Quality

9 Key excerpts on "Quality"

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  eBook - ePub

  Engineering Project Management

  • Neil G. Siegel(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  14 Achieving Quality

  Many engineering textbooks teach that what you need to focus your project management efforts upon are schedule, cost, and technical capability. In the real world, that is insufficient. Factors such as reliability, safety, low latent‐defect rates, and “environmental friendliness” increasingly play a role in product and company success. In this chapter, I teach you the basics of this aspect of your role as an engineering project manager, which we group together under the title of Quality.

  14.1 Defining the Term Quality

  In this chapter, we will discuss Quality. By the term Quality in this context, I mean:

  • Products and services that are effective and suitable (Chapter 3 ).
  • Products and services that meet the specifications and the contractual terms.
  • Products and services that are easy to use, or effective for trained users (remember the difference? Chapter 4 ), whichever is appropriate for the product or service that your project is creating.
  • Products and services that work the first time and every time – consistency.
  • The number of latent defects is at or below a defined level.
  • Products and services that are reliable and long‐lasting.
  • Products and services that are safe to use, safe to manufacture, and environmentally responsible.
  • Products and services that look and feel good (the user experience, Chapter 4 ).

  There could be other intangible factors that people consider attributes of Quality as well, and combinations of factors, such as those embodied in familiar terms such as good value and value for money.

  14.2 One Motivation for Quality: A Good Reputation

  I like to approach the motivation for achieving Quality from a personal point of view: my reputation. I want to have a good reputation.

  Good companies (and, in fact, good organizations of all types) similarly value their reputations. To some, reputation may seem an old‐fashioned sort of word, and so the term brand is sometimes used instead, especially in consumer‐oriented businesses. But it is the same concept. For example, I would suggest that The Walt Disney Company strives to be family‐oriented, and to ensure that their rides are safe

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  Quality in the Era of Industry 4.0

  Integrating Tradition and Innovation in the Age of Data and AI

  • Kai Yang(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  Standards can facilitate the achievement of a minimum level of Quality in products or services, but they do not assure superior Quality or customer satisfaction. Quality is a more comprehensive concept that encompasses not only the attributes of a product or service, but also the total experience and value it provides to the customer. While adherence to standards can serve as a valuable tool for Quality control and assurance, true Quality can only be realized by understanding and satisfying the needs and expectations of the customer. Quality professionals should be engaged in designing and establishing standards right from the inception of the product development stage. This is because addressing Quality issues early on is typically less expensive than rectifying them later. By incorporating Quality professionals during the design stage, companies can prevent Quality issues from seeping into the production phase, thereby avoiding costly rework or product recalls. Example 3.15 Agile Development and Agile Quality Assurance Agile development found its roots in concurrent engineering practices, as discussed in a 1986 Harvard Business Review article [85]. This article showcased the innovative practices and results achieved by companies like Fuji, Honda, and 3M. The practices involved empowering product development teams to make decisions about their work methods and pace, and it also encouraged more frequent team interactions—shifting from monthly to weekly meetings. These practices piqued the interest of the software industry, and in 1991, the term “Scrum” was coined. By 2001, a systematic agile development model was formally proposed, rapidly becom- ing the dominant model in the industry and extending its influence across different sectors.

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  The American Samurai

  Blending American and Japanese Managerial Practices

  • Jon P. Alston(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter

    (Publisher)

  8.2 Definitions of Quality Quality has two general definitions. The first meaning of the term is what Philip B. Crosby, former vice president of the ITT Corporation, calls con-formance to requirements. Crosby means by this phrase that a product should be built according to formally-stated specifications (Crosby, 1980:15). Quality is achieved when a product is produced the way it's supposed to be. Quality management guarantees that work will be done the way planned. In this context, Quality performance depends on good communication. Orders (re-quirements) must be clear to those who are expected to carry them out. This is a problem not always understood by those who give directions. The extent directions are understood should never taken for granted. What is clear to an engineer may not be clear (or possible) to the machinist who actually does the work. Two other points dealing with how high-Quality is achieved need to be made here. First, knowing what should be done is meaningless if workers cannot 8.2 Definitions of Quality 263 react quickly. As Philip B. Crosby (1984) emphasizes in another book, Quality Without Tears, production problems are often uncorrected until an expert arrives or after a shift shuts down. The problem of idled workers is eliminated by giving workers the permission and responsibility to make corrections. Workers are often able to make production changes to solve problems. The question is whether or not they are encouraged and trained to do so instead of expecting to wait for an expert. The second point I wish to make here is one often ignored. Management is in charge, and Quality production is the responsibility of those in charge. When Quality production is low or below specifications, the search for the origin of this problem should begin with managers and supervisors, not the workers themselves.

