Chapter 1: Introduction Flashcards
Briefly summarize the history of quality before and since the industrial revolution.
Although craftspeople were attentive to quality, the industrial revolution moved responsibility for quality away from the worker and into separate staff departments. This had the effect of making quality a technical, as opposed to managerial, function. This thinking carried through Western industry until about 1980.
What caused the most significant changes to the history of quality before and since the industrial revolution?
W. Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran taught techniques of quality control and management to the Japanese in the 1950s. Over the next 20 years, Japan made massive improvements in quality, while the quality of U.S. products increased at a much slower rate.
What factors have contributed to the increased awareness of quality in modern business?
Four significant influences brought about the “quality revolution” in the United States in the 1980s: consumer pressure, changes in technology, outdated managerial thinking, and loss of national competitiveness. Quality assumed an unprecedented level of importance in the United States. The quality movement has influenced not only product and service improvements, but the way in which organizations are managed, leading to the concepts of Big Q – managing for quality in all organizational processes as opposed to simply in manufacturing, referred to as Little Q.
Explain the various definitions of quality.
Quality is defined from many viewpoints. These include transcendent (judgmental) quality, product- and value-based quality, fitness for use (user- based) , and conformance to specifications (manufacturing-based). The official definition of quality is “the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bears on its ability to satisfy given needs.” Most businesses today define it as “meeting or exceeding customer expectations.”
Can a single definition of quality suffice? Why?
Quality is viewed depending on one’s position in the value chain (such as a designer, manufacturer or service provider, distributor, or customer). Each has its own way of measuring quality that applies to that part of the value chain. However, the official definition “the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bears on its ability to satisfy given needs” and common definition “meeting or exceeding customer expectations” may be able to suffice for general purposes.
Distinguish among consumers, external customers, and internal customers.
Customers include consumers, who ultimately use a product; external customers, who may be intermediaries between the producer and the consumer; and internal customers, who are the recipients of goods and services from suppliers within the producing firm.
Illustrate how the concepts of consumers, external customers, and internal customers apply to a McDonald’s restaurant, a Pizza Hut, or a similar franchise.
Consumers are those who buy food to eat; external customers are those transport the food to the restaurant; internal customers are the people who make the food compared to those who take the orders. ?
What is the concept of total quality?
Total quality management (TQM), or simply total quality (TQ), is a total, company-wide effort–through full involvement of the entire workforce and a focus on continuous improvement–that companies use to achieve customer satisfaction. TQ evolved from earlier concepts of total quality control and companywide quality control as practiced in Japan.
What does total quality mean for the way an organization is managed?
As TQM changed way organizations thought, many executives realized all fundamental business activities (ex. Role of leadership in guiding an organization, how organizations creates strategic plans for future, how data and information are used to make decisions) needed to be aligned with quality principles, work together as a system, and be continuously improved as business conditions and directions change.
Explain the differences among quality principles, practices, and techniques.
Principles: The foundation of the philosophy
Practices: Activities by which the principles are implemented
Techniques: tools and approaches that help managers and employees make the practices effective
Describe the three fundamental principles of total quality.
Total quality is grounded on three core principles: a focus on customers and stakeholders; employee engagement and teamwork; and continuous improvement and learning. These are supported by a wide variety of TQ practices in five basic areas of management:
1. Strategic planning and design of organizational and work systems 2. Customer engagement and knowledge acquisition 3. Workforce management
4. Process management 5. Information and knowledge management 6. Leadership
and a set of TQ techniques to plan work activities, collect data, analyze results, monitor progress, and solve problems.
What is a process?
A sequence of activities that is intended to achieve some result.
How does a process focus differ from a traditional organization?
Nearly every major activity within an organization involves a process that crosses traditional organizational boundaries. A process perspective links together all necessary activities and increases one’s understanding of the entire system, rather than focusing on only a small part . Many of the greatest opportunities for improving organizational performance lie in the organizational interfaces- those spaces between the boxes on an organizational chart. Traditional organizations were integrated vertically by linking all levels of management in a hierarchical fashion. TQ requires horizontal coordination between organizational units.
List some examples of the types of improvements an organization can make.
Enhancing value to the customer through new and improved products and services; Reducing errors, defects, waste, and their related costs; Increasing productivity and effectiveness in the use of all resources; Improving responsiveness and cycle time performance for such processes as resolving customer complaints or new product introduction.
What is the difference between improvement and learning?
Continuous Improvement refers to both incremental changes, which are small and gradual, and breakthrough, or large and rapid, improvements. Real improvement depends on learning, which means understanding why changes are successful through feedback between practices and results, leading to new goals and approaches. A Learning cycle consists of four stages: Planning; Execution of plans; Assessment of progress; Revision of plans based upon assessment findings.
