations tend to increase so that yesterday’s quality product becomes tomorrow’s junk.
What do these facts mean to your business? Quality, in the eyes of a business, revolves around meeting customer expectations — expectations that may be stated or implied. One action that sums up quality from a business perspective is when the customer returns after the sale and the product doesn’t. Repeat business is probably the most basic measure of quality, because customers vote on the quality of your product or service with their pocketbooks. But unlike political elections, your customers vote daily, and new opposing candidates appear just as often to try to win your customers’ votes.
The statistical definition of quality
As you may expect, the statistical definition of quality is a little more precise than other definitions, such as the customer-based concept, and is based on mathematics. When you measure quality statistically, you look for variation in a measurement between what the customer asks for and what you produce. The less variation you have, the higher the quality of your product or service.
All processes have some natural variation; you use statistics to detect abnormal variation that could cause you to produce a bad product or service. You can also use statistics to avoid testing every item that you produce. By testing a sample of what you make or deliver, you can use statistics to measure its quality and find out whether it meets customer requirements.
Setting Quality Standards
After you as an organization decide on a definition of quality (see the previous section), you need standards against which to measure your quality. Why? Many standards are driven by the desire to safeguard the health and well-being of the people who use the products or services companies provide. Quality standards also are critical in support of international trade.
Almost every industry has an association or trade group that sets quality standards against which companies can measure the quality of their products or services. Industries also have their own government- or business- supported standards bodies for products important to them. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an international body made up of the national standards organizations for almost every country. We cover standards in detail in Chapter 2.
Preventing Errors with Quality Assurance
Quality assurance focuses on the ability of a process to produce or deliver a quality product or service. This method differs from quality control in that it looks at the entire process, not just the final product. Quality control is designed to detect problems with a product or service (see the next section); quality assurance attempts to head off problems at the pass by tweaking a production process until it can produce a quality product.
Don’t get us wrong; we’re not saying that quality assurance and quality control are unrelated. By continually improving your process, you improve the quality of your product or service. Probably the most well-known technique for improving a process is called the Plan-Do-Check-Act, or the PDCA Cycle. This simple but powerful tool requires you to
Plan improvements to your process by looking for problems that affect the quality of your product or service.
Make improvements by implementing small changes to minimize disruption to your process.
Check production results to see if you’ve actually made an improvement.
Act on what you discover and roll it out to the entire process.
Check out Chapter 3 for more information about quality assurance concepts.
Controlling Quality with Inspection
The most basic quality control technique is to inspect the results of your production or service-delivery process to make sure it conforms to customer requirements. In quality control terms, conforming means that an item meets customer specifications, and nonconforming means it doesn’t. You inspect your product or service by measuring one or more of its properties and comparing the measurements to customer specifications.
Although inspection can ensure that 100 percent of the products or services you deliver to your customers are good, it can be a very expensive process, especially for high-volume, low-value items (such as common nails or shirt buttons). Also, inspection is impossible for items where testing can damage the product (such as testing a bullet).
Head to Chapter 4 for details about the role of inspection in quality control. We explain the challenges of inspection, how to overcome the challenges, and how to choose the best inspection method for your organization.
Applying Fundamental Quality Control Concepts
Your organization can implement several fundamental quality control processes to ensure that you produce or deliver a high-quality product or service. The following sections present the information you need to determine how you can integrate quality control processes into your organization.
Introducing quality control to your business
The introduction of a quality control process into an organization can be a major shock to its system. The following components are crucial if you want to lessen the shock and gain acceptance within your organization:
Advertise acceptance of the program from important stakeholders within your organization.
Give communication power to a sponsor who can articulate the need for change and who has the political power to gain compliance when required.
Communicate the reasons for the change and the benefits it will bring to everyone in the organization.
Train employees in the new ways of the organization. You want workers doing the right things consistently because success helps to gain support.
Like most other changes, quality control is best introduced in small bits. One way to do this is to create a pilot project that allows you to make a small change to a small part of your process to see the change’s effect. If the results are good, you can implement the change on a wider basis; if the change is bad, you’ve limited the damage done. See Chapter 5 for the scoop on successfully introducing quality methods to your company.
Listening to your customers
An important concept in quality control is listening to the customer; we call this listening to the voice of the customer (the VOC). Although this task seems pretty simple (can’t you just ask?!), you may find that your customers don’t know exactly what they need, or they can’t articulate their needs. The customer typically has three desires:
They want it good.
