The company's management should understand that quality management is a complex and focused process that affects the entire structure of the enterprise - from the appointment to the position and ending with the production and sale of finished products.
Despite this, the effective functioning of the quality management system is impossible in the absence of objective and reliable information of a quantitative and qualitative nature. The main purpose of using quality management tools at the enterprise is to develop practical skills of analysis, to ensure control over the level of production of services and products.
What issues should be considered?
For a long time, experts in the field of quality determination were able to identify the basic concepts, which include:
- compliance with requirements (Philip Crosby);
- correspondence of the quality of the goods to the money given for it;
- consumer acceptability;
- satisfaction of requirements and inquiries of the buyer;
- suitability for operation (Juran);
- the principle by which the consumer returns to the manufacturer, and not the product or service being produced.
The latter definition is considered one of the most important, as it focuses primarily on the consumer and includes the creation of products or services that could fully meet expectations. The buyer, having made a monetary operation and receiving the product, must be completely satisfied and after, after some time, return to make new orders and purchases.
The dependence of the quality of things from production
What is the quality of a thing and the quality of its production? To understand this, use the following dependency:
- doing