OS - QUALITY MANAGEMENT Flashcards
QUALITY MANAGEMENT
o Quality management refers to the strategies to ensure consistency, reliability, safety and fitness for purpose of the businesses products
Considerations in quality management include:
Reducing waste and defects
Increasing conformity to standards
Reducing variance in final outputs
APPROACHES TO QUALITY MANAGEMENT
o Quality control = Inspections to check for problems and then fix them
o Quality assurance = Implementing a system to ensure standards are achieved
o Quality improvement = A commitment to excellence and continuous improvement
o Businesses will decide which approach(es) to adopt in order to ensure costs are minimised and customer satisfaction is maximised
WHAT IS THE RESULT OF EFFECTIVE QM
Effective quality management is designed to achieve two purposes
Reduce costs from wastage/defects
Improve revenue from increased product quality
o In this way quality management can result in both cost leadership and product differentiation (based on quality)
QUALITY CONTROL
o Quality control involves the use of inspections at various points in the production process to check for problems and defects
o A business needs to have defined quality standards and parameters
o Once the standards have been set, a range of tests need to be designed to assess the quality of the products and processes against the standards
o Any failure to meet the new targets would need to be assessed and appropriate action taken
Benefits quality
o Consistency in products
o To sustain a competitive advantage based on quality
limitations quality
o Costs of machinery to create the resource or employees
o Is it as reactive is it full proof
o Employees may miss defects and problems which is costly and a risk to goodwill
QUALITY CONTROL AT IKEA
o Ikeas test lab in its home town almhult Sweden not only tests prototypes but applies rigorous quality and safety testing to a sample of existing products
QUALITY ASSUARANCE
o An approach that uses a system of (often externally developed) set standards that a businesses uses to proactively guide its production
o A widely used international standard is the ISO 9000 series of quality certifications. These standards are voluntary but many businesses comply with their requirements to enhance their competitiveness
QUALITY IMPROVEMENTS
o Quality improvement (total quality management) is an ongoing, business wide commitment to excellence that is applied to every aspect of the business operation
o The aim is to create a defect free production process and maintain customer focus in operations
Within improvement there are a range of more specific approached to achieve these objectives including:
Employee empowerment (quality circles)
Continuous improvement (constant evaluation)
Customer focus (what do customers require)