They want it fast.
They want it cheap.
Of course, in the real world, consumers seldom get all three, so you need to identify what’s most important in your customers’ buying decisions, and you need to make sure you satisfy those needs.
You have several ways to hear the VOC:
You can ask by handing out questionnaires, conducting interviews, reviewing complaints, holding focus groups, reviewing purchasing patterns, and interviewing field personnel.
You can borrow good ideas from your competitors. Don’t be afraid to use good ideas, no matter where you find them.
You can use a good customer relationship management (CRM) system, which is a handy tool for gathering and analyzing data about customers.
Chapter 6 has details on listening to the VOC to improve the quality of your product or service.
Measuring your quality
The old management saying “You can’t manage what you can’t measure” rings especially true in quality control. A good measurement system helps you to know where you’ve been and where you’re going. Customers typically require that you measure certain attributes of your product or service against their specifications. Your job is to determine what to measure, how to measure it, and when to measure it.
Employee training is critical to ensure that everyone involved in your process measures the same specifications in the same way. You also need to collect data in a usable format so that you can analyze it to determine the effectiveness of your quality process. The effectiveness of your quality process is directly related to the quality of your data collection and analysis process. If you don’t have good data, you can’t make good decisions.
Check out Chapters 7 and 8 for the nitty-gritty on measuring your current quality process.
Evaluating your quality
The most common way to analyze the data you collect is to use statistics. Statistics serve many purposes within quality control:
Statistics allow you to determine which processes or parts of processes are causing your company the most problems (by using the 80/20 rule — 80 percent of your problems are caused by 20 percent of what you do).
You can use statistics for sampling so that you don’t have to test 100 percent of the items you make.
Statistics can help you spot relationships between the values you measure — even if the relationships aren’t obvious. They also allow you to identify small variations in your process that can lead to big problems if you don’t correct them.
Although statistics can seem daunting, you can use many simple tools to greatly improve your quality — tools that don’t require an advanced degree in statistics! Chapter 9 has all the information you need to evaluate your quality process with simple statistical tools.
Although much of statistics allows you to look back only at what has happened in the past, Statistical Process Control (SPC) allows you to identify problems before they can negatively impact the quality of your product or service. The basic idea behind SPC is that if you can spot a change in a process before it gets to the point of making bad products, you can fix the process before bad products hit the shelves. We cover SPC in Chapter 10.
Trimming Down with Lean Processes
Lean processes are the latest diet craze in the world of quality control! Lean is a quality control technique you can use to identify and eliminate the flab in your company’s processes. The “flab” is all the dead weight carried by a process without adding any value. The customer doesn’t want to pay for dead weight, so why should you?
Most company processes are wasteful in terms of time and materials, which often results in poorer quality to the customer — a concern for all businesses. Lean focuses on customer satisfaction and cost reduction. Proponents of the technique believe that every step in a process is an opportunity to make a mistake — to create a quality problem, in other words. The fewer steps you have in a process, the fewer chances for error you create and the better the quality in your final product or service.
You can apply the Lean techniques in the following sections to all types of processes and in environments ranging from offices, to hospitals, to factories. In most cases, applying Lean concepts doesn’t require an increase in capital costs — it simply reassigns people to more productive purposes. And, oh yes, Lean processes are much cheaper to operate. For a greater overview of Lean processes, check out Chapter 11.
Value Stream Mapping
People think in images, not in words, so giving them a picture of how something is done is often better than telling them about a process. After all, the quote is “Show me the money!” not “Tell me about the money!”
Value Stream Mapping(see Chapter 12) visually describes a production process in order to help workers locate waste within it. Waste is any activity that doesn’t add value for the customer. Typically, eliminating waste involves reducing the amount of inventory sitting around and shortening the time it takes to deliver a product or service to the customer upon its order.
The 5S method
Work areas evolve along with the processes they support. As your organization implements new actions and tools, you must find a place for them “somewhere.” Over time, clutter can slowly build as piles of excess materials or tools grow and gradually gum up the smooth flow of work.
The 5S method is an essential tool for any quality initiative that seeks to clear up the flow of work. Five Ss describe five Japanese attributes required for a clean workplace:
Seiri (organization)
Seiton (neatness)
Seiso (cleaning)
Seiketsu (standardization)
Shitsuke (discipline)
Removing all the clutter from a process eliminates hidden inventories, frees floor space for productive use, improves the flow of materials through the workplace, reduces walk time, and shakes out unnecessary items for reuse elsewhere or landfill designation. Head to Chapter 13 for details about 5S.
