The document discusses the importance of design in achieving quality. It states that poor design practices are more commonly known than good practices and problems with design can negatively impact operations, costs, quality, and customer satisfaction. Good design focuses on both outputs and processes. Quality begins with the initial design activities, with an iterative cycle of design, performance, defect discovery, data analysis, and process improvement leading to continuous quality improvement toward an ideal of perfectly designed outputs and processes.

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Design: The 1st Step to Quality

2. Design of Outputs
 A chronic weakness among many companies
is under-management of design and
management.
 Even though design is one of the basic
management functions, we probably know
more about poor design practices than we do
about good ones.
 Problems in design, in turn, ripple into
operations.
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3. Design of Outputs (Cont…
 Quality suffers, processing delays and cost
mount.
 Customers may look elsewhere for better
service, perhaps provided by a competitor that
is mastering the art of designing to meet
multiple customer needs.
 Design has two main targets:
 The outputs (goods and services that customers
want), and
 The processes that provide them.
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4. Quality Action Cycle (Cont…
 Design is the first step to quality in another,
more specific manner: The quality of output
goods and services – and the processes that
provide them – begins during the initial design
activities.
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5. Quality Action Cycle (Cont…
 The diagram shows how an iterative action cycle of design,
discovery, and improvement provides quality (applicable to
products, services, and processes).
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1. Design
Quality in
2. Perform
self-inspection
and correction
3, Find defects
-In next process
-In next company
-By final
consumer
4. Collect and
analyse
process data
5. Carry out
process
improvement
projects

6. Conclusion
 In practice, the five phases of the quality action
cycle overlap, and sometimes, we’re even able
to eliminate parts of the third (discovery)
phase.
 The ideal way to attain quality is to have a
perfectly designed outputs that are created
without defect or variation by perfectly
functioning processes.
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7. Conclusion (Cont…
 When perfection fails to materialise, the next
best thing is to discover problems as soon as
possible and work quickly to develop remedies
for the underlying causes of those problems
before any “bad output” finds its way
downstream to customers.
 Continuous improvement toward the ideal is
the hallmark of total quality management.
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8. References
 Operations Management: Customer
Focused Principles, Richard J.
Schonberger and Edward M. Knod, Jr.
(1997). 6th Ed. Boston, Massachusetts:
Irvin McGraw-Hill.
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Contact Details
Conrad Sebego-Principal Associate
Email: conrad_sebego@yahoo.ca
Mobile: +27(0)82 468-5060
Fax: +27(0)86 613-8318
Address: 13 Baobab Street, Noordwyk, Midrand, 1687
Website: http://www.c-and-n-inventions.com