Managing and Improving Quality

Amar Sahay

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781631573415
• eBook ISBN: 9781631573422
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Operations
• Index: Business

Quality is a discipline that focuses on product and service excellence. This book is about improving the quality of products and services. The improved quality and reliability lead to higher perceived value and increased market share for a company, thereby increasing revenue and profitability. The book discusses the concepts and dimensions of quality, costs of poor quality, the importance of quality in this highly competitive global economy, and quality programs-Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma that focus on improving quality in industries. The text integrates quality concepts, statistical methods, and one of the major tools of quality-Statistical Process Control (SPC)-a major part of Six Sigma control phase. A significant part of the book is devoted to process control and the tools of SPC-control charts-used for monitoring, controlling, and improving the processes by identifying the causes of process variation. The fundamentals of control charts, along with SPC techniques for variables and attributes, and process capability analysis and their computer applications are discussed in detail. This book fills a gap in this area by showing the readers comprehensive and step-wise solutions to model and solve quality problems using computers.

Chapter 1

Introduction to Quality

Quality as a Field

This chapter provides an overview of the field of quality, the importance of quality in today’s competitive global economy, and statistical process control. The chapter explores these topics and shows how various statistical tools can be used in improving the quality of the products and services.

Quality is a discipline that focuses on product and service excellence. Both manufacturing and service companies have quality programs. Quality is closely related to the variation in both products and processes, and statistics is the tool that allows us to study variation. Most of the quality programs are data driven and almost all data show variation that can be studied using statistics. One of the major objectives of the quality programs is to reduce the variation in the product and process to the extent that the likelihood of producing a defect is virtually nonexistent. This means improving quality and meeting or exceeding customer’s expectations. The improved quality and reliability in products and services lead to higher perceived value and increased market share, thereby, increasing revenue and profitability.

Before discussing various statistical tools and methods that are used to monitor and improve the quality of products and services, we explain the term quality and outline many different ways quality has been defined. Some of the definitions of quality are presented here.

Quality Defined

Quality means different things to different people. Therefore, quality can be defined from several different perspectives. From the perspective of the customer or the end user of the product or service, the quality of a product or service is the customer’s perception of the degree to which the product or service meets his or her expectations. This also means that the quality of a product or service can be determined by the extent to which the product or service satisfies the needs and requirements of the customers. This definition is a customer-driven quality approach that aims at meeting or exceeding customer expectations.

Quality has also been defined from several other perspectives. For example, quality may have a different meaning to the engineer who designs the product, or to the manufacturer involved in the production of a product. Thus quality can be defined from the perspective of the manufacturer or the designer. Quality has a transcendental definition and can also be product based, user based, manufacturing based, and value based (Garvin). Following are some of the other ways quality has been defined:

• Transcendent: Quality is something that is intuitively understood but nearly impossible to communicate, such as beauty or love.
• Product-based: Quality is found in the components and attributes of a product.
• User-based: If the product or service meets or exceeds customer’s expectations, it has good quality.
• Manufacturing-based: If the product conforms to design specifications, it has good quality.
• Value-based: If the product is perceived as providing good value for the price, it has good quality.

Quality has also been defined as:

• Meeting or exceeding customer expectation
• Fitness for intended use
• Conformance to specifications
• Inversely proportional to variation
• Total customer service and satisfaction
• The degree or standard of excellence of something

These definitions of quality show that although we can define quality from many different perspectives, the final judge of the product or service quality is the customer, and therefore, quality is the customer’s perception of the degree to which the product or service meets his or her expectations.

Dimensions of Quality

The dimensions of quality specify the characteristics the product or service should possess in order to be high quality. Garvin has identified eight dimensions of quality described here. These dimensions describe the product quality that is critical to developing high quality products or services. The recognition of these dimensions by the management and the selection of these dimensions along which the business will compete is critical to business success.

1. Performance: Will the product do the job?
2. Features or added features: Does it have features beyond the basic performance characteristics?
3. Reliability: Is it reliable? Will it last a long time?
4. Conformance: Does the product conform to the specifications? Is the product made exactly as the design specified?
5. Serviceability: Can it be fixed easily and cost effectively?
6. Durability: Can the product tolerate stress without failure?
7. Aesthetics: Does it have sensory characteristics such as taste, feel, sound, look, and smell?
8. Perceived quality: What is the customer’s opinion about the product or service? How customers perceive the quality of the product or service?

Importance of Quality

There is a close relationship between quality, profitability, and market share. Quality is achieved through cust...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Abstract
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1: Introduction to Quality
• Chapter 2: Quality Programs in Use Today: Lean Six Sigma and Total Quality Management (TQM)
• Chapter 3: Statistical Methods Used in Quality
• Chapter 4: Making Inferences About Process Quality
• Chapter 5: Process Variation—How It Affects Product Quality
• Chapter 6: Control Charts: Fundamentals and Concepts
• Chapter 7: Control Charts for Variables
• Chapter 8: Control Charts for Attributes
• Chapter 9: Process Capability Analysis
• Chapter 10: Summary, Applications, and Computer Implementation
• Appendix A: Standard Normal Distribution Table
• Appendix B: Partial t-Distribution Table
• Appendix C: Table of Control Chart Constants
• Bibliography
• Index
• Adpage
• Backcover