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1 Introduction
Business success requires the increasing value of the products and services provided by manufacturers. These products and services are welcomed by society when, in addition to ease of use and affordable prices, they have a high quality and reliability. In other words, guaranteeing a product for a long time will attract the consumer market.
One of the main concerns of manufacturers is how to increase the reliability of products. Therefore, efforts to use durable raw materials, the powerful production process, efficient design, and affordable prices are among the tasks performed by the area of quality management, engineering management, design engineering, and finally repair and maintenance.
The question here is: How do manufacturers guarantee a product? You may have heard that some manufacturers use fake warranties to attract consumers but, naturally, it doesnât take long for them to go bankrupt.
Determining a specific time period as a guarantee from the manufacturer to the customer requires careful and laboratory analysis of the product to model the approximate lifespan of that product and use the âaverage lifespanâ index as a guarantee criterion for the customer.
The credibility of a product lies in its guarantee, reliability, and quality. Achieving product quality improvement methods requires the use of predictive methods in the field of probability and stochastic models. In other words, the study of product reliability by quality control managers is in close connection with statistical models that are often able to model the time-to-break and hazard rate of products (Berndt et al., 2001).
1.1 Need for Quality
If we take a serious look at the history of industry and look closely at all human industries, we will honestly acknowledge how much the quality element has influenced the fate of productions and services. According to all industry claimants, it is the quality element that has played an effective and valuable role in the dynamics of manufactured products.
This suggests that the role of quality in all matters should be considered much higher and more important, because otherwise all sectors, whether producing the right product or service, will suffer a complete decline, and thus all the effort expended will be ineffective. It can be argued that quality, with its inherent characteristics, will lead to the acquisition of segments in a desirable and acceptable way, creating added value and increasing productivity and profitability. Besides, the survival of any organization requires the acceptance of the qualitative characteristics of its activities because the element of quality is an integral part of the life of the organizationâs workforces (Chittenden et al., 1998).
With proper management of affairs, human beings can be guided in the right wdirection for a desirable and efficient production, and this will not be possible except by creating material and spiritual motivations for the employees of the organization. By accepting the above formula, you can also access the key points of market presence. Since science and technology are constantly evolving, it is impossible to ignore this issue for success.
In a word, the key to success in such a turbulent market is a deep understanding of competitors and the target market. Competitors may have fully grasped the concepts of valuation and have entered the field of production and services with extensive studies and full knowledge of market trends. They know exactly where they are in the market, who is ahead, who is in the middle of the field, and who is behind the scenes (Al-Assaf and Schmele, 1993).
They often thoroughly study about what customers expect from the product and what the craftsmen and managers will do in the future, as well as they know the region where the customers have more demands. How can they creatively and wisely satisfy customers in addition to reducing rising costs? How can they deal effectively with their industrial competitors in addition to this satisfaction?
Undoubtedly, the most practical answer is to maintain quality at all stages of industrial and service activities. Whenever the issue of quality and its promotion is taken into account by all personnel, especially managing directors, it is to be hoped that the unlocked locks of the major sectors in the competitive market will be opened.
Market capture depends on a systematic and strong view of the element of quality in all its dimensions. Entering the slightest flaw in the coherence of this attitude will lead to another path for industry managers, which will be the result of gradual destruction and loss of market and customers. This is a warning to managers who view the element of quality and reliability as trivial and insignificant.
1.2 Quality Management
Quality management is a guarantee for the sustainability of products and services produced by factories and is one of the effective parts of the success of businesses. Although its background dates back to the beginning of history, the new concept of quality is rapidly developed in the 20th century. According to one of the concerns, quality management means monitoring the process of manufacturing and product production to ensure that the product matches what the designer or customer desires. This monitoring includes everything from receiving and ordering raw materials to after-sales services. Thus, it covers a wide range of activities.
One of the activities related to quality management is quality assurance and quality control (Faghih and Nobari, 2004). Quality management consists of four main areas: quality planning, quality assurance, quality control, and quality improvement. Today, quality management plays a key role not only in the field of production but also in improving organizational behavior.
What is needed for growth in the field of quality management and providing quality products and services is a strong ability to study the quality of products and prevent an increase in the rate of defective products (Ghahramani, 2003).
1.2.1 Quality Management Parameters
The ability to manage quality in different persons may be influenced by many factors. But what makes a significant difference in profitability, reducing defective products, increasing customer satisfaction, and business development is the use of the most efficient method of evaluating the production process from raw material to end-user satisfaction level (Kimberly and Minvielle, 2000).
Different criteria and constructions are used to measure and evaluate the performance of each organization. Some of the indicators that are more common than other performance appraisal criteria are as follows:
Effectiveness has a general meaning. Simply put, effectiveness can be called âdoing the right thingâ. Many scientists define the effectiveness as the understanding and achieving goals by the organization, and it is said that other concepts such as flexibility, acquisition, growth of resources, and improvement of human resources have been proposed for it.