Rapid Improvement Events
No one knows a process like the workers who touch it every day. They know how the work should flow, they can identify obstacles that slow everyone down, and they deal with problems that never seem to go away. So, why not tap this source of institutional knowledge and turn it loose to fix the problems that vex workers day in and day out?
A Rapid Improvement Event (RIE), which we discuss in Chapter 14, is an intensive process-improvement activity, where over a few days a company’s workers bone up on Lean techniques and rebuild their processes to incorporate its principles. The workers take apart their work areas, rearrange items, and reassemble the spaces for more efficient work. The improvements are immediate, and the workers have ownership of the process and feel motivated to further refine it.
Lean Materials and Kanban
A company’s materials are essential for the organization to work well, but they also tie up a large part of a company’s capital. And while the company does its business year in and year out, its materials are stolen, damaged, rotting, corroding, and losing value in many other ways.
A key part of the Lean approach is to minimize the amount of materials (both incoming and finished goods) you have sitting around in your facility. (What do you know? This minimization is called Lean Materials.) Excess materials hide problems with purchasing, work scheduling, scrap rates, and so on. Eliminating these excess materials provides an immediate financial benefit to your company — if you eliminate correctly.
You don’t want to eliminate so thoroughly that you cause shortages. One method you can use to fix the problem of excess materials without causing shortages is Kanban. Kanban is a materials system controlled by the customer. When a consumer buys an item, action cascades back up the production line to make one more of that item.
Turn to Chapter 15 for more information about Lean Materials and Kanban.
Checking Out Additional Quality Control Techniques
Okay, so Lean is interesting (see the previous section), but what other quality control techniques are available? Other quality methodologies have recently come into fashion, and we cover a few big ones in the following sections. They borrow from previous quality schools but provide their own twists that make it easier to accommodate different environments.
Total Quality Management
Total Quality Management (TQM), which we cover in Chapter 16, combines the work of important quality leaders, such as W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran, and Phillip Crosby, into a single quality improvement approach. You use TQM to improve the performance of processes by controlling variation — especially if your organization’s products don’t change frequently. TQM is very flexible and suitable to all types of organizations. It promotes a “quality culture,” where a company trains everyone to focus on continuously improving the quality of everything the organization does. The concept includes the publication of a “quality strategy,” whose application workers discuss at every meeting. It also requires the creation and use of quality measurement and monitoring tools.
Six Sigma
Six Sigma (see Chapter 17) is a great tool for driving difficult process problems back to their root causes. It uses process-analysis techniques and a broad application of statistics to determine the process inputs that cause the undesired outputs. Minimizing the variation of inputs produces a more consistent product or service.
Six Sigma is designed to provide “breakthrough” results, whereas the results from Lean improvements are bit by bit. Six Sigma is the best tool for fixing stubborn, it’s-always-been-this-way problems. However, it isn’t the right tool for every difficult situation. Six Sigma techniques take time to work their magic. You should apply it only after other quality techniques, such as Lean, have removed the waste and clutter from your process.
Quality Function Deployment
Quality, as we note in the earlier section “A customer-based definition of quality,” is how well a product’s or service’s characteristics fulfill customer needs and wants. Quality Function Deployment (QFD), which we cover in Chapter 18, is a disciplined approach to identifying customer needs and wants and translating them into product or service characteristics. Its technique is easy to understand but time consuming to implement.
Many businesses like the structured way that QFD breaks down customer requirements into various components. When complete, QFD assembles the information into a busy matrix called the House of Quality.
QFD’s power is in improving cross-functional communication and decision-making within an organization. It focuses all workers on the true requirements of the customer and minimizes misinterpretation of customer needs.
The Theory of Constraints
Every company has goals it wants to achieve, usually tied directly to revenue. Company goals are the result of a chain of activities or processes. However, each chain has a weak link that limits how much it can produce — a limitation known as its constraint. The pace at which a chain produces is its drum (or drumbeat). In order to achieve company goals, you need to increase your drumbeat in order to increase overall process throughput.
The Theory of Constraints (see Chapter 19 for details) is a comprehensive technique for identifying and managing an organization’s constraints for obtaining maximum throughput. In short, with this concept, you find the constraint, focus it on maximum throughout by eliminating its distractions, and only then, if required, expand it by hiring more workers or putting in more machinery. In many cases, a company’s own policies and metrics are its worst enemies (even though they’re so cheap to fix).