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  Project Management

  A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling

  • Harold Kerzner(Author)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  The balance between Quality and cost ● Produceability . The ability to produce the product with available technology and workers, and at an acceptable cost ● Social acceptability . The degree of conflict between the product or process and the values of society (i.e., safety, environment) ● Operability . The degree to which a product can be operated safely ● Availability . The probability that the product, when used under given conditions, will perform sat-isfactorily when called upon ● Reliability . The probability of the product performing without failure under given conditions and for a set period of time ● Maintainability . The ability of the product to be retained in or restored to a performance level when prescribed maintenance is performed Customer demands are now being handled using total Quality management (TQM). Total Quality man-agement is an ever-improving system for integrating various organizational elements into the design, devel-opment, and manufacturing efforts, providing cost-effective products or services that are fully acceptable to the ultimate customer. Externally, TQM is customer oriented and provides for more meaningful customer satisfaction. Internally, TQM reduces production line bottlenecks and operating costs, thus enhancing prod-uct Quality while improving organizational morale. 20.1 DEFINITION OF Quality Mature organizations readily admit that they cannot accurately define Quality. The reason is that Quality is defined by the cus-tomer. A good definition of Quality (used by Kodak in the 1980s) TABLE 20–1. CHANGING VIEWS OF Quality Past Present • Quality is the responsibility of blue-collar workers and direct labor employees working on the floor. • Quality defects should be hidden from the customers (and possibly management). • Quality problems lead to blame, faulty justification, and excuses. • Corrections-to-Quality problems should be accomplished with minimum documentation.

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  Engineering Your Future

  The Professional Practice of Engineering

  • Stuart G. Walesh(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  But is that enough? I don’t think so. We need to be more specific, particularly with respect to meeting all requirements. A CAUTION FOR ENGINEERS AND OTHER TECHNICAL PERSONNEL Frankly, some engineering students and young technical personnel may have difficulty accepting the idea of Quality as meeting, but not significantly exceeding, all of the established requirements. Almost any technical activity or project, such as field inves- tigations, laboratory tests, a planning study, and a design culminating in plans and Client/ owner/ customer wants/ needs What you provided What you provided Regulatory require- ments What you did Standard of care Quality Figure 7.2 Quality requires providing all three legs. A Caution for Engineers and Other Technical Personnel 235 specifications for a manufactured product or constructed facility, can be done better than expected. After all, technical personnel tend to be bright and usually have access to a variety of sophisticated tools and techniques. They know how to “do it better” such as creating a larger spreadsheet, using a computer program instead of performing manual calculations, or writing a report rather than a memorandum. Furthermore, a young person’s education may have encouraged him or her to go well beyond what was needed. However, in the world of practice and business, going well beyond what is needed tends to increase labor and other costs and cause delays, both of which are ultimately disruptive to budgets and profits and to relationships with clients, owners, and cus- tomers. Weigh your personal desire to produce a superior or even opulent product or service against the best interests of your employer and those individuals or organi- zations your employer serves. But you may be thinking, I want to “delight” my clients-owners-customers- stakeholders by exceeding their expectations, that is, by giving them more than they expected.

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  Fundamentals of Software Engineering

  Designed to provide an insight into the software engineering concepts

  • Hitesh Mohapatra, Hitesh Mohapatra, Amiya Kumar Rath(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • BPB Publications

    (Publisher)

  SQE ensures that the process of incorporating Quality in the software is done properly, and that the resulting software product meets the Quality requirements and is usually must be determined by analysis while functional requirements are demonstrated by testing. SQE performs a function complementary to software development engineering. Their common goal is to ensure that a safe, reliable, and Quality engineered software product is developed. Software Qualities Qualities for which an SQE evaluation is to be done must first be selected and then the requirements are set for them. Some commonly used qualities are: Reliability: Hardware reliability often defined in terms of the Mean-Time-To-Failure (MTTF), of a given set of equipment. An analogous notion is useful for software, although the failure mechanisms are different and the mathematical predictions used for hardware have not yet been usefully applied to software. Software reliability is often defined as the extent to which a program can be expected to perform intended functions with the required precision over a given period of time. Software reliability engineering is concerned with the detection and correction of errors in the software; even more, it is concerned with the techniques to compensate for unknown software errors and for problems in the hardware and data environments in which the software must operate. Maintainability: Software maintainability is defined as the ease of finding and correcting errors in the software. It is analogous to the hardware Quality of Mean-Time-To-Repair (MTTR). While there is as yet no way to directly measure or predict the software maintainability, there is a significant body of knowledge about software attributes that make software easier to maintain. These include modularity, self (internal) documentation, code readability, and structured coding techniques

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  eBook - ePub

  Project Management for IT-Related Projects

  • Bob Hughes, Roger Ireland, Brian West, Norman Smith, David I. Shepherd, Bob Hughes(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT

    (Publisher)

  (Philip B. Crosby, Quality is Free , Mentor, 1980).

  Crosby was not arguing that increasing the Quality of a product did not cost money; rather, that the costs of remedying lapses in Quality would be even greater. There is, as explained in Chapter 1 , a relationship between Quality, cost and time. The level of Quality required will have an impact on both time and cost, but the more effort goes into Quality at the beginning of a project, the less expenditure is needed on correcting faults at the end of the project.

