The Compiled Presentation,QC

Quality Circles
A tool for Total Quality Management

Total Quality Management
Total – “Made up of whole”
Management – ‘An art of planning, organizing, directing and controlling the assigned activities that takes place to accomplish objectives.’According to F.W. Taylor (Father of scientific Management), ‘Knowing exactly what you want men to do and seeing that they do it in the best and cheapest way.’
Quality - “Quality is an attribute of a product or service that fulfills or exceeds the human expectations. These expectations are based on the intended use and selling / service price. “According to definition of ISO 8402, “ Totality of characteristics of an entity that bears on its ability to satisfy stated and implied needs.”

Quality Gurus Speak On Quality

Techniques Employed for TQM

WHY Quality Circles
Quality Circle is one of the employee participation methods.
It creates conditions and environment of work that stimulates commitment towards excellence.
Quality Circles utilize the potential of people for improvement in quality.

Genesis of Quality Circles
Before the World War II, quality control pioneers existed in Japanese companies such as Toshiba.
In 1949, after the war the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) was established to educate people about Quality Circle.
On July 10, 1950, W.Edwards Deming started an eight day seminar on the theory of statistical Quality Control.
Deming discussed how to make control charts and how to sample and inspect products.
From this solid foundations, the Japanese established quality control departments in their companies.
They found that some aspects had to be altered to fit the Japanese workplace.
One of these alterations resulted in the formation of “QUALITY CIRCLE”.
Pioneers like, K. Ishikawa, Juran were the basis for creating quality circles.
They used such statistical quality control techniques as Pareto charts, cause and effect diagrams.
The spirit of quality circle embodied in the efforts of all those pioneers who recognized the need for improvement.

Philosophy
Quality Circles are a people – building philosophy
It represents a philosophy of managing people specially those at the grass root level as well as a clearly defined mechanism and methodology for translating this philosophy into practice and a required structure to make it a way of life.
It is bound to succeed where people are respected and are involved in decisions, concerning their work life, and in environments where people’s capabilities are looked upon as assets to solve work-area problems.
The Quality Circle philosophy calls for a progressive attitude on the part of the management

Definition of Quality Circle

A small group of between three and twelve people who do the same or similar work, voluntarily meeting together regularly for about an hour per weekin paid time, usually under the Leadership of their own supervisor, and trained to identify, analyze, and solve some of the problems in their work, presenting solutions to management, and where possible, implementing the solutions themselves.'

Finer points from the Definition

A small group of three to twelve people
Voluntarily meeting together
Meeting regularly for about an hour per week
In paid time
Under the leadership of their own supervisor
To identify, analyze and solve problems in their work
Presenting solutions to management
Implementing the solutions themselves

Multi-faced objectives of QC
Change in attitude.

From “I don’t care to “I do care”
Continuous improvement in quality of work life through humanization of work

Self Development

Bring out ‘Hidden Potential’ of people
People get to learn additional skills

Development of Team Spirit

Individual v/s Team – “I could not do it, but the team did it”
Eliminate interdepartmental conflict

Improved Organizational Structure

Positive working environment
Total involvement of people at all levels
Higher motivational level

Structure of a Quality Circle

Roles and Responsibilities
The Success of the quality circle depends solely on the attitude of the topmanagement and plays an important role to ensure the success of implementation of quality circles in the organization.

Steering committee called middle management consists of chief executive heads of different divisions or a coordinator plays a positive role in quality circle’s activities for the success of the efforts.
The meetings are conveyed at least once in one or two months interval.

Coordinator, who also acts as a facilitator, is an individual responsible for coordinating and directing the quality circles activities within an organization and carries out such functions as would make the operations of quality circles smooth, effective and self-sustainable.

Facilitator acts as a catalyst, innovator, promoter and teacher and is nominated by the management. His Roles are as follows:
Communicating with all levels of management and obtaining their support;
Facilitating the training of QC leaders and members;
Maintaining an open and supportive environment;
Ensureobjectivity in the activities of QC;
As a mediator in problem solving;
As a resourceperson to the circle;
Evaluating the cost and benefits of the QC program and reporting it to the management

The leader is chosen by the members amongst themselves and is rotated on a regular basis. His role is mainly as follows:
Training members on problem solving techniques with the assistance of the facilitator as and when required;
Fostering the spirit of cooperation amongst the members;
Assisting the circle members in recordkeeping and in the preparation of management presentations;
Conductingmeeting in an orderly and effective manner;
Encouragingotherpeople to become members;
Enforcing team discipline and channelizing the efforts effectively

Members of the quality circles are a small group of people from the same work area or doing similar type of work whereas non-members are those who are not the members of the QC but providesuggestions. Members are expected to;
Attendmeetings regularly;
Direct their efforts towards solving work-related problems;
Identifyingproblems, contributing ideas, undertaking research and investigating (where necessary) and assisting the QC in problem solving;
Participating in management presentations

Launching of Quality Circle
The steps involved are:
Expose middle level executives to concept.
Explain concept to the employees and invite them to volunteer as members of Quality Circle.
Nominate senior officials as facilitators.
Form a steering committee.
Arrange training of coordinators, facilitators and members.
Fix meetings for Quality Circles to meet.
Formally inaugurate the Quality Circle.
Arrange necessary facilities for Quality circle meetings and its operations.

