Product Quality In Operations & Supply Chains

As noted earlier, the documented information is immediately fed into a computer and updated daily to expedite follow-through. In addition, most companies should establish a response system to handle customer problems in which technically sophisticated people are called in on problems not solved within specific time periods by lower-level employees. In many organizations, employees view the customer with a problem as an annoyance rather than as a source of information. A marketing program is often needed to change such negative attitudes and to convince employees not only that customers are the ultimate judge of quality but also that their criticisms should be respected and acted on immediately.

Different customers will have different expectations, so a working definition of quality is customer-dependent. When discussing quality one must consider design, production, and service. In a culmination of efforts, it begins with careful assessment of what the customers want, then translating this information into technical specifications to which goods or services must conform. The specifications guide product and service design, process design, production of goods and delivery of services, and service after the sale or delivery. Total quality management aims to hold all parties involved in the production process accountable for the overall quality of the final product or service.

To be effective, a customer service operation requires a marketing plan. Customer services should be viewed as a product line that must be packaged, priced, communicated, and delivered to customers. An evaluation of a company’s current customer service operation—a customer service audit—is essential to the development of such a plan. Product performance and customer service are closely linked in any quality program; the greater the attention to product quality in production, the fewer the demands on the customer service operation to correct subsequent problems. Office equipment manufacturers, for example, are designing products to have fewer manual and more automatic controls. Not only are the products easier to operate and less susceptible to misuse but they also require little maintenance and have internal troubleshooting systems to aid in problem identification.

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Quality products make an important contribution to long-term revenue and profitability. Defective products may lead to stoppages in production processes thus leading to higher cost of production. A manufacturer is liable to indemnify the customer for any loss sustained by him by virtue of poor product quality. Quality management is not only concerned with maintaining the quality characteristics of a product but also with achieving the same at least cost. While they establish strategies for quality, they also institute programs to improve quality; guide, direct, and motivate managers and workers; and set an example by being involved in quality initiatives. Pareto analysis is a technique for focusing attention on the most important problem areas.

This is when “Service after delivery” is important through recall and repairs of the product, adjustment, replacement or buys back, or reevaluation of a service. Several countries have adopted quality audits in their higher education system . Initiated in the UK, the process is focused primarily on procedural issues rather than on the results or the efficiency of a quality system implementation. In 2005 the International Organization for Standardization released a standard, ISO 22000, meant for the food industry. This standard covers the values and principles of ISO 9000 and the HACCP standards.

When conducting the 100% inspection method calls for data about the manufacturing process and software to analyze inventory. A second possible line of research would focus on manufacturing tradeoffs. Tradeoffs were unavoidable, and anyone goal could only be achieved at the expense of others. According to the transcendent view, quality is synonymous with “innate excellence.”4 It is both absolute and universally recognizable, a mark of uncompromising standards and high achievement. Nevertheless, proponents of this view claim that quality cannot be defined precisely; rather, it is a simple, unanalyzable property that we learn to recognize only through experience.

Operations Management Theory

This helps ensure all employees are working toward the goals set forth for the company, improving function in each area. Involved departments can include administration, marketing, production, and employee training. TQM was developed by William Deming, a management consultant whose work had a great impact on Japanese manufacturing. While TQM shares much in common with the Six Sigma improvement process, it is not the same as Six Sigma. TQM focuses on ensuring that internal guidelines and process standards reduce errors, while Six Sigma looks to reduce defects.

In the early twentieth century, consumers/users were expected to pay extra for quality. However in the present day competitive business market quality is no longer an option. In other words, it is a positive need without which the survival of an organization is not possible. Poor product quality also affects goodwill of manufacturer in the market. Goodwill is created as a result of good performance over a long period and goodwill once lost is very difficult to re-establish. The essential need of the products/services is that they must fulfil the requirements of those who will actually use them. Now because the use of the product differs from situation to situation, the requirement is viewed in different manners by various users.

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Six Sigma uses a five-factor approach to define, measure, analyze, improve, and control to help companies identify and address quality control problems and fix them. Motorola introduced this method because, at the time, they faced fierce competition from similar companies overseas, primarily the success of the Japanese manufacturing market, and complaints by Motorola’s customers were high. In automobile manufacturing, quality control focuses on how parts fit together and interact and ensure engines operate smoothly and efficiently.

• If you sell products in regulated markets, such as health care, food or electrical goods, you must be able to comply with health and safety standards designed to protect consumers.
• The up-front investment in quality minimizes the need for customer service.
• The level and nature of customer service needed often change over the product’s life.
• When a chart measures variances in several product attributes, it is called a multivariate chart.
• I will ask my customers, what is important to them, and act accordingly.

This principle also involves empowering the employees, involving them in decision making and recognizing their achievements. When people are valued, they work to their best potential because it boosts their confidence and motivation.

