Quality Control for Dummies

Larry Webber, Michael Wallace

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781118051030
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Operations
• Index: Business

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!

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 the...