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Many organizations use statistical process control to bring the organization to Six Sigma levels of quality, in other words, so that the likelihood of an unexpected failure is confined to six standard deviations on the normal distribution. This probability is less than four one-millionths. Items controlled often include clerical task s such as order-entry as well as conventional manufacturing tasks.
Traditional statistical process controls in manufacturing operations usually proceed by randomly sampling and testing a fraction of the output. Variances of critical tolerances are continuously tracked, and manufacturing processes are corrected before bad parts can be produced.
During the 1980’s, the concept of “company quality” with the focus on management and people came to the fore. It was realised that, if all departments approached quality with an open mind, success was possible if the management led the quality improvement process.
The company-wide quality approach places an emphasis on three aspects :-
The quality of the outputs is at risk if any of these three aspects are deficient in any way.
The approach to quality management given here is therefore not limited to the manufacturing theatre only but can be applied to any business activity:
It comprises a quality improvement process, which is generic in the sense it can be applied to any of these activities and it establishes a behaviour pattern , which supports the achievement of quality.
This in turn is supported by quality management practices which can include a number of business system s and which are usually specific to the activities of the business unit concerned.
In manufacturing and construction activities, these business practices can be equated to the models for quality assurance defined by the International Standards contained in the ISO 9000 series and the specified Specifications for quality systems.
Still, in the system of Company Quality, the work being carried out was shop floor inspection which did not control the major quality problems. This led to quality assurance or total quality control, which has come into being recently.
Total Quality Control is the most necessary inspection control of all in cases where, despite statistical quality control techniques or quality improvements implemented, sales decrease.
The major problem which leads to a decrease in sales was that the specifications did not include the most important factor, “What the customer required”.
The major characteristics, ignored during the search to improve manufacture and overall business performance were:-
As the most important factor had been ignored, a few refinements had to be introduced:
If the original specification does not reflect the correct quality requirements, quality cannot be inspected or manufactured into the product.
For instance, all parameters for a pressure vessel should include not only the material and dimensions but operating, environmental, safety, reliability and maintainability requirements.
To conclude, the above forms the basis from which the philosophy of Quality Assurance has evolved, and the achievement of quality or the “fitness-for-purpose” is “Quality Awareness” throughout the company.