Quality Assurance and High Product Quality - Essay Example

In today's globalized marketplace, high product quality has become the basic requirement for all manufactured goods and services. Increased competition means that no manufacturing organization can afford to take its supply quality systems for granted: its supply and purchase may sometimes involve great distances, time and cost. So, it must apply principles of quality assurance not only to its manufacturing processes but also to supply management, in terms of identification, recording and purchase-control of manufactured goods and services. To improve the quality of its product, a company needs to follow total quality control systems, which involves economical production of goods or services to the complete satisfaction of customer requirements by focusing the entire organization's priorities on design, production, and logistical aspects. Total quality control thus means that a system is developed and implemented which delineates the procedures, policies, specifications and standardizations to be followed by the entire organization. This system is developed and continuously improved by maintaining a cross- functional viewpoint at all times involving all the departments: the issue of quality thus becomes the concern of all departments, not that of the quality control department alone. This means quality and process manuals need to be rigorously followed, and updated from time to time based on cumulative work experience to improve productivity and quality. Total quality control also means that the organization is specialized and prefers to work with its core strengths, outsourcing peripheral goods and services to other organizations specialized in those areas: a car manufacturer, for instances, focuses on assembling cars and leaves the business of manufacturing machine parts to its suppliers. Outsourcing in this way is geared to improve efficiency, but may go totally wrong if the goods supplied are not the right quality, or run in short supply. This brings us to the issues crucial to just-in-time inventory management strategies, which are indispensable not only in terms of economy and cost cutting, but also crucial in terms of maintaining control over purchase. Just-in-time implies that a company times the purchase of the correct kind and amount of goods or services exactly as and when needed for its production processes: the right material, at the right time, at the right place, and in precisely required amounts, thus eliminating the need for warehousing or other infrastructure. This ensures that a lot of expenses made on storage are eliminated, which is absolutely according to the principles of total quality control that insists on continuous identification and eradication of waste in a company's manufacturing process. Having no inventory to call from, it obviously follows that all the goods procured have to be of a quality level certified for use in the manufacturing process, otherwise the process gets delayed or experiences frequent stoppages. Possible supply shocks also need to be prevented by anticipating changes in demand for the goods required for the process, so that the process does not come to a halt because of lack of material for processing. Certified quality levels in goods purchased from vendors can only be maintained if the total quality regimen extends to supply quality assurance as well. The organization has to work with various entities such as supply stream managers, internal customers, technical staff, relevant field personnel, and last but absolutely not the least, suppliers. These different groups need to be integrated as part of on-going supply management processes, which may include product and supplier selection, assessment, and providing support in quality and performance improvement. Since the supplier needs to be top-notch with all its goods each and every time, it follows that the purchasing organization would have to invest in training, auditing and testing, and build up a great, long-term relationship with hand-picked vendors. The organization would have to focus on activities basically like but not limited to site visits and audits before and after the supplier is identified, formulation of inspection/surveillance plans, implementing report cards for the suppliers, combined problem-solving and analysis with the suppliers, sharing of technical expertise, continuous improvement assistance, and lastly, involving a standards body in order to monitor specifications. Measuring and tracking cost of poor supplier quality followed by adequate cost recovery is also effective in ensuring future quality levels from the supplier, and helps the organization identify stable suppliers. But one of the most important principles of quality assurance which is effective in improvement of supplier quality levels is definitely supplier audit. It is great way to ensure that the supplier is actually implementing the agreed procedures and processes required to produce optimum goods. Through this audit, the organization is able to identify the gaps and non-conformances in various processes at the supplier end such as manufacturing, shipments, technical processes, invoicing or quality-checking procedure. The intervals at which the audit is to take place, the resources to be allocated and the criteria for audit are to be pre-determined, and clearly defined metrics and processes are to be given to the supplier. Progress against previous non-conformities should be traceable, processes for root cause analysis and corrective action laid out and the corrective and preventive actions taken as a result of the audit ought to be shared with all the stakeholders: records of suppliers and goods purchased from them