Chapter 2
Understanding the Importance of Quality Standards
In This Chapter
Securing the right level of “quality”
Discovering how quality standards work
Checking out the roles of quality standards in commerce
Proving to the world that you run a quality organization
Imagine trying to build a house with pieces of lumber that measure at different sizes, depending on where you buy them, or working on a car made with bolts that vary by manufacturer. Without quality standards, these tasks are much harder than they need to be. Quality standards ensure that the wood you purchase is the same no matter what lumberyard you buy it from. Standards also make it possible to buy one set of wrenches to work on all your cars. In a general sense, quality standards make it possible for companies across the globe to trade with each other. You should have confidence that the products you buy will mesh with the products you build.
In this chapter, you discover how quality standards make the modern world of global trade possible. You find out what level of quality is right for your company. You set the quality standards that will govern your production. You examine the role of quality in the global marketplace. Finally, you find out how ISO certification enters the quality picture.
Getting the Quality Just Right
As a child, you probably heard the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Just as Goldilocks wants the soup, the chair, and the bed to be “just right,” your customers want something that fits their needs.
You measure quality by how well a product or service conforms to the customer’s desired specifications. (Chapter 6 has details on detecting the voice of the customer in quality issues.) Quality isn’t a statement of the value of a product. Although one bear’s soup is too hot for Goldilocks, and one bear’s soup is too cold, the food is all high-quality soup for the intended diners. Goldilocks finds the teeny, tiny bear’s soup to be “just right” because she happens to share the same taste in soup as that bear, not because that bear’s soup is any “better” than the others.
In the following sections, we explain the costs of not meeting your customers’ expectations (and why exceeding them can sometimes be bad).
Falling short: The cost of offering too little
The idea that insufficient value is bad is easy for everyone to understand. If I ask for a ladder that holds 300 pounds (I’m a big guy!), and the ladder you sell me holds only 250 pounds, I’m going to have a problem with the quality of your ladder. I will incur a cost (a medical cost!) that you created because you sold me, in my opinion, a ladder of poor quality.
The impact of providing too little quality is such an important concept in the field of quality control that it has a formal name: cost of poor quality, or COPQ. COPQ consists of all the costs that result from producing a poor-quality product or service. This expense consists of the costs of
Improving the actual product or service to fill the gap between what the customer wants and what you currently offer
Materials you added to the product or work you put into the service before the customer rejected it
Lost labor and resources you need to fix the poor-quality product
Potential lost market share (you may lose orders to competitors that offer better quality)
Getting rid of the poor-quality product rejected by a customer (because you can’t resell it)
COPQ doesn’t include any costs associated with attempting to detect or prevent the lack of quality.
Calculating COPQ for your organization helps you determine the potential savings you can gain by putting quality process improvements into practice (see Chapter 3 for more on assuring quality). How do you calculate COPQ? Just follow these steps:
1.Identify all activities that are necessary only because of poor quality.
Conduct a brainstorming session with people familiar with the process to identify all tasks that workers perform solely to fix quality problems. This could include processes such as inspection, rework, repair, and returns.
2.Determine where in the production process these activities occur.
In other words, you look at which production steps cause the quality problems.
3.To calculate the total cost of poor quality, identify the percentage of effort that each corrective activity consumes in its part of the production process; multiplyby the total costs in that area.
For example, if workers perform 10 percent of the effort in a production area solely to fix quality problems, 10 percent of the entire cost of that production step is the cost of poor quality for that area.
4.Sum the cost of poor quality for each area to get the total for your organization.
Sadly, the COPQ for most companies ranges from 15 to 25 percent. Reducing this value can increase the quality you provide to your customers.
Overshooting: Providing too much
Can exceeding the customer’s requirements in some attribute of a product ever be bad? For example, if a customer wants a ladder that supports 250 pounds, and you sell him one that holds 300 pounds, have you done any harm?
If all a customer cares about is how much the ladder can hold, the fact that it holds more probably doesn’t matter. But the material and engineering that went into adding 50 pounds to the holding capacity of the ladder likely added cost to the product. So, at the very least, the customer can find a ladder from another company that meets his needs and costs less. The customer also may have unspoken requirements, such as the weight of the ladder; a more heavy-duty ladder probably weighs more than the ladder the customer really wants.
