Quality Standards - Waste, TQM, Benchmarking, Quality Control, Quality Circles Flashcards
whats quality
- appearance
- design of the product
- reliability of the product
- ensuring the product is properly checked during production
- ensuring its fit for purpose and is safe to use = will last an efficient amount of time and will be reliable
- ensuring that the quality satisfies legislation/standards i.e car crash safety tests passed for cars or food fit for consumption or kids toys
importance of quality
consumers now expect quality as a standard and not an optional extra
- brings bad publicity for the business
- lead to a loss of goodwill
- bad business reputation
- loss of sales
customers now more likely to complain and publisce their bad experience and complaints
quality assurance
concerned with the way in which a business sets out its procedures to assure its consumers that the products produced are of the right quality
systems should be in place to ensure that quality is appropriate
at every stage of the production process - quality checks are for the repsonsiblity of every worker
builds quality into every stage of production and into how the product is made
quality control
process in which a business reviews the quality of all the factors involved in the process of production
a set of activities for ensuring quality in products - focusing on identifying and correcting defects in whats produced THE FINISHED PRODUCT and BEFORE ITS RELEASED
cost of inspection
- installing procedures to improve quality
- time taken to check and inspect
- employing people to inspect or requring employees to use part of their time to inspect instead of producing
X - can not be economically worthwhile to check its all exactly the same
- however may be crucial to check something is all the same to make sure everything all fits
= depends on product and its function to how much you need to check
cost of poor quality products
- wasted materials
- cost of repairing
- production losses to rectify faults
- damage to reputation of the businesses + loss of sales
quality definition
achieving a minimum standard for a product or service or process to meet customer needs
about comparing a product to a aprticular standard - meets standard set by customers
quality control advantages
- left to specialists
- good for dealing with common problems
- removes defective products
quality control disadvantages
- looking for negatives - workers feel the pressure and can still be stuff wrong regardless
- no incentives for workers to check quality > all done by others
- not every product is checked
- reacts to it not pro-active and doing something about it
quality assurance advantages
- workers taking more care
- reduced costs and waste
- increased motivation with responsibility
- workers best placed to do the job
quality assurance disadvantages
- initial cost to implement this > training
- not all products need this
- increased demand and responsibility for workers - lots of trust but too much?
- workers may be against this
benefits of good quality
- premium price can be charged
- strong brand image
- customer needs are met
- can differentiate themselves from rivals
wastage rates
used to measure EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT, BUSINESS PERFORMANCE
number of rejects produced
________________________ X 100
total number of products produced
what causes wastage rates
poor quality materials/inputs
machinary failure
employee error/bad attitude
how to reduce wastage
- training and motivation
- better quality inputs - supply chain quality assurance
- new technology - better equipment, computer controlled monitoring of production
