1.4 m.

s chapter will therefore highlight the contributions of the quality gurus for the evolution of quality
control addresses the concepts ot product quality,process control, quality assurance and quality
improvement. all ofwhich aimed at customer delight. therefore, it is irnportant to get the right
interpretation and understanding of the term quality and related terrns. This will provide a strong
foundation for TQM. We will discuss various dimensions of quality in the following paragraphs.

DEFINITION OF QUALITY Juran , one of the quality gurus, defined quality as fitness for use. A very
concise definition indeed, fora term that has so many dimensions! Quality of a product or service in
simple terms is its suitability for use by the customer. Quality has to be perceived by the customer.
Perception of the supplier is also but the customer experience of quality of a product or service is more
important. Quality does not mean an expensive product; on the contrary, it is fitness tor use of the
customer.

International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the world body for standards formulation was
founded in the year 1946 and has its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Most countries in the world
are members of ISO. The national standardization bodies of various countries represent their countries
in ISO. ISO is known all over the world because of its path breaking standard ISO 9000, released for the
first time in the year 1987. The definition of quality as per the ISO 9000 standard is: "The totality of
features and characteristics of a product or service, that bear on its ability to satisfy a given or implied
need".

Thus, the standard definition of quality is common both to products and services. It is essentially
satisfying the customer needs, both stated and unstated (implied). The latter is more dominant in a
service. When there is a contract for supply of a product or service, the needs will be specified clearly. In
other situations, it is the responsibility of the supplier to identify and define them.

CHAIN REACTION

The importance of quality will be clear from the chain reaction on account of quality envisaged in Japan
in the 1950s3. The 'chain reaction' is depicted in Fig. 1.1 as follows:

Quality improvement results in improved productivity, as is clear from Fig. l. 1. By eliminating defects
non-value adding activities and rework, additional resource capacity is created. Improved quality also
reduces the production cycle time and machine time. Less material is required due to reduction of scrap
and rework. All this leads to improved productivity and increased capacity. If this is used to expand
markets with lower prices, the company prospers and stays in business. Deming noted that this chain
reaction was on the black board of every board meeting in Japan from July 1950 onwards. The Japanese
success is the best case study for TQM. Understanding the chain reaction transformed them from a
shattered economy to a successful nation challenging the USA after World War II.

 Improve quality
  costs decrease due to fewer defects lesser rework fewer delays and better use of Men. Machine.
and Materials
 Improved Productivity
 Capture market with better quality and lower prices
 Stay in business
 Provide more jobs
(Japanese Chain Reaction)
Figure 1.1

DIMENSIONS OF QUALITY

Quality has many dimensions. The dimensions of quality are nothing, but the various features of a
product or service. We will discuss some of them briefly:

Product Quality

1. Functionality - refers to the core features and characteristics of a product. The definition of
functionality as per ISO / [EC 9126: 1991:

"A set of attributes that bear on the existence Of a set of functions and their specified properties. The

functions are those that satisfy stated or implied needs". For instance. a car has to have a seating
capacity for five persons; a steering wheel, an accelerator, a break. a clutch, head lights, gears, four
wheels. etc. The functionality of a car represents each one of the functions mentioned above and many
others not listed above. Thus, functionality refers to those functions that will satisfy a customer.

2. Reliability- A car should not often. This is the reliability attribute toquality. Reliability is memsured by
mean (average) time between failures (MTBF). Reliability is an indicator of durability of products. For
instance. the MTBF of a car can be specified as 1000 hours of running or 10000 kilomeytere

3. Usability- A product should be easily usable. The customer should be able to use the product easily
without the help of experts. For instance, repairing a car may need the help of a mechanic, but the car
can be driven by the owner himself. it he is trained accordingly. Thus, each product should be made so
that a person can use it with minimum training. Usability can also be measured by the time taken for
training an operator for error-free operation of a system.