can thus be maintained. Audit verification, where the actions decided are verified to have been taken and the root causes eliminated is also essential in ensuring quality. Audits give the organization a say over the supplier activities which may affect their productivity, and consequently prevent situations at the supplier end which may cause stoppages for the organization processes. Besides audit, inspections also give a measure of control to the organization over the purchase of goods or services from suppliers. For inspections to be effective, rules and regulations, criteria for inspection, verification, and tests for material and service purchases need to be identified and clearly known to all stakeholders. Post inspection, product quality reports are issued which contain non-conformities in the quality of the goods and corrective actions to be taken to rectify the situation. Inspections hand the organization an advantage over the supplier at the negotiating table, and enable it to differentiate between a good supplier and an unsuitable one. When done professionally, inspections help improve the relationship between the organization and supplier because both benefit from the process. Effective inspection procedures form the groundwork for maintaining continued surveillance on all vendor procedures and goods, which is very critical especially for those organizations which follow just-in-time techniques. Inspections could be human or mechanical, or a combination of both depending on the type and quantity of the materials to be inspected. Mechanical or automated inspection is preferred for certain types of goods if either they are in a large quantity or checking them is extremely tiresome because manual inspections in these cases may result in human error stemming from fatigue or inspector subjectivity. If the inspection test is not repeatable, that is, one test is not exactly the same as the other, there are again chances for human error, and an automated inspection is called for. But automatic inspection can add significantly to the cost of the product because the automated process can be prohibitively expensive. The initial costs for establishing automated inspection systems is high, their maintenance is steep and the operational costs are high in terms of labour costs and down time. The results from the automated systems need to be verified by qualified human inspectors, and the system itself needs to be technically audited from time to time to ensure that it is performing correctly. Semi automated inspections could be an answer, combining the virtues of both human and automated and manual inspections, and eradicating the limitations of both. Statistical inspection solutions like acceptance sampling can also be effective in cases where the product is not of life-and-death importance. It can act as an added checking measure, a middle-ground between compulsory inspection and non-inspection: one sample from a lot is randomly picked and the entire lot is accepted or rejected depending on whether the sample tested was perfect or defective. In sum, the measure of control an organization can exercise on its suppliers and the quality of goods supplied can be ensured by implementing total quality control principles, by eliminating waste, seeking out and correcting errors, taking preventive actions against defects, cooperating with the vendors, maintaining records on them, by training and testing them, identifying the most suitable ones and of course, by adopting suitable inventory and supply management policies. To further your career you have applied for membership of a professional institution which requires you to attend for interview. The subject to be discussed at the interview is: "the principles of quality assurance and the ways in which these relate to the methods of (i) controlling the purchase of manufactured products and services and (ii) identifying and recording manufactured goods and services". ASSIGNMENT: Prepare a paper of approximately 1000 words for discussion at the above interview. The content of the paper should be a summary of the topics i) Total Quality Control ii) Quality Systems, Specifications and Standardisation iii) The Quality Manual iv) The Procedures Manual v) Controll and Maintenance of Quality Levels vi) Auditing vii) Purchasing and Just-In-Time Techniques viii) Supplier Quality Assurance ix) Acceptance Sampling x) Process Controll xi) Inspection and Test; Packaging xii) Automatic Inspection; Calibration NOTE: Not all topics need be included. Only those felt relevant. ---------------------------------- Acceptance sampling is an important field of statistical quality control that was popularized by Dodge and Romig and originally applied by the U.S. military to the testing of bullets during World War II. If every bullet was tested in advance, no bullets would be left to ship. If, on the other hand, none were tested, malfunctions might occur in the field of battle, with potentially disastrous results. Definintion of Lot Acceptance Sampling Dodge reasoned that a sample should be picked at random from the lot, and on the basis of information that was yielded by the sample, a decision should be made regarding the disposition of the lot. In general, the decision is either to accept or reject the lot. This process is called Lot Acceptance Sampling or just Acceptance Sampling. "Attributes" (i.e., defect counting) will be assumed Acceptance sampling is "the middle of the road" approach between no inspection and 100% inspection. There are two major classifications of acceptance plans: by attributes ("go, no-go") and by variables. The attribute case is the most common for acceptance sampling, and will be assumed for the rest of this section. Read More