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Quality
Quality plays a critical role in the manufacturing function, and also can be ingrained at various levels within other areas of the supply chain as well. Quality ensures that products meet internal company standards for a product which can be driven by regulatory, safety, sustainability, and customer concerns. With the right quality programs in place, the operations within an organization have standards and guidelines to steer employees toward doing their daily tasks to move the organization forward. As such, Quality serves as the last line of defense that a company has before the products and services it offers leave their four walls and are sent on for consumers to purchase.
In this chapter, we cover various aspects of manufacturing, which will include the following:
a) What are the programs required to develop a Quality Management System
b) How quality can be viewed in terms of a process through Total Quality Management
c) Process Improvement tools that can be used to implement and enhance quality programs within a company’s operations
Quality is highly culture driven, and needs to be supported from the top down in order to truly leverage the benefits of good quality management. At the highest level, Quality Management consists of the actions used to oversee the activities within an organization that are required to maintain a certain level of excellence. Quality Management can be further broken down into the following categories.
Essentially, Quality Management is the foundation upon which Quality Assurance and Quality Control can be developed. This entire system works together to embed quality standards and requirements into the organization.
Many benefits can be realized by implementing systems for Quality. Some of the most common are as follows:
a) Reduction in Liability – Quality programs can identify and help mitigate potential hazards before they actually happen, and develop an approach to responding to them if they occur.
b) Improved Safety – Not only will your products be safer for consumers, but also may be safer for your employees to produce internally with guidelines for safely executing the process.
c) Customer Loyalty – If customers know that they can harness the perceived value of your product, they are likely going to choose your offering in the future.
d) Repeat Business – If a product is proven reliable, customers may purchase multiple units to serve various purposes that they may have for them. This may also improve your market position as consumers are choosing your product over the competition.
It is also important to note that in addition to these various benefits, quality procedures may be mandated by regulatory bodies. These organizations are put in place to protect consumers by ensuring that their health and safety are maintained. They are typically public authorities or government agencies that serve in a supervisory role, and provide guidance on how certain industries should behave. Not all industries are supervised by regulatory bodies, but some of the most common in the United States, along with some of their respective regulators, are provided below:
These will vary by the level of guidance and supervision needed in the industry, with the regulatory body and policies varying by country. There are also overarching regulatory bodies that are not industry-specific. They cover guidelines across a wide spectrum including everything from pollution, nuclear safety and noise restrictions, to employee health and safety and wage protection. Accordingly, organizations are required to pay attention to the regulatory implications for their business, and put plans in place to meet any necessary standards. Such plans often fall under the realm of Quality Management.
Quality Programs
Such plans are often systematic approaches for monitoring and documenting the various tasks needed to achieve a company’s standards for quality. These are often referred to as Quality Programs, and go beyond a simple verification check before the product is sent out to customers. To understand what programs are needed to make up the Quality Management System (QMS), companies typically follow the approach below:
To put this approach into perspective, let’s look at how CTC might define their Quality Program requirements. As the traditional scissors is their only product that they have sold for over 50 years, they may take great pride in their product being consistent and reliable, with a goal to not only be present in as many consumer homes as possible, but to make the CTC name one that is recognized by future generations. This idea would be incorporated into their company strategy, and would drive the need for a quality program to maintain a sufficient standard for consumers to keep the CTC name top of mind.
Next, CTC may look at what consumers want in a scissors, which will help them make relevant products for evolving consumer demands. For a scissors, this may include the thickness that the scissors are able to cut through, or the length and shape of the blades. If length is a concern, perhaps a procedure is needed to measure the individual blades being made. With the understanding of what the customer wants, metrics then can be defined. If the desired blade length is 3.5” each, then perhaps a metric would be implemented to track the number of deviations that were over or under this length, given it is a key customer consideration. Finally, CTC would look at each individual quality precaution needed, create the individual sub-programs, and manage the larger quality system so that when issues occur, they can be mediated and resolved.
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