The importance is on trying to ensure goods are produced free of faults. Quality assurance is based on the belief that if everybody involved in the production of that product is really committed to ensuring faults are eliminated, they can be. So you do not try to inspect faults out; you make sure they are not there in the first place. The involvement of everybody in the organisation is crucial; quality is not just the responsibility of the quality control department – it is everybody’s.
Businesses are increasingly taking into account the needs of customers. Quality Assurance is a method whereby businesses take into account customer’s view about the quality of the product, eg.
Market research
Codes of conduct
Quality Symbols
CE mark (EU Awards)
British Toy & Hobby Association (BHTA)
British Electro technical Approval Board
The Consumer Association
British Travel Agents (ABTA)
The Wool Marketing Board
Warranties
The production of poor quality products, and the resulting search for weaknesses in production processes, use up valuable time and resources in a business. Errors are costly. Furthermore, should any poor quality products reach consumers, company image and reputation can be damaged.
To prevent errors happening, my organisation is increasingly turning to the techniques to TQM. This involves building in quality checks at each and every stage in a production process, the aim being to identify problems and solve them before, rather than after, products have completed the production process.
Total Quality Management (TQM)
TQM is a method designed to prevent errors, such as poor quality products from happening. Every department is organised to take into account quality at all times. This involves:
Quality Chains
Company Policy & Accountability
Control
Monitoring the Process
Team Work
Consumer Views
Zero Defects
TQM is a way of managing to improve effectiveness, flexibility and competitiveness of business as a whole. In my business to be truly effective every part must work together because every person and every activity affects and is in turn affected y every other. The effectiveness of TQM depends on total team working.
Benefits of TQM & Team Working
Everyone is committed to improving the quality of the goods
Can result in high levels of motivation and involvement -
leading to better quality standards and generally higher productivity
Drawbacks of TQM & Team Working
Management cannot choose the bits of TQM it likes and ignore the others
It needs the time and total commitment of everyone – if this does not occur then the systems may end up creating more problems than it solves.
TQM systems tend to be most appropriate for larger organisations.
Quality Circles
For team working to be successful, it relies on a competent responsible workforce who want to improve quality. Their ideas for improvement can be discussed at regular meetings. This is a management philosophy rather than just a quality improvement technique. A quality circle is a group of workers who meet voluntarily at frequent and regular intervals to discuss problems encouraged in their work with a view to discovering solutions.
In my business for quality circles to be effective, a well educated and trained workforce capable of receiving, analysing and solving problems.
Advantages of Quality Circles
Everyone is directly involved in a problem, they will encourage and motivate the work team to take pride in its works.
Disadvantages of Quality Circles
Managers hand over their responsibility for quality to the quality circle It is assumed that quality circles are able to solve all problems Managers ignore what the quality circles recommend.
Just In Time (JIT)
It is a system designed to reduce the costs of holding stocks of raw materials and finished goods, through careful scheduling of the production process. JIT is sometimes known as supply chain management, because it involves a great deal of work with suppliers to achieve high standards of quality and reliability in suppliers. JIT means that finished goods are produced to order and ‘just in time’ to be sold, thereby reducing storage times, similarly raw materials and components arrive at the factory ‘just in time’ to be sold, thereby reducing storage costs.
Benchmarking
The motivation for continuous improvement by the company and its workforce must often be the recognition that ‘we are not the best’. If others are doing better, then so can we. Benchmarking involves a number of stages:
To decide what in the business needs benchmarking – production time? Delivery time? After sales service? To choose another business for standards of excellence to benchmark against Gathering information about the standards of excellence Setting standards and making sure everyone in the business knows about them
Advantages of Benchmarking
It is a very simple concept and gives the business a target at which to aim.
Disadvantages of Benchmarking
It only works if suitable benchmark data is available and the comparison is valid – eg. like is being compared with like. Another criticism of benchmarking is that the approach is rather simplistic and does not help a business resolve quality problems.
Quality certification – BS EN ISO 9000
BS EN ISO 9000 is a set of international standards. For all the activities involved in the business it sets down rigorous standards covering:
- Supply of goods
- Quality control
- Training
- Internal documentation
- Procedures for dealing with faults
- Management of the system
These all ensure that the finished product will be of a standard that will meet customer requirements. The certification process is very demanding but businesses are increasingly finding achievement of the quality ‘kitemark’ worthwhile.