Later in the twentieth century, the likes of William Edwards Deming and Joseph M. Juran helped take quality to new heights, initially in Japan and later (in the late ’70s and early ’80s) globally. In food and drug manufacturing, quality control prevents products that make customers sick, and in manufacturing, quality control can ensure that accidents don’t happen when people use a product. May 23, Brilliant article Mr. Garvin and extremely helpful for my challenge of improving ‘product quality’ at a low volume high diversity electronics CM, here in the Netherlands. I will ask my customers, what is important to them, and act accordingly. The empirical research on quality, then, has produced mixed results, with few clear directions for managers.

It is an important part of organization’s quality management system and is a key element in the ISO quality system standard, ISO 9001. Total Quality Management is an integrative philosophy of management for continuously improving the quality of products and processes. The process ensures that the products and services produced by the team match the customers’ expectations. Quality assurance is implemented as a means of providing enough confidence that business requirements and goals for a product and/or service will be fulfilled. This error prevention is done through systematic measurement, comparison with a standard, and monitoring of processes.

Boundless: Business, chapter 10, Section 2, Part 3: Quality Inspections And Standards

Lewis quality is “an asset which may be offered to the potential consumer of a product or service”. Having good quality is a competitive advantage against others who offer similar products or services in the marketplace. Quality control in relation to customers involves the continuous act of making sure products, designed and manufactured, are produced to meet and exceed customer needs. These principles are important to the focus on and ability to lead an organization toward a culture that embraces continual quality improvement. The management engages staff in creating and delivering value whether they are full-time, part-time, outsourced, or in-house. An organization should encourage the employees to constantly improve their skills and maintain consistency.

Quality improvements may also affect profitability through the cost side. Fewer defects or field failures result in lower manufacturing and service costs; as long as these gains exceed any increase in expenditures by the firm on defect prevention, profitability will improve. In conclusion, we must stress that responsibility for quality cannot rest exclusively with the production department.

What Is Quality Control?

Generally, it can be said that product is of satisfactory quality, if it satisfiers the consumers/user. The consumer will buy a product or service only if it suits his requirements. There are also worldwide known quality certifications like ISO and ISO (a set of international standards for assessing a company’s environmental performance).

Garvin also found that quality and productivity were positively related, even though firms employed similar technologies and showed few differences in capital intensity. In this industry, U.S. companies with the highest quality were five times as productive, when measured by units produced per man-hour of assembly-line direct labor, as companies with the poorest quality. A sixth dimension of quality is serviceability, or the speed, courtesy, and competence of repair. Some of these variables can be measured quite objectively; others reflect differing personal standards of what constitutes acceptable service. Responsiveness is typically measured by the mean time to repair , while technical competence is reflected in the incidence of multiple service calls required to correct a single problem. A number of companies have begun emphasizing this dimension of quality. Both reliability and conformance are closely tied to the manufacturing-based approach to quality.

One example is the US Food and Drug Administration, which requires quality auditing to be performed as part of its Quality System Regulation for medical devices . “Lean” focuses on eliminating the wasteful use of time, energy or resources, and instead focusing activities completely on the creation of value. The internal suppliers are the subordinates who answer to a particular supervisor. Satisfying them involves giving them the tools and motivation they need to do their jobs. Quality Control – The continuing effort to uphold a process’s integrity and reliability in achieving an outcome.

Most existing definitions of quality fall into one of the categories listed above. The coexistence of these differing approaches has several important implications. First, it helps to explain the often competing views of quality held by members of the marketing and manufacturing departments. Marketing people typically take a user-based or product-based approach to the subject; for them, higher quality means better performance, enhanced features, and other improvements that increase cost. Because they see the customer as the arbiter of quality, they view what happens in the factory as much less important than what happens in the field. Japanese manufacturers, however, have succeeded in producing products that meet the twin objectives of high quality and low cost.

All of the following are affected by poor quality EXCEPT — One more choice needed. 5W2H approach asks the questions what, why, where, when, who, how, and how much . Its purpose is to ask the questions that will lead to improving processes. Quality Circles are usually informal meetings between employees to exchange ideas and concerns about processes.

Interviewing is a tool used by managers to find information from employees through Q & A sessions. Controls include product inspection, where every product is examined visually. Controls include product inspection, where every product is visually examined, often with a stereo microscope to perceive fine detail before the product is sold into the external market.

Asking customers to fill out a short, coded questionnaire and explain their reasons for returning the merchandise. Try it now It only takes a few minutes to setup and you can cancel any time. Joe is in the market for a new car, and what defines quality in a car for him is made up of many different factors. Overall, he wants his car to satisfy his stated needs and be free from any deficiencies. Joe has spent over one month researching his car options and has determined that he has two different perspectives on quality.