Training

The most important aspect of a successful Quality Circle is it’s caliber to perform as a team and identify, research and solve problems.
Appropriate training needs to be imparted for the optimum performance by the Quality Circle. Training comprises of:
Brief orientation program for top management
Program for middle level executives.
Training for facilitators.
Training for circle leaders and members.

Organizational Readiness
The readiness of the management to sanction and support Quality Circle is fundamental to it’s success. Organizational Readiness can be assessed by scrutiny of answers to the following questions:
Is the organization and management competent enough?
Is management willing to settle for long term benefits if short term ones do not materialize?
Is the management flexible and committed enough?
Is management willing to accept involvement and share power?

Action and Implementation
Assess
Recommend
Quality Circle
Clean
Report
Analyse

Process of operation

Problem Identification
identify the number of problem
Problem Analysis
clarified and analysed
Generate alternative solutions
Identify and evaluate causes and generate number of possible solutions

Select most appropriate solutions
Identify & generate causes
Generate possible alternative solutions
Prepare plan for action
convert solutions to reality
Present solution to management
Fore approval
Implement of solution
Evaluated recommended solution

How to use the concept
With the help of 3 main parts:

Identifying
Free to brainstrom
List & analyzed each problem
Analyzing
Focus on one problem
Create an appropriate solution
Involves opinion from member & researcher
Results of Analysis
Prepare to solve the problem
Explain in- how it works, what solution result should be
Results- shown to the managers & group

How QC Circle Works
Formation of QC Circle
Registration of QC circle
Recorded by Quality Control Section of plant
QC circle grand meeting of each division
Circles acknowledged for excellence participate in the grand meetings of other firms
QC circle grand meeting of each plant
Companywide QC circle grand meeting

Implementing quality circles

Quality circles require top management support
Personal characteristics of facilitators are critical
Scope of project needs to be small enough to be capably addressed by the team
Success of other teams has positive peer pressure effect

Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a group participative technique. It unlocks and discloses the untapped creative talents and resources in people.
It is a technique for gathering the greatest number of ideas, which in turn, spark enthusiasm and originality amongst the member of the QC.
Brainstorming is used when the Circle want to:
1.Identifly a problem
2.Investigate the cause
3.Find a solution

Tools
Control Chart
Scatter Diagram
Histogram
Cause & Effect diagram
Flowchart
Check-sheet
Pareto Diagram

Pareto Chart
Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) Italian economist
20% of the population has 80% of the wealth
Juran used the term “vital few, trivial many”. He noted that 20% of the quality problems caused 80% of the dollar loss.

A Pareto Chart

A Control Chart is simply a run chart with statistically determined upper (Upper Control Limit) and possible lower (Lower Control Limit) lines drawn on either side of the process average.
Control Chart
UCL
average
LCL
The UCL is three standard deviations above the average and the LCL is three standard deviations below the average.

Scatter Diagram
Purpose: When you need to display what happens to one variable when another variable changes in order to test a theory that the two variables are related. It shows possible cause and effect relationships. It cannot prove that one variable
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80
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Test Scores
30 60 90 120 150
Study Time Minutes
causes the other, but it does make it clear whether a relationship exists and the strength of that relationship. The direction and “tightness” of the cluster give a clue to the strength of the relationship between the two variables. If you find the values being repeated, circle that point as many times as appropriate.

Lower limit
Upper limit
Histogram: When you need to discover and display the distribution of data by bar graphing the number of units in each category.
HISTOGRAM
A Histogram displays the distribution of measurement data, such as scores, size, time, or temperature. This is critical since we know that all repeated events will produce results that vary over time. A Histogram reveals the amount of variation that any process has within it.
Assuming that the perfect arrival time is 8:00 and the goal is to arrive within 5 minutes of the scheduled arrival time, attention needs to be paid to the causes of the later arrival times.
60 data points (10 bus drivers logged their arrival time over 6 day period of time)

Major Cause
Major Cause
Major Cause
Major Cause
Cause & Effect Diagram (Fishbone Diagram)
This diagram representsthe relationship between some “effect” and all the possible “causes.”
The major causes might be summarized under categories referred to as People, Methods, Materials, Procedures, Machinery, Environment, and/or Policies. However, a QC may use any major category that emerges or helps people think creatively.
From this well-defined list of possible causes, the most likely are identified and selected for further analysis.
When examining each cause, look for things that have changed, deviations from the norm or patterns. For each cause, ask, Why does it happen?” and list the responses as branches off the major causes. This way, a QC looks for causes that appear repeatedly, and reach a team consensus.
EFFECT
SubCauses

