QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Total Quality Mgt. (5575)-2020
QUALITY MANAGEMENT
Quality: “The degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfils a need or expectation that is stated,
generally implied or obligatory.”
The word quality has many meanings:
 “A degree of excellence.”
 “Conformance with requirements.”
 “The totality of characteristics of an entity that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied
needs.”
 “Fitness for use.”
 “Fitness for purpose.”
 “Freedom from defects, imperfections or contamination.”
 “Delighting customers.”
“To comment on the quality of anything we need a measure of its characteristics and a basis for comparison.
By combining the definition of the terms quality and requirement in ISO 9000:2000, quality can be
expressed as”“the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfils a need or expectation that is
stated, generally implied or obligatory”. (Hoyle, 2004)
Quality characteristics
“Any feature or characteristic of a product or service that is needed to satisfy customer needs or achieve
fitness for use is a quality characteristic. When dealing with products the characteristics are almost always
technical characteristics, whereas service quality characteristics have a human dimension. Some typical
quality characteristics are given below.”(Hoyle, 2004)
Product characteristics
 Accessibility  Functionality  Size
 Availability  Interchangeability  Susceptibility
 Appearance  Maintainability  Storability
 Adaptability  Odour  Strength
 Cleanliness  Operability  Taste
 Consumption  Portability  Testability
 Durability  Producibility  Traceability
 Disposability  Reliability  Toxicity
 Emissivity  Reparability  Transportability
 Flammability  Safety  Vulnerability
 Flexibility  Security  Weight
Service quality characteristics
 Accessibility  Credibility  Integrity
 Accuracy  Dependability  Promptness
 Courtesy  Efficiency  Responsiveness
 Comfort  Effectiveness  Reliability
 Competence  Flexibility  Security

Quality management – “The discipline that focuses on measuring and improving product and service
performance and conformance to specifications. Quality is somewhat difficult to define. The standard
textbook definitions include fitness for use, conformance to customer requirements, and conformance to
specifications.”
Many sources begin with Garvin’s eight dimensions of product quality (Hill, 2012):
 “Performance – Measurable primary operating characteristics. Examples: Auto acceleration, TV
reception.”
 “Features – Attributes available. Examples: Free drinks on airplanes, automatic tuners on a TV. ”
 “Reliability – Probability that a product will malfunction within a given time period. Often
measured by the Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF). ”
 “Conformance – Degree to which a product meets established standards. Example: Many of the
Japanese cars imported to the U.S. in the 1970s were good in conformance but not in durability. ”
 “Durability – Measure of product life (until replacement). ”
 “Serviceability – Speed, courtesy, competence, and ease of repair. Measured by mean response
time and Mean Time to Repair (MTTR). ”
 “Aesthetics – Appeal of the product’s look, feel, sound, taste, or smell based on personal
judgment. ”
 “Perceived quality – Reputation, indirect method of comparing products. Example: Sony (San
Diego, California) and Honda (Marysville, Ohio) are reluctant to tell customers their products are
made in the U.S. ”(Hill, 2012)
The Cost of Quality is an important framework for understanding quality. This concept is summarized
briefly below. (Hill, 2012)
 “Prevention costs – Costs associated with designing products to be more robust (using design for
manufacturing tools) and with preventing process problems from occurring (through error
proofing).”
 “Appraisal costs – Costs related to inspection and testing. ”
 “Internal failure costs – Costs associated with scrap (wasted materials), rework, repair, wasted
capacity, and the opportunity cost of lost sales. ”
 “External failure costs – Costs associated with lawsuits, returns, lost customer goodwill, complaint
handling, and customer recovery, including the net present value of all future lost profit due to
quality problems. ”
“Another major concept in quality is the difference between conformance quality and design quality (also
called performance quality). Conformance quality is simply the percentage of products that meet the
product specifications and can be measured as a yield rate, first-pass yield, etc. In contrast, product design
quality has to do with the design specifications. It is possible for a simple cheap product to have perfect
conformance quality, but low design quality. Conversely, it is possible for a product to have a superior
design (in terms of features and intended performance), but have poor conformance quality.”(Hill, 2012)
“QUALITY CONTROL can be broken into two types: Process Control, which asks ‘Is this process
performing normally?’ and Lot Control (acceptance sampling), which asks ‘Is this lot (batch)
acceptable?’”(Hill, 2012)
“INSPECTION can be done by variables (using tools, such as the x-bar or r-chart) or by attributes (using
tools, such as the p-chart or the c-chart). Inspection by variables is usually for process control; inspection
by attributes is usually for lot control. Basic quality principles include” (Hill, 2012):
• “Do not try to inspect quality into a product.”