4. Maintainability Maintainability refers to the ease with which a product can be maintained in the
original condition. Products may become defective while in use or in transit. It should be repairable so as
to retain the original quality of the product at the lowest cost at the earliest possible time. This applies
to software, automobiles, household items such as refrigerator, air conditioners, personal computer,
etc. For instance. when we use a Walkman we may need to change the batteries periodically. For
software, maintainability is defined in the Standard ISO 9126: 1991 as "A set of attributes that bear on
the effort needed to make specified modifications". Maintainability is measured as Mean Time To Repair
(MTVR). For instance, the MITR of a street light controller is 15 minutes.
5. Eficiency- This is applicable to most products. Efficiency is the ratio of output to input. If a car gives a
mileage of 20 per litre of gasoline and another car with identical features gives 15 kms per litre, then the
former is more efficient than the latter. Another example is the brightness of a lamp at a given input
voltage.

6. Portability This is more important in the context of software. Portability is defined as a set of
attributes that bear on the ability of software to be transferred from one environment to another. The
environment may be organizational, hardware or software environment. Any program purchased, such
as an accounting software, should be usable in many different machines without any problem. This is
portability. This feature is applicable even to consumer goods such as bulbs, razors, etc

Service Quality

Unlike products, every service is made to order. Therefore, the service quality has additional features. In
availing a service, the customer interacts more with the service provider. The quality of service depends
to an large extent on understanding the correct requirements of the customer through such
interactions. Each service has to be designed specifically for the customer. Hence, quality of service
design is an important feature. Service delivery is another feature of service quality. Thus, the additional
features of service quality are:

• Quality of customer service

• Quality of service design
• Quality of service delivery
Each one of the above may have further dimensions. For instance, quality of service delivery includes
timeliness of service and the number of defects on delivery

1. Quality of CustomerService -Customer service is important in every business. In a service industry,

meeting customers and finding out their implied requirements is more challenging. Therefore, ability to
satisfy customer depends on the quality of customer service. This includes but is not limited to:

• How well the customer is received?

• How well the implied requirements are elucidated?
• How well the customer is treated/handled/satisfied?

2. Quality of Service Design- Since services are usually made to order, it is important that the service is
designed as per the requirements of the specific customer. For instance, a software product developed
for a specific bank takes into account the unique requirements of the bank. Quality of service design in
turn depends on the quality of customer service.

3. QualityofDelivery - Quality ofdelivery is important in any sector, but more crucial in case of services.
Defects on delivery should be zero to satisfy the customers. Additional attributes of quality, which are
applicable to both products and services, are given below:

1. Timeliness- Delivery on schedule as per requirements of the customer is a must both in the product
sector as well as in service sector. No customer likes waiting. Any anticipated delay in schedule should
be communicated to customer well in advance. Timeliness is critical for many products and services.
Delay in of aircrafts or trains are instances of poor quality of the services encountered in day-to-day life.

2. Aesthetics- A product or service should not only perform well but also appear attractive. Therefore,
aesthetics is an important element of quality. Aesthetics may include, but not limited to the appearance
of the product, the finish, colour, etc. Customers will buy only those refrigerators or TV receivers or
music systems, which look good.

3. Regulatory Requirements - Regulatory requirements as stipulated by the local and federal

governments should be fulfilled by the product or service. For instance, an automobile has to meet Euro
II Standards in respect of emission to minimize environmental pollution. Similarly, there are regulatory
requirements in respect of safety of electro-medical products.

4. Requirements of Society – The products should fulfill both the stated and implied requirements
imposed by society. The customer requirement should not violate society or regulatory requirements.
Thus to satisfy a customer, a product cannot be built in such a way as to violate the requirements of
society of a safe and healthy product. For instance, providing belts for persons sitting in the front seat in
a car is a requirement of the society. Hence, the car manufacturers should provide belts for the
passengers travelling in the front seat

S. Conformance to standards- product or service should conform to implied requirements of customers.

Where applicable, they should conform to applicable standards such national standards, international
standards and industry standards. For instance, Electro-Magnetic Interference (EMI) from a pc should be
within the limits prescribed by the corresponding standard.

EVOLUTION OF QUALITY

Quality has been evolving for decades. The contribution of American Quality Gurus to this evolution is
quite impressive. The concepts were initially experimented successfully in Japan by the American Quality
Gurus. In this section, we will look at the contributions of some of them.

1. Dr Walter A Shewhart (1891—1967) worked in Western Electric Company and AT&T, USA. He
advocated Statistical Quality Control (SQC) and Acceptable Quality Level (AQL). AQL is the foundation of
today's Six Sigma. He is considered to be the father figure of SQC, who developed control charts for
quality assessment and improvement. Dr Shewhart also developed the Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) cycle
for continuous improvement, which is in use even today.