Machines
Measurement
Man
Out of adjustment
Poor supervision
Faulty testing equipment
Lack of concentration
Tooling problems
Incorrect specifications
Improper methods
Old / worn
Inadequate training
Quality
Problem
Inaccurate
temperature
control
Poor process design
Defective from vendor
Ineffective quality
management
Not to specifications
Dust and Dirt
Material-
handling problems
Deficiencies
in product design
Method
Environment
Materials

Flowchart
Flowcharts are a graphical description of how work is done, and are used to describe processes that are to be improved.
Flowcharts provide excellent documentation of a program and can be useful for examining how various steps in a process are related to each other. Sometimes it is helpful to draw two flowcharts, one with the actual steps in a process and one with how the process should work. Comparing the two charts will show where there are differences and where problems generally arise.
" Draw a flowchart for whatever you do. Until you do, you do not know what you are doing,you just have a job.”
-- Dr. W. Edwards Deming.

Flowchart Symbols
Activity
Complex activity
Contribution
Decision
Group meeting
Report
The End!
Multiple reports

Checksheet
Checksheets form a systematic means of collecting and analysing data.They are special types of data collection forms,and facilitate an organised way of data presentation.
Shifts
Sample checksheet showing defect type and corresponding shift in which each occurs,and its frequency
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Defect Type
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Benefits of Quality Circles
Rise Organizational moral
Inspire more effective team work
Promote Job involvement
Create problem solving capabilities by members of QC’s themselves
Promote personal and leadership development
Improve communication within the organization
Promote cost function
Increase employee motivation

QC Allows benefits from
Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) - involvement of the workforce in process improvement.
Lean manufacture includes all of the following participative concepts -
SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Dies) and set up time reduction
5S/5C or CANDO.
Autonomation (JIDOKA) - using single part production methods and the Kanban approach.
Root Cause Analysis.
PokaYoka (mistake proofing).
Quality related Cost reduction.
Flexible Work groups.
Improved overall performance

Limitations and problems of QC
Lack of management commitment and support
Resistance by middle management
Lack of clear objectives
Unrealistic expectations for fast results
Failure to get solutions implemented
Inadequate training

QUALITY CIRCLE AT WORK

XEROX one of the most well known firms in the world has benefitted from it.
Xerox reduced waste production by 65000 tonnes annually-with the help of Quality Circles.
United Airlines –one of the largest carriers in the USA
Quality circles at UA helped tackle the issue of no-shows and sick leaves.
Result: Sick leaves were down by 17% and UA could save 18.2 million dollars

QUALITY CIRCLE AT WORK(CONTD)

BHEL-’Navratna’ PSU one of the largest PSU’s in INDIA.
BHEL’s Tiruchirapalli Plant : A large heavy engineering units manufacturing boiler’s and an entire range of equipments required for a thermal power unit.
BHEL-pioneer in implementing QC’s in INDIA. Introduced it in 1981. Introduced in 1984 at the Tiruchirapalli Plant.

Impact of Quality Circles in BHEL
• Cohesive team work and team spirit.
• Work itself is more enjoyable.
• Improvement in interpersonal and intergroup relations.
• Improvement in the quality of workmanship within the work group.
• Greater and prompter response to suggestions given.
• Attitudinal changes.
• A greater sense of belonging to the group and the organization as a whole.
• Positive approach.
• Mutual trust.

QUALITY CIRCLE AT WORK(CONTD)

The positive impact at the plant lead to the encouragement of the QC concept
10% in crease in the number of Quality Circles at BHEL

HR AND QUALITY CIRCLE
PHILOSOPHY OF QUALITY CIRCLE

The man on job more about its problem than anyone else.
Every person is inherently talented and a conducive environment brings the best out
People building is more important than people using

The above statements clearly underscore the importance of the human element.

Various motivational theories like CHRIS ARGYRIS, FEDRICRICK HERZBERG’S THEORY , DOUGLAS Mc GREGOR’S THEORY, MASLOW’S THEORY OF HIERARCHY helps us understand the various needs of people.
QC Philosophy combines the various needs brought out transforms them into actual practice
Motivation, Participation and Recognition are the three major aspects of QC.

INTANGIBLE BENEFITS OF QUALITY CIRCLE

Developing the ability of self expression
Personal Growth resulting from long-term group educational activities.
Greater self-confidence of supervisors
Member morale increase
Level of self supervision improves
Helps develop ability to work in teams and appreciate other’s point of view
Better exchange of ideas and improvement in communication
The co-operative activities of the circle cement human relations.
It facilitates the satisfaction of members self-esteem needs.
The social need of human beings for belonging to a group is satisfied through QC activities.

Thank You