2.4.4 Quality Management

Question 1

Quality

Answer 1

When a business meets the expectations of its customers and meets the specifications that the firm has set out.

Question 2

Quality control

Answer 2

The process of inspecting finished products to ensure that they meet the required quality standards.

Question 3

Benefits of quality control

Answer 3

• Inexpensive and simple way to check quality.
• A few highly skilled workers responsible for quality which simplifies job for others on production line.
• Production line doesn’t need to stop to fix issues.

Question 4

Drawbacks of quality control

Answer 4

• Greater wastage and cost.
• Doesn’t get to source of issue and correct it.

Question 5

Quality assurance

Answer 5

Inspecting quality of production throughout the process.

Question 6

Benefits of quality assurance

Answer 6

• Less wastage as quality issues are identified before product reaches end of production line.
• Causes of issue is identified to prevent future quality issues.

Question 7

Drawbacks of quality assurance

Answer 7

• More workers involved in quality checks which can increase labour costs as staff training and skilled workforce is required.
• Production can be haulted to fix a fault.

Question 8

Quality circles

Answer 8

Small groups of workers in the same area of production who meet regularly to study and solve production problems.

Question 9

Benefits of quality circles

Answer 9

• Workers more motivated as involved in decision making and feel valued.
• Employees doing a job often have a better idea on how to improve processes.

Question 10

Drawbacks of quality circles

Answer 10

• Management need to have trust in workers views and solutions.
• Time consuming – meetings must be organised regularly.
• Lack of participants due to voluntary membership.
• Opinions/solutions to problems can be quite narrow due to a small sample of quality circles.

Question 11

Total quality management

Answer 11

An approach to quality that aims to involve all employees in the quality improvement process.

Question 12

Benefits of total quality management

Answer 12

• Improves efficiency – zero defects.
• Improved customer satisfaction.
• Better team work and job satisfaction/motivation.
• Workers more motivated to improve quality and offer good customer service.

Question 13

Drawbacks of total quality management

Answer 13

• Time consuming and costly.
• Not everyone wants to be involved or trained in quality.
• Careful monitoring and control required.

Question 14

Kaizen

Answer 14

A Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement where firms should continuously seek to improve their performance.

• Accepted by all.
• Small gradual changes lead to a big effect on competitive advantage.
• Based around people and ideas.
• 1 worker 2 jobs.
• Team working – quality circles.
• Zero defects.
• Total quality management.
• Just in time.
• Empowerment – speed of decision making.
• Performance targets.
• Improving quality: market research, design the product plan the process.

Question 15

Problems implementing Kaizen

Answer 15

• Culture - management and workers could resist change, impact on motivation.
• Training costs.
• Justifying the cost: opportunity cost of investment in time and training whilst loss of output, hard to measure benefits.
• Not right for all situations, may need drastic action to survive.
• Diminishing returns – impact of improvement gets less over time (staff enthusiasm).

Question 16

Competitive advantage through quality management

Answer 16

• Differentiate against competitors – USP
• Point of promotion.
• Reduces complaints and returns which reduces costs.
• A non price strategy – so may not have to compete on price.