• “Strive for quality at the source.”
• “Inspect before the bottleneck. (Take care of ‘golden parts’ that have gone through the
bottleneck.)”
• “Most defects are the result of management error.”
• “Human inspectors rarely detect more than 50-60% of defects.”
• “Processes have many sources of uncontrollable variation (common causes), but special
(assignable) causes of variation can be recognized and controlled.”
“QUALITY TRILOGY: A concept promoted by Joseph Juran and the Juran Institute stating that quality
consists of three basic quality-oriented processes: quality planning, quality control, and quality
improvement.”Juran (Hill, 2012)“expanded on these three processes using the following guidelines:”
 “Quality planning”
o “Identify both internal and external customers.”
o “Determine customer needs.”
o “Develop product features that correspond to customer needs. (Products include both goods
and services.)”
o “Establish quality goals that meet the needs of customers and suppliers alike, and do so at a
minimum combined cost.”
o “Develop a process that can produce the needed product features.”
o “Prove process capability (prove that the process can meet the quality goals under operating
conditions).”
 Quality control
o “Choose control subjects and what to control.”
o “Choose units of measurement.”
o “Establish measurement.”
o “Establish standards of performance.”
o “Measure actual performance.”
o “Interpret the difference (actual versus standard).”
o “Take action on the difference.”
 Quality improvement
o “Prove the need for improvement.”
o “Identify specific projects for improvement.”
o “Organize to guide the projects.”
o “Organize for diagnosis for discovery of causes.”
o “Diagnose to find the causes.”
o “Provide remedies.”
o “Prove that the remedies are effective under operating conditions.”
o “Provide for control to hold the gains.”(Hill, 2012)
“Crosby lists four new essentials of quality management (Kondalkar, 2009), which he calls ‘the
absolutes’.”
1. “Quality is defined as conformance to requirements.
2. “Quality is achieved by prevention not by appraisal.
3. “The quality performance standard is zero defects.
4. “The cost of lack of quality is measured by the price of non-conformance.

“The key points which are derived from the absolutes are:”
 “The need to understand customer requirements”
 “a management commitment to satisfying the customer”
 “communicating customer requirements to the workforce; ”
 “training the workforce to produce to customer requirements”
 “prevention of errors by a proper understanding of the process involved in producing products
and services”
 “doing things right the first time as a management performance standard”
 “creating an enabling environment to achieve such standards” and
 “measuring and publicizing the cost of rejects, reworks and waste. ”
“Crosby talks about the three stages in the evolution of a total quality culture:”
 “first, the conviction that quality is an asset”
 “next a commitment to implement quality as a way of life” and
 “finally, the conversion of the entire organization to this way of life. ”
TOOLS & TECHNIQUES
OF QUALITY MANAGEMENT
“QUALITY MANAGEMENT TOOLS”
“A set of seven fundamental tools used to gather and analyze data for process improvement are: histogram,
Pareto Chart, checksheet, control chart, fishbone (Ishikawa) diagram, process map (flowchart), and scatter
diagram (scatterplot).”
“Many sources use the above seven tools, but some sources, such as the ASQ and Wikipedia websites
replace process map with stratification, while others, such as Schroeder (In Hill, 2012), replace the
checksheet with the run chart. This author argues that a process map is far more important than
stratification, and a checksheet is more practical than a run chart. This author argues further that a causal
map is better than a fishbone diagram and those other tools, such as FMEA, error proofing, and the
Nominal Group Technique, should be added to the list.”
“Other technical quality tools include design of experiments (DOE), multiple regression (and other
multivariate statistical techniques), statistical hypothesis testing, sampling, and survey data collection. Non
technical quality tools include project management, stakeholder analysis, brainstorming, and mind-
mapping.”
“QUALITY MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES”
“Quality management techniques involve controlling activities and planning to ensure that the service or
product is fit for the purpose. The quality of the product makes the reputation of the company and also it
fetches the customers for the company. Now if we discuss the quality so it has some parameters which are
designed by the respective organization. On these parameters or techniques, the product is created. The
parameters may vary from organization to organization.”
“The quality matters a lot for the customer and company for both because the customer wants quality
because he is spending money and he wants good product which is value for money and on the other hand
an organization wants to make a good reputation and strong customer base which is only possible if their
products are of the utmost quality.”