He is the author of the following books:

• Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Products

• Statistical Method from the View Point of Quality Control

2. Deming W. Edwards (1900-1993) An of Shewhart, worked in Western Electric company as a

statistician. He was invited to Japan to lead the quality movement. He modified PDCA cycle of Shewhart
to the, Plan, Do, study and Act (PDSA) cycle. He also advocated extensive use of statistics and control
chans and focused on product improvement and service conformance by reducing variations in the
process. He joined the US Census Bureau in the year 1939 and proved that quality control methods
could

Deming stressed on the importance of suppliers and customers for the business development and
improvement. He believed that people do their best and it is the system that must changeto improve
quality. His 14 points formed the basis for his advise to Japanese top managemement. The 14 points are
applicable to every industry in product and service sector.

3. Joseph M. Juran(1904)- Juran also joines Western Electric Company and developes Western Electric
Statistical Quality Control Handbook. JUSE invited him to japsan in1954. He identified fitness of Quality
and popularized the same.

Jurans Fitness of Quality

1. Quality of design- through market research, product and concept
2. Quality of conformance- through management, manpower and technology
3. Availability- through reliability, maintainability ad logistic support
4. Full Service- through promptness, competence and integrity

Juran's Quality Planning Roadmap

• identify your customers.

• Determine their needs.
• Translate them into your language.
• Develop a product that can respond to the needs.
• Develop processes, which are able to produce those product features. • Prove that the process
can produce the product.
• Transfer the resulting plans to the operating forces.

4. Philip B. Crosby (1926-) Crosby was Vice President of International Telephone & Telegraph (Im His 4
absolutes of Quality are very relevant to TQM.

Crosby's four absolutes of quality

1. Quality is conformance to requirements, nothing more or nothing less and certainly not goodness or
elegance.
2. Quality has to be achieved by prevention and not by appraisal.
3. The performance standard must be zero defect and not something close to it.
4. The measurement of quality is the price of non-conformance, i.e. how much the defects in design,
manufacture, installation and service cost the company. It is not indexes, grade one or grade two.

5. Armand V. Feigenbaum - He was President of American Society of Quality Control (1961—1963). He

said, "Quality is in its essence a way of managing the organization". He suggested the following
methodology for cycle time reduction.

Feigenbaum's cycle time reduction methodology

1. Define process.
2. List all activities.
3. Flowchart the process.
4. List the elapsed time for each activity.
5. Identify non-value adding tasks. 6. Eliminate all possible non-value adding tasks.

6. Kaoru Ishikawa (1915-1989) A Quality Guru from Japan, he strongly advocated the use of caUSe and
effect diagrams to provide a true representation of the organizational impacts and procedures He
developed Fishbone or Ishikawa diagram for cause and effect analysis.

Other Quality Gurus include James Harrington, Taguchi and Shingo. The reader should be familiar with
some of the basic terms related to quality to understand TQM

QUALITY CONTROL (QC) Quality Control or QC may be defined as: fulfill the requirements for quality
Juran' gives 3 steps of QC:

1. Evaluate actual operating performance

2. Compare actual performance to goals
3. Act on the difference

In simple terms, QC is inspection or appraisal of products and services to ensure that the stated
requirements are fulfilled. This was the only technique practiced during World War II. Since it was found
that QC was essential but not sufficient, Quality Assurance techniques were developed after the war.

The definition of quality assurance is: All the planned and systematic activities implemented within the
quality system, and demonstrated as needed, to provide adequate confidence that an entity will fulfill
the requirements for quality.

The purpose of QA is to fulfill the quality requirements of an entity, i.e. product or service, with
adequate confidence by the supplier. This requires implementation of all the activities planned for
building quality into the product. Such planned activities are to be implemented systematically within
the purview of a documented quality system. Building quality into the products requires the following"

• Quality of Design
• Quality of Conformance
• Quality of Performance
• Quality of Service

Quality of Design - It refers to how well the product or service has been designed to meet the current
and future requirements of customers and add value to all the stakeholders. The stakeholders for any
organization are:

• Customers Employees
• Suppliers
• Owners
 • Society

Quality of design involves all activities that will result in a successful design. It necessarily includes
finding out the customer's requirements.

