Unit 16 Quality

Quality

In production and operations management, over the past few decades, there has been increasing emphasis on quality in terms of such features as offered, appearance, reliability, durability, serviceability, and so on. Product/service quality is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy a given need.

A key to successful quality is first to set a strategy, and then to communicate this strategy effectively as a theme to employees and customers. Consumers in the USA have seen media presentations for products such as Ford's 'Quality Is Job No. 1', and General Electric's 'Quality Is Our Most Important Product'. The quality of products or services provided by business in an important concern to both the organization and its customers.

The concept of quality concerns how well and for how long a product or service meets the requirements of the customer. British Standard BS 4778 (1979) defines quality as 'the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy a given need'. The quality of a product or service is the result of two separate activities: (1) product/service design, and (2) the operations system that makes the product or provides the service.

How well the design meets the market needs and the process meet the design specification determines the quality level of the particular product/service. Quality has two a different interpretation depending on whose viewpoint is being used - the consumer or the production/operations manager. The consumer's view is based on the value of qualities desired and values received. The consumer's concern is service, performance, appearance, and so on. The producer’s concern is a set of defined standards. The consumer may consider such standards to be evidence of high or low quality depending upon what was expected and that all units of production must consistently meet those standards as well as specifications, whatever they may be. At the same time the customer’s confidence in the level of quality

should be attentively considered, cost of quality problems is also an important factor.

Specialists on Japanese quality suggest as much as 85% of the quality problems are management problems. Their view is that management, rather than employees, have the authority and tools to correct faults. According to the concept of Total Quality Control (TQC), first developed by the Japanese, management should ensure that quality extends throughout the organization in everything it does, or at least in all features of products and services that are important to the customer. Although management is responsible for designing and installing an overall system that excludes defects and low quality, everyone within that system, in the entire supplier-producer-customer chain, should be responsible for quality. Within an organization we find that management, employees, material, facilities, and equipment all affect quality. The company should aim for the highest quality level possible, because a lack of quality can be more expensive than achieving high quality.

Quality theorists such as J.Juran, W. E. Deming, and P.Crosby have shown that prevention is usually much cheaper than failures. Every extra dollar spent on prevention might save $10 spent on inspection and failure costs (a related objective here is that of zero defects). Furthermore, even if the current quality level appears perfect, the company should still continuously look for product improvement, and aim to be the best in the industry. Companies should always engage in benchmarking, when a firm sees which company performed in a particular task best and model their performance on this best practice.

Many large Japanese companies — especially those guaranteeing lifetime employment - have been able to attain high quality, by motivating their staff, and the long-term nature of nearly all the relationships among employees, suppliers, distributors, owners and customers. The Japanese invented quality circles: voluntary groups of six to twelve people, who are usually given training in problem-solving, analysis, and reporting methods, and who then discuss the problems they are encountering, identify their sources, find solutions to eliminate them, and propose these to management. Quality circles have been less successful in the more individualistic cultures of America and Europe. Another idea developed in Japan is the system of just-in-time production or lean manufacturing, where parts are only made and supplied when they are needed, so that the need of financing and storing of inventories of parts are eliminated.

1. Find English equivalents from the text:

Разметка/ провал/ недостаток/ плохо влиять/удовлетворять требованиям/ прочность/ удобство обслуживания/ всеохватывающий/

2.Answer the following questions:

What is quality?

What are the two interpretations of quality?

What does the concept of TQC imply?

Who must be responsible for the quality installing in the company?

3 Up to you…

Your company has asked you to draw up a list of proposals for improving quality within your organization. Select six that would improve quality best of all, give your reasons:

- Appoint quality control inspectors for random checks on finished goods;

- Create quality circles throughout the company;

- Establish regular quality competition with prizes for best suggestions;

- introduce a regular quality feature in the in-house magazine

- Create telephone hotlines so that customers can get immediate help with problems and have feedback on the product and services;

- Introduce a quality improvement training programme for all staff members;

- Appoint the top manager to have overall responsibility for the quality improvement programme;

- Establish quality targets introduction;

Links

It is useful to visit the site of ASQ which is asq.com or www.qualitymag.com

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14