In the industries there are many techniques used for the quality management; it may vary according to the
requirement in the companies. Much prevailed techniques are as below:
1) “Total Quality Management: ”
“Total quality management (TQM) is an old technique of quality management, in this very
technique focus is given on each and every step of manufacturing to ensure that the quality
remained maintained from the inception. This technique is widely used in organizations because it
cost-effective and also easy to implement. This technique is also a customer-oriented technique
because while implementing this technique customer’s“needs are given the most priority. The birth
of this technique is traced to Japan. It also saves the resources of the company and also
productivity is high. This technique has prevailed basically in the information technology sector
etc.”
2) “Six Sigma: ”
“Six Sigma is a very old method of quality management and used widely in industries like
mechanical and electrical works. This is a technique in which the focus is one the quality
improvement of the product by removing or eliminating the defects which are a hurdle in the
quality. The sigma basically is the Greek name of the standard deviation method in mathematics.
To understand the six sigma one should understand the value of sigma because its basic concept is
based on that, every engineer who works in the industry unit should aware of the six sigma method
because whole the work is carried out with that particular technique.”
3) “Top-down and bottom-up approach: ”
“The top-down and bottom-up approaches are a very effective type of approaches in this the orders
are passed from top officials to lower level and also information is passed from lower level to
higher official. If we talk about the top-down approach in this technique the higher officials take a
report from the lower officials about the work and quality measures. But on the other hand, the
bottom-up approach basically depends upon the information sharing from lower hierarchy to the
upper hierarchy about the work done and about the quality parameters which are followed by the
workers. The main agenda of this approach is to maintain the quality of the product by co-
operating with each level so that a good product is delivered.”
4) “ISO: ”
It is the ‘International organization for standardization’“a body which gives the certification of
quality to the products and also to various type of companies. It is based in Geneva, Switzerland.

Every establishment in the world whether it is a company, an industry or other firms should have
to take the certification of quality assurance from the ISO. This ISO certification also works as an
assurance to the customer that the product is genuine and safe to consume. The ISO tag is there on
every product. There are very hard formalities which are to be followed to get the status of ISO
approved. So this ISO tag is also the sign of good quality and every industry is running to get this
mark to make its product as a genuine product.”
5) “Cost of Quality: ”
“The cost of quality is the difference between the cost of the production including manufacturing,
sale and other expenses and cost incurred without any defect during the production. The main idea
behind the cost of quality is to make the product cheaper and defect-free. The manager basically
focuses on cost reduction and quality improvement so that there is a benefit of the customer and as
well of the company. The cost to quality is a new concept and rarely used for quality control
because the skillful person is required to make the charts and accounts. But the MNC’s are used
this method at large scale.”
6) “Kaizen:”
“Kaizen is an old Japanese technique to maintain the quality of the product, this particular technique
primarily focuses on each and individual level of process and include all types of workers. The
agenda is to impact on each level which results in a mass improvement in the whole product. The
lower hierarchy of employees is focused because they are the one who works at ground zero and
the top management provides every type of facility to them so that they work with full enthusiasm
and also the material which is used in the product is wisely selected so that there should not be the
quality reduction.”
“So, Quality is the utmost important thing, which is handled with care by every company because whole the
reputation of the company is based on the quality of the product of that company. The techniques are the
some of the total techniques and the companies should focus on the adaptation of the right technique,
because the quality management techniques may vary from work to work so the holistic and wise approach
should be there while selecting the technique for the quality enhancement in the particular industry. Also,
the staff should be trained effectively so that they are able to implement it according to the requirements of
the production and company and other aspects.” (EDUCBA, 2020)
REFERENCES
EDUCBA. (2020). Quality Management Techniques. Retrieved from https://www.educba.com/quality-management-techniques/
Hill, A. V. (2012). The Encyclopedia of Operations Management: a field manual and glossary of operations management terms and concepts. New
Jersey: Pearson Education.
Hoyle, D. (2004). Quality Management Essentials. Oxford: Elsevier Limited.
Kondalkar. V.G. (2009). Organization Development. New Delhi: New Age International.

QUALITY MANAGEMENT

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