  5.2 DEFINITIONS OF Quality

  A dictionary definition of Quality is ‘a degree or level of excellence’ , as in the phrase ‘high-Quality goods’. We hope all the products of a project are of a high Quality. But the definition is subjective: for example, when comparing cars, people do not agree on the Quality of different makes. Another definition is ‘conformance to standard’. Within a project process there will be certain standards to which those developing the system ought to conform. However, the generally accepted definition which should apply to all projects is that the deliverables should be ‘fit for purpose’. Again referring to cars, a Rolls Royce may not be the best vehicle if you need to get to work through heavily congested traffic on time: a scooter might be more effective. The original international standard on Quality, ISO 8402:1994, formally defined Quality as ‘the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service which bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs’ .

  One aspect of this ‘fit for purpose’ definition – reliability – shows how the concept applies. If the Canal Dreams ebooking enhancement fails after delivery it would be annoying but not life threatening. However, if the control systems in an aircraft in flight fail, that would be disastrous. The effort, and hence the cost, of making sure that the aircraft system does not fail would be considerably greater than that required for the Canal Dreams system. The costs of a failure in required Quality would also be higher. Hence the required Quality varies depending on the type of system under development and the money the customer is prepared to pay. Largely, it is the customer who decides the level of Quality to be built into a system. Those responsible technically for a project must advise the customer on the benefits of a well-engineered system, but finally it is the person paying who should call the tune. However, suppliers have a professional and legal commitment to the general public to ensure that the systems they produce are safe.

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  eBook - ePub

  Project Management for IT-Related Projects

  3rd edition

  • Bob Hughes, Roger Ireland, Brian West, Norman Smith, David I. Shepherd, Bob Hughes(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT

    (Publisher)

  Quality is Free , New York: Mentor, 1980)

  Crosby was not arguing that increasing the Quality of a product did not cost money; rather, that the costs of remedying lapses in Quality would be even greater. There is a relationship between Quality, cost and time. A higher level of Quality can increase the duration of a project and/or its cost. This is called the cost of conformance . But the more effort goes into Quality, the less expenditure is needed on correcting and compensating for faults at the end of the project – the cost of non-conformance . The project manager must balance the two types of cost.

  It is important to distinguish between Quality control and Quality assurance . Quality control is concerned with the practical activities that check the Quality of a deliverable or intermediate product, for example that manufactured light bulbs actually work. Assurance activities do not check product Quality directly but instead check that the required steps that establish product Quality are in place and have been carried out. This might check, for example, that process standards belonging to the activity have been followed, such as a checking process for the purity of raw materials used in a process. This could involve examining evidence such as testing plans and sign-off documents. Section 5.4 explores this in more detail.

  5.2 DEFINITIONS OF Quality

  A definition of Quality is a degree or level of excellence , as in the phrase ‘high-Quality goods’. This definition is subjective: for example, when comparing cars, people argue about the Quality of different makes.

  Another definition is conformance to standard . Within a project process there will be certain standards to which developers are expected to conform. These standards help reassure the project’s clients that they will get value for money for the project’s products. However, the generally accepted definition which should apply to all projects is that the deliverables should be ‘fit for purpose ’. Again referring to cars: if you need to get to work on time, a Rolls-Royce may not be the best vehicle to navigate through heavy traffic – a scooter might be more effective. The original international standard on Quality, ISO 8402:1994, formally defined Quality as ‘the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service which bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs

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  eBook - PDF

  Quality Strategy for Research and Development

  • Ming-Li Shiu, Jui-Chin Jiang, Mao-Hsiung Tu(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  Based on the above, when we speak of Quality, we can classify it into two types as follows (Taguchi et al., 2000): 1. Customer-Driven Quality. What the customer wants—for example, func-tion, appearance, color, and so on. The way we improve customer-driven Quality is to fulfill the customer’s expressed and latent requirements. 2. Engineered Quality. Freedom from what the customer does not want— for example, noise, vibrations, failures, pollution, and so on. The way we improve engineered Quality is to lower the variability around an ideal function caused by various sources of variability. Customer-driven Quality is related to market segmentation and product planning; a company determines the business scope through a product’s posi-tioning planning and develops the products that can meet the requirements WHAT IS Quality 3 of a customer group within this scope. After marketing and sales personnel identify the market segment and determine product features and portfolios, R&D personnel have to, according to that product planning, develop the products that can be robust against various customer usage conditions so as not to have functional variability in applications. A product has functional variability during customer use, which means that the customer has to bear a certain degree of losses (including invisible loss such as worry and bother as well as visible loss such as time and money). Therefore, the objective of enhancing engineered Quality is to reduce societal loss after products are shipped. In the historical development of Quality management, customer-driven Quality (i.e., planning and development of “functions”) is emphasized; but in the twenty-first century, engineered Quality (i.e., reduction of functional variability, optimization of “functionality”), which is closely related to lower-ing functional variability, noise, pollution, and societal loss, plays a very impor-tant role in the future development of Quality management.

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