1) Background and Quality Flashcards
What is the definition of quality?
The degree of excellence of a thing.
Describe the quality circle:
Incoming Materials -> Production Operations -> Goods Packing -> Product Delivery
How has quality control developed over the years?
- Quality control of whole system, not just product.
- ‘scrap is inevitable’ is no longer tolerated
- Rejected components or scrap is considered a loss
What is the result of these developments within QC?
Total Quality Control
What are the 4 areas of Total Quality Control?
- Product Design Assurance
- Procurement Quality Assurance
- Production Quality Control
- Product Quality Audit
Describe Product Design Assurance:
- Quality of product linked directly to quality of design.
- Poor design can lead to difficult/ expensive manufacture.
- Modern design -> Integrate design with manufacture
- All considered under concurrent engineering -> ensures the integrity of the product.
Describe Procurement Quality Assurance:
- Procurement of materials and parts requires QC.
- Essential to eliminate problems caused by faulty materials, before they are used in products.
- Supply quality is generally handled by the suppliers as part of the procurement contracts.
Describe Production Quality Control:
- Covers entire range of manufacturing activities, to a required standard.
- This covers - manufacturing process control, preventative and corrective maintenance, in-process control.
- Strongly influenced by the use of metrology techniques.
Describe Quality Audit Assurance:
- Overall evaluation of QC programme
- Management tool - provides early look of product from customers view.
- Possible to do using software.
What are the two main categories of quality loss during production?
- Manufacturing Errors
- Human factors in careless work
What are the reasons for the high cost of measurement and inspection during manufacturing?
- High quality, trained, experienced human workers
- Expensive equipment
- Data handling
- Time
What are the Quality System costs?
- Cost of monitoring incoming raw materials
- Monitoring personnel
- Training
- Modifying plant and equipment
- Quality checks at packing stations
What are the quality system savings?
- Reduction in use of raw materials
- Enhanced product reputation
- Increased sales and Profit
- Reduction In cost of meeting warranty claims
- Reduction in defective products
Which stages of manufacture should QC be considered?
All stages but that is not cost effective, so:
- Procurement of materials
- Manufacturing operations
- Assembly/final inspection
What further procedural aspects of QC should be considered?
- External/internal standards
- Inspection frequency
- Management systems to rectify system faults
- Inspection/maintenance of manufacturing tools
- Inspection/maintenance of metrology tools
- Manufacturing issues of metrology tools
- Manual vs automated measurement