How does quality support the achievement of competitive advantage?
Improvements in design will differentiate the product from its competitors, improve a firm’s quality reputation, and improve the perceived value of the product. These factors allow the firm to command higher prices as well as to achieve a greater market share, which in turn leads to increased revenues that offset the costs of improving the design.
What did Philip Crosby mean by “Quality is free”?
Improved conformance in production or service delivery leads to lower costs through savings in rework, scrap, resolution of errors, and warranty expenses.
Explain the three levels of quality and the key issues that must be addressed at each level.
Organizations should view quality at three levels: the organizational level, the process level, and the performer level. This perspective cuts across traditional functional boundaries and provides better information for achieving customer satisfaction.
Why is it important to personalize quality principles?
A survey revealed that personal initiative, when combined with a customer orientation, resulted in a positive impact on business success and sales growth rate. Unless quality is internalized at the personal level, it will never become rooted in the culture of an organization. Thus, quality must begin at a personal level.
Quality Assurance
Any planned and systematic activity directed toward providing consumers with products (goods and services) of appropriate quality, along with the confidence that products meet consumers’ requirements.
Three issues that are critical to managers of manufacturing and service organizations that contribute to profitability.
Productivity, Cost, Quality
Productivity (Contributes to Profitability)
The measure of efficiency defined as the amount of output achieved per unit of input
Cost (Contributes to Profitability)
Cost of operations
Quality (Contributes to Profitability)
The quality of foods and services that create customer satisfaction. The most significant factor out of the three determinants of profitability in determining the long-run success or failure of any organization.
What does quality assurance depend on for excellence?
- The design of goods and services
- The control of quality during execution of manufacturing and service delivery (Often aided by some form of measurement and inspection activity)
What is the birth of modern quality assurance methods?
Twelfth century B.C. China during Zhou Dynasty. Created specific governmental departments with responsibility for various areas for quality. Issued policies and procedures to control production across China for things such as utensils, cotton, silk, and carts. utensils, cotton, silk, and carts.
Prohibited the sale of inferior, substandard and nonconforming products. Causes for substandard products were investigated and evaluated to ensure quality.
The Age of Craftsmanship
Craftsmen served as both manufacturer and inspector. Guilds emerged to ensure adequate training. The invention of interchangeable parts for muskets became a valuable idea and necessitated quality assurance. As such, quality assurance became a critical component of the production process during the Industrial Revolution.
The Early Twentieth Century
In early 1900s, Frederick W. Taylor (“father of scientific management”) led to separation of the planning function from the executive function. The managers and engineers planned; supervisors and workers executed. Eventually led to indifference in quality among production workers and their managers (not their problem).
The Early Twentieth Century (Bell System)
Created an inspection department in its Western Electric Company in early 1900s to support Bell operating companies. Massive inspection efforts achieved its noteworthy quality, but importance of quality led to research and development. Developed new theories and methods of inspection. Helped bring quality into being a discipline of its own. Western Electric, led by Walter Shewhart, brought about era of statistical quality control (SQC). Statistical sampling procedures began to be used during WWII in U.S. military and helped make SQC widely known and adopted throughout manufacturing industries.
Statistical Quality Control (SQC)
The application of statistical methods for controlling quality. SQC focused on identifying and eliminating problems that cause defects
Post-World War II
Production became top priority due to good shortages after war, but top manager focus was only production and reliance on inspection, not on quality. Juran and Deming introduced SQC idea to Japanese.
The U.S. “Quality Revolution”
People began to notice differences in quality between Japanese- and U.S.-made products. Began to expect and demand high quality and reliability in products at a fair price. Extensive product recalls by the Consumer Product Safety Commission in early 1980s and media coverage of the Challenger explosion increased awareness and need for quality. Businesses now see increased attentiveness to quality as necessary to survive and for worldwide competitiveness.
Consumer Perceptions (GE Lines with Poor Reputations)
Lines with poor reputations for quality were found to deemphasize customer’s viewpoint, regard quality as synonymous with tight tolerance and conformance to specifications, tie quality objectives to manufacturing flow, express quality objectives as the number of defects per unit and use formal quality control systems only in manufacturing. Quality must not be viewed solely as a technical discipline, but as a management discipline. Quality assurance gave way to quality management.
Consumer Perceptions (GE Lines with Good Reputations)
Product lines with good reputations were found to emphasize satisfying customer expectations, determine customer needs through market research, use customer-based quality performance measures, and have formalized quality control systems in place for all business functions, not just for manufacturing. Quality must not be viewed solely as a technical discipline, but as a management discipline. Quality assurance gave way to quality management.