In other words, effectiveness reflects how much effort has been put into achieving the desired results. In management literature, effectiveness is doing the right thing and efficiency is the right doing of things. The concept of effectiveness lies in the concept of efficiency. Efficiency and effectiveness are quantitative and qualitative measures, respectively.
Efficiency means the least time to do the most work with available resources. The growth of efficiency level is directly in the hands of managers. Increasing efficiency enhances productivity and helps achieve organizational goals. The term âefficiencyâ has a more limited meaning and is used in connection with activities within the organization. In other words, trying to be efficient means: What do we do for each input unit to get a more useful output?
Organizational efficiency is a criterion of valid resources that are used to produce a unit of a product and can be calculated as a ratio of consumption to the product. If an organization can achieve a specific goal by spending fewer resources than another organization, it is said to be more efficient. In other words, efficiency is the ratio of the amount of work done to the amount of work that shall be done.
Innovation is manifested creativity which has been reached the stage of action. In other words, innovation is the realization of a creative idea or the introduction of a new product or service to the market. Innovation is the use of mental abilities to create a new thought or idea.
Flexibility or resiliency is generally the ability of an organization to understand environmental change and then respond quickly and efficiently to that change. This environmental change can be a technological change and in conformity with the customerâs needs. The term âflexibilityâ describes the speed and power of response when confronted with internal and external events in an organization.
Quality: Although the standard quality is complex and multiple, throughout the history of the emergence of this branch of science, experts have defined quality from different perspectives. According to Harvey and Green (1993), quality has both objective and subjective aspects. The objectivity of an object is the reality that created the object, and the mindset about an object is the desirability or value of its physical properties. These two concepts are closely related. Other definitions of quality are as follows:
The degree of conformity of the product produced on the needs of customers (Juran, 2004);
The quality is consistent with the needs that are expressed over design properties (Reeves and Bednar, 1994);
Quality has a changeability aspect and can be applied according to customer needs (Abbott, 1956).
1.3 Quality Determinants
Quality management can be widely used in various sciences, including engineering, medicine, chemistry, botany, and so on. In particular, manufacturers often expect quality control experts to provide them with information about system performance (i.e., the maximum remaining time of system life) and the reliability of the products. In fact, in industrial and engineering fields, there are generally several concerns that can be responded by applying relevant statistical methods like survival and reliability analysis. Here are eight of the manufacturersâ concerns for product quality management and control:
Performance: Is the product capable of working well?
Potential customers usually evaluate a product in terms of different functions and how each of these functions works. For example, a software can be evaluated to find out what it is capable of doing. By performing this evaluation, it may be determined that the software in question is far superior to other similar software in terms of processing speed.
As another example, consider an electronic piece inside a computer. A closer look at a collection of different types of this part may reveal that some parts that are cheaper have a longer lifespan. This analysis will not only increase knowledge of how to produce long-lasting parts but also prevent additional costs.
It should be noted that quality management does not solely mean spending a lot of money to increase the quality of that product. Sometimes it is possible to increase the quality several times by even changing the weather conditions of the factory (like cooling devices).
But really, how can we recognize the parameters affecting product quality? How can we carefully examine the lifespan of products that may last for decades? In order to examine the lifetime of products, should we wait for decades to see the productâs failure?
Reliability: How often does the product spoil?
Complex products, such as most home appliances, cars, or airplanes, will need to be repaired during their lifetime. For example, one would expect a car needs to be repaired at times, but if it needs to be repaired continuously, then we can say that the car is unreliable. In the automotive industry, the customerâs view of quality is significantly influenced by such dimensions.
Durability: How long does the product last?
Durability is the useful lifespan of a product. Obviously, consumers want products that perform satisfactorily over a relatively long period of time. For example, the automotive and home appliance industries are among the industries in which this quality dimension is considered important for most of its customers.
Repair capability: How easy is the repair of the product?
In the industry, customers attach great importance to the speed and cost of repairing their appliances. Examples include the automotive and home appliance industries.
Beauty: What does the product look like?
This dimension describes the quality of the productâs appearance, taking into account factors such as shape, color, model, packaging method, tactile characteristics, and other similar properties. For example, beverage companies can be exemplified because beauty plays an important role in competing in the global market.
Features: What does the product do?
Customers often consider products that have different characteristics and are superior to competitorsâ products in this regard to be quality products. For example, a spreadsheet software package that has the ability to perform statistical analysis may be preferred over similar software that does not have this feature.
Perceived quality: What is the reputation of the product or company?
In most cases, a customer buys a...