Exceeding the customer’s requirements for other types of items may also cause problems later in the production chain for products that use your parts. The production process is configured to work with the product exactly as specified; what you think are “improvements” may simply get in the way when your product becomes part of the final result that you deliver to the customer.
Doing more than the customer asks for is rarely a good thing, and it almost always adds unnecessary cost to the product. The key to maintaining quality is to make sure you know exactly what the customer wants and deliver it — nothing more, nothing less. Conduct market research often to ensure that you include features that are considered industry standards in your products or services.
Setting Quality Standards as the Rules of the Road
Quality standards are to producing a product or service what traffic laws are to driving. Imagine driving across a country where every state or town has its own traffic laws. Stop signs could be red in one town and yellow in another. Some country folk may drive on the right, and some city folk may drive on the left. Without a commonly understood set of rules, driving would be difficult, if not impossible.
You can say the same about the products you make or the services you provide; what you produce needs to conform to standards and interact with other products to function properly. Standards are critical for most products and services in use today.
Following quality standards is to everyone’s benefit. Quality standards promote customer confidence in your products or services and can encourage the growth of the entire market. Because almost all products people can buy today contain parts or materials purchased from outside suppliers, a customer can get stuck with a poor-quality product if one supplier fails to follow quality standards.
In the following sections, we define quality standards, show you how to create them, and give you a sampling of different organizations that oversee them.
Defining quality standards
Quality standards provide a common language and measurement system for describing the quality attributes of the products or services you sell. The term standards describes things such as specifications, metrics, or statements about a process. Quality standards are designed to help you document what you’re making or doing (specifications) so you can prove you followed and made exactly what you said you would.
For our discussion about quality standards, we focus on quality management standards. Quality management standards deal with the training, quality assessment, and quality management needs of the organization. These standards are designed to ensure that your process is capable of creating a quality product or service.
One example of a quality standard is ISO 9000, which describes the requirements for quality assurance and quality management. (Quality assurance involves examining how you do things so you can prevent flaws in your products and services; see Chapter 3 for details.) ISO 9000 is an international standard that helps organizations effectively document the processes they need to maintain complete quality systems. The standards aren’t industry specific; they’re designed to fit any process that creates a product or service. Check out “Securing ISO Certification,” later in this chapter, for more about ISO 9000.
Creating quality standards
Quality standards, for the most part, are voluntary standards set by organizations that represent a particular industry. (See the following section for a sampling of quality governing bodies.) Although the quality standards may technically be voluntary, your customers may require that your business prove that it follows the quality standards before they buy from you. Most countries have a national standards body that sets the rules by which standards are created and maintained.
Most standards result from the collaborative effort of all the stakeholders in a production process. As a standard develops, the people who outline the standard consider the customer and the needs of the market. This collaboration increases the chances that consumers will accept products conforming to the standard, but it still allows room for innovators to differentiate their products or services.
Most formal standards start out as informal ones, created when an organization develops a new product, service, or process to which no existing standard applies. The market leader establishes a defacto standard — one that the market recognizes as a standard but that isn’t officially spelled out. As the new product, service, or process becomes more popular, the need for a new or amended formal standard becomes evident. The creation of a formal standard usually follows these steps:
1.Someone submits a proposal for a new standard (after you conduct research to find the appropriate standards body).
2.The standards body accepts the proposal.
3.The body drafts a proposed standard.
4.The body publishes the draft and solicits public comment.
5.The final standard is published.
6.The standards body reviews the standard on a periodic basis.
Most organizations refer to this process as an openstandards process because it gives anyone who has a stake in the outcome of the standard creation an opportunity to make comments and suggestions.
Surveying quality governing bodies
A number of organizations develop quality standards; we list some examples in the following sections. These and numerous other organizations work in almost any industry or profession you can think of to develop and implement quality standards that make sense for the producer and the consumer.
Check with industry trade groups that serve the business you’re in to find out which quality organization(s) apply to you. A search engine on the Internet is also a good source of information on quality standards organizations.
The International Organization for Standardization
If you’ve heard or read anything about quality certification, you’ve seen the TLA (three-letter acronym) ISO (the study of quality is full of TLAs). The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is made up of the standards organizations of approximately 150 countries. They work together to develop standards to facilitate international trade. The ISO is the 800-pound gorilla in the field of quality standards.
