Quality Management

Quality is the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirements. In management practice it combines conformance, fitness for use, reliability, and the customer’s experienced value.

Major Quality Thinkers

Thinker	Contribution
W. Edwards Deming	Fourteen points, PDCA/PDSA learning cycle, variation and the system of profound knowledge
Joseph M. Juran	Fitness for use and the quality trilogy: planning, control, and improvement
Philip B. Crosby	Conformance to requirements, zero-defects standard, and the cost of nonconformance
Kaoru Ishikawa	Cause-and-effect diagram, quality circles, and company-wide quality control
Genichi Taguchi	Robust design and the loss imposed on society by variation from target

Quality thinkers and their signature contributions

Total Quality Management

Total Quality Management (TQM) is an organization-wide management philosophy in which leadership and all employees continuously improve processes to satisfy customers and other stakeholders over the long term.

Principle	Operational meaning
Customer focus	Translate present and future customer needs into requirements
Total employee involvement	Enable everyone to identify and solve quality problems
Process approach	Manage related activities as measurable processes rather than isolated outputs
Continuous improvement	Use repeated learning and small or breakthrough change to raise performance
Fact-based decisions	Distinguish signal from opinion using valid data and analysis
System integration	Align processes, suppliers, functions, and objectives
Leadership commitment	Set purpose, remove fear and barriers, provide resources, and model the desired culture

Principles of TQM

Deming’s PDCA Cycle

Deming’s repeating Plan–Do–Check–Act learning cycle

Plan.
Define the problem and customer need, study the current process, identify causes, set a target, and design a testable change.

Do.
Implement the change on a controlled scale and collect data.

Check.
Compare observed results with the prediction; examine intended and unintended effects.

Act.
Standardize and expand a successful change, or revise the theory and begin another cycle.

Deming’s Fourteen Points

1. Create constancy of purpose for improving products and services.

2. Adopt the new philosophy of quality and learning.

3. Cease dependence on mass inspection by building quality into the process.

4. End purchasing based on price alone; manage total cost and supplier quality.

5. Improve every process constantly and forever.

6. Institute effective training on the job.

7. Institute leadership that helps people and systems perform.

8. Drive out fear so that problems and ideas can be reported honestly.

9. Break down barriers between departments.

10. Eliminate slogans and exhortations that ignore system causes.

11. Eliminate arbitrary numerical quotas and management by numbers alone.

12. Remove barriers that rob people of pride in workmanship.

13. Institute vigorous education and self-improvement.

14. Engage everyone in accomplishing the transformation.

Seven Basic Quality Tools

Tool	Primary use
Cause-and-effect (Ishikawa) diagram	Organize possible root causes under meaningful categories
Check sheet	Collect occurrence data consistently at the source
Control chart	Separate common-cause from special-cause variation over time
Histogram	Display the shape, spread, and center of a distribution
Pareto chart	Rank categories to focus on the vital few contributors
Scatter diagram	Explore association between two measured variables
Flowchart	Map process sequence, decisions, handoffs, delay, and rework

The seven basic quality tools

Inference caution: A Pareto ranking does not prove root cause, and a scatter pattern does not by itself prove causation. Use the tools as parts of disciplined investigation.

Six Sigma and DMAIC

Six Sigma is a data-driven improvement approach aimed at reducing variation and defects. The often-cited long-term benchmark is approximately $3.4$ defects per million opportunities under the conventional $1.5\sigma$ shift assumption.

Phase	Central question	Typical output
Define	What problem and customer requirement matter?	Charter, voice of customer, scope, critical-to-quality measures
Measure	How does the current process perform?	Operational definitions, validated measurement system, baseline
Analyze	What root causes explain the performance gap?	Tested cause model
Improve	Which solution removes or controls causes?	Piloted and optimized process change
Control	How will gains be sustained?	Control plan, ownership, monitoring, standard work, response plan

DMAIC improvement roadmap

ISO 9001 Quality Management System

ISO 9001 specifies auditable requirements for a quality management system. It does not certify that every individual product is flawless; it certifies that the organization operates a conforming management system within its stated scope.

Principle	Emphasis
Customer focus	Understand needs, meet requirements, and enhance satisfaction
Leadership	Create unity of purpose, direction, and enabling conditions
Engagement of people	Develop and empower competent people at all levels
Process approach	Manage interacting processes as a coherent system
Improvement	Maintain an ongoing focus on better performance
Evidence-based decisions	Base decisions on analysis and reliable information
Relationship management	Manage interested-party and supplier relationships for sustained success

Seven quality-management principles behind ISO 9001

Note

Key Point — Quality assurance and control

Quality assurance builds confidence by designing and auditing capable processes; quality control measures outputs and process results to find nonconformity. Prevention usually costs less than correction, rework, failure, and lost trust.