Operations - Quality Flashcards
What are the Quality methods ?
Quality control
Quality assurance
Quality circle
Quality inputs
Benchmarking
Total Quality Management
What is Quality Control ?
Products are checked at the START and END ONLY. any products not meeting the standards of quality will be sent for rework or discard completely
What are the advantages of Quality control ?
- ensures customers don’t get faulty goods
- limits the potential for a bad reputation
What are the disadvantages of Quality control ?
- can create lots of waste as products are not checked until the end of production
- Products have to be reworked from scratch will cost time and money
What is Quality Assurance ?
ALL STAFF check ALL ITEMS at ALL STAGES of production for faults.
aims to prevent the faulty products from being produced
What are advantages of Quality assurance ?
- Less wastage as errors spotted quickly
What are disadvantages of Quality assurance ?
- can slow down production as many processes are inspected
- increases the cost of wages
What is Quality Circle ?
A SMALL GROUP of workers from DIFFERENT LEVELS in the organisation (managers, assembly lines) come together and discuss and solve problems in production
What are the advantages of Quality circle ?
- Employees involved in the quality circle may become more motivated as they feel valued within the company
- Employees who are doing the job often have a better idea on how to improve processes
What are the disadvantages of Quality circle ?
- production time lost when employees meet
What is benchmarking ?
The business compares their practices to the best practices in the industry.
The business will then try to imitate the practices of its competitors
What are advantages of Benchmarking ?
- The product will be as good as the best on the market
- Saves the business time developing their own approach to quality
What are the disadvantages of benchmarking?
- it can be difficult to gain information about other organisation’s quality methods
- The business will only ever be as good as the benchmark at the time
What is Total Quality Management ?
When the whole business is committed to quality and every product is made perfectly each time
variety of methods for example using quality assurance and quality circle
What are the advantages of Total Quality Management ?
- Zero errors so no waste
- Staff are motivated as they are working together to achieve quality
- Products known to be quality - good reputation
What are the disadvantages of Total Quality Management ?
- substantial staff training - increases costs
- Requires commitment of all staff - stricter selection process
- Time consuming to continually review processes
What is Quality Input ?
using HIGH QUALITY MATERIALS in production
hiring HIGHLY SKILLED STAFF
using UP TO DATE TECHNOLOGY in production and maintaining it
What are Advantages of Quality input ?
- good reputation for quality products
- competitive edge compared to rivals
What are disadvantages of Quality input ?
- It Expensive to purchase eg: organic raw materials
- Flaws in production
- Time taken from production to train skilled staff
What are benefits of good quality products ?
- Satisfied customers who are more likely to make repeat purchases
- The business will meet safety and legal requirements 3. A premium price can be charged
What are quality standards/ symbols ?
Quality standards and symbols is a way of documentary and display quality
What are disadvantages of quality standards of quality standards/ symbols ?
- Time-consuming process to achieve the award
- agreed standards need to be maintained
- Annual checks by awarding bodies can disrupt production
What are advantaged of quality standards/ symbols ?
- symbols can be used as a promotion too
- increase customer confident
- higher prices can be charged