Quality of Conformance This indicates the consistency in delivering the designed product. Product
quality in turn depends on the quality of all processes in the organization. Therefore, it involves all
activities that will ensure the conformance of the products to its requirements consistently.

Quality of Performance It is an indicator of the performance of the end product. This in turn depends on
the quality of design (including the reliability of the product) and quality of conformance.

Quality of Service Selling a product is not the end of the business. It is the quality of associated services
rendered that adds value to the product. Quality of service involves all activities that will enable the
customer to procure and use the product without any hassles.

Quality Assurance. is much more involved activity than mere inspection or QC. In fact QC is one of the
activities of QA,

QUALITY' PLANNING (QI') In order to consistently meet customer requirements, the quality of 4 Ms
namely — Man, Machine, Material and Methods need to be ensured. The requirelnents of the 4 Ms are
to be identified in the form of quality objectives. The objectives should be established for all the
functions. The functions include suppliers, purchase. product design, engineering, production, in process
inspection, final inspection, after sales service, etc. Quality planning refer.s to the activities that establish
the objectives and requirements for quality. Qp involves planning for the following with regard to a
product or service or project or a contract:

• Quality objectives to be met

• Specific of QA/QC practices

• Resources needed

• Sequence of QA/QC activities.

The QC activities include testing, inspection, examination and audit at various stages of product or
service life cycle. Therefore, quality has to be planned for every product or service and documented in
the form of quality plan

QUALITY IMPROVEMENT

This process aims at attaining unprecedented levels of performance, which are significantly better than
the past level

STRATEGIC PLANNING
Strategic planning is important for any business. It involves making plans for the following, in particular:

• Investment in machinery and equipment Manpower to be hired

• Budget
• Product diversification
• Markets to be served
• Strategies for improving profits, etc
.
Strategic planning is carried out generally at annual intervals and is carried out using a formal structured
approach. The strategic planning is kept confidential due to obvious reasons. Usually Organizations treat
strategic planning and quality planning as separate and isolated activities. However Malcolm Baldrige of
National Quality Awards (MBNQA) – the prestigious quality awards in USA- CALLS for the integration of
both. It means that quality Planning and improvement planning should be carried out as part for the
integration Planning. The quality improvement Planning should focus on the needs of current and future
customers and support the strategic and business goal of the organization.

Just-1n-Time (JIT)- Tai-ichi Ohno of Toyota motors refined an idea for Just-In-T1me. This means that at
no stage of manufacturing nobody or nothing waits for anything. This is to ensure that there is no
wastage of machinery, materials and manpower. JIT focuses on right scheduling so as to keep inventory
as low as possible. This requires a perfect partnership between supplier and customer.

ISO 9000 Standards- ISO 9000 Standards were released for the first time in the year 1987 to bring in
system for quality in every organization. The standard was revised in 1994 and later in the year 2000.
The standard in the latest version advocates TQM and continuous process improvement.

Deming Award for Quality To express their gratefulness, Japanese instituted a Quality Award in the
name of Deming in the year 1951. The award is now given not only to companies in Japan, but even
overseas who excel in quality

QUALITY MANAGEMENT (QM)

According to ISO 9000 standards, Quality management comprises "All activities of the overall
management tunction that determine the quality policy, objectives and responsibilities and implement
them by means such as quality planning, quality control, quality assurance and quality improvement
within the quality system.

The quality system consists of the organizational structure, procedures, processes and resources needed
to implement quality management.

tne above brings out the following:

• The company must have an objective and policy for quality of the products and services.
• The organization should plan for meeting the objective

• The plan should include QA, QC and methodology for improvement.

• There must be a clear organizational structure for building quality into the products and services with
necessary resources.

• The quality management should be implemented formally with well-defined processes and procedures
and trained resources. The strategy for quality evolved with time is given in Fig. 1.2

• : Inspection QC- Pre-World War II

• QA Post-World War II
• QM
• TQM
Evolution of Quality (Figure 1.2)

The above is the chronology of evolution of methodologies for quality assurance.

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT- it was Feigenbaum who coined the phrase “total quality Control”
(TQM) It coined the Phrase "Total Quality Control'". The concept is known in Japan as company Wide
Quality control (CWQC). In 1985, the Americans came up with the term Total Quality Management
(TQM) to represent essentially the Japanese way of Quality Management