ISO’s quality standards fall under the heading ISO 9000. These standards are, by far, the most widely recognized and followed. Although the majority of the standards that ISO produces are very specific to particular industries, products, processes, or materials, the ISO 9000 group of standards is known as generic management system standards.
In this case, generic means that the standards can apply to any
Product or service
Size of organization
Type of industry
Type of organization (corporate, government, or nonprofit)
Management system means that the standards focus on the processes companies use to create the products or services (quality assurance — see Chapter 3), as well as on how these processes satisfy the customers’ requirements (quality control).
These quality standards are grouped under the designation ISO 9000:2000. The 2000 refers to the year of the standards’ last update.
The ISO 9000 standards have become the most widely known and implemented quality standards ever developed, used by over 750,000 organizations. We discuss the requirements that make up ISO 9000 later in the chapter. You also can check out www.iso.org for more information.
The American National Standards Institute
The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is a private, nonprofit organization that governs and oversees the voluntary standardization and conformity- assessment system that covers industries of all types in the United States. ANSI originally began as the American Engineering Standards Committee (AESC) in 1918, and its goal was to serve as the national coordinator in the standards development process; as an impartial party, the organization intended to approve national consensus standards and to stop user confusion on acceptability. Today, ANSI is also a founder and the sole U.S. representative of ISO (see the preceding section), and it plays a major role in the workings of that organization for setting international standards. Visit www.ansi.org for more information.
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), pronounced JAY-co, evaluates and provides accreditation for hospitals and other healthcare organizations in the United States. As an independent, nonprofit organization, JCAHO focuses on improving the quality and safety of the care that healthcare organizations provide. Its accreditation process evaluates compliance with JCAHO standards. Visit www.jointcommission.org for more information.
Recognizing the Roles of Quality Standards in Commerce
Quality standards play a critical role in commerce. In the following sections, we explain how quality standards indicate customer needs, trim costs, and ensure safety.
Standardizing ISO’s name
According to ISO’s Web site at www.iso.org, the full name of ISO is International Organization for Standardization, which should be the acronym IOS in English. Because the organization has members from many countries, the abbreviation for the name is different in different languages (IOS in English, OIN in French for Organisation internationale de normalisation). To avoid confusion, members of ISO decided to use a name derived from the Greek isos, which means “equal.” Using ISO as the standard short form of the organization’s name makes the acronym the same in any language or country.
Communicating customers’ requirements
Quality standards communicate to the seller of a product exactly what the buyer requires. They document what’s important to the customer and clearly define what the producer needs to deliver to the customers. Standards provide a common language to reduce problems and misunderstandings as a product moves from raw materials to the consumer.
Well-defined quality specifications tell the producer how “well” to build something. Although a Toyota buyer may appreciate the extra human effort that goes into a Rolls-Royce, she definitely doesn’t want to pay for that extra effort. (See the nearby sidebar for more about Rolls-Royce and Toyota.)
Cutting costs
Quality standards allow companies to focus on their roles in the production process instead of spending valuable time and resources inspecting incoming materials and parts. Imagine the cost involved in inspecting every part or material that a vendor sends you. Multiply that over the entire production process, and you can see how individual inspections don’t give companies an efficient way to ensure quality. (For information on how to make sure your suppliers are up to standard, see Chapter 3; for details on the role of inspection in quality control, see Chapter 4.)
Ensuring safety
Quality standards play an important role in safety. In fact, most standards have their roots in providing safe products to consumers and providing safe working conditions for employees.
For example, quality standards for food and beverages help prevent illness. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) facilitates communication between the public and private sectors on creating standards that affect safety in the workplace. OSHA also works with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to develop quality standards related to consumer products.
Want another example? A main driver for the creation of standards in healthcare is the concern for patient safety. Each year, JCAHO (see the earlier section “The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations”) adds new standards called “Patient Safety Goals,” which focus on different areas of patient safety. For 2006, the new standards focus on areas such as assisted living, behavioral healthcare, critical access hospitals, and laboratories.
Man versus machine: Choosing alternative production methods
Rolls-Royce and Toyota are both known for the high quality of their cars, yet the processes they use to produce their products couldn’t be more different. Although both companies use machines to produce the parts that go into their cars, Rolls-Royce does much of the assembly by hand, relying on human touch to make sure everything fits just right. Toyota relies on automation to meet its goal of consistent quality from car to car.
Following quality standards doesn’t mean that you have to do everything the same way as everyone else; it simply means that your customers get what they expect when they buy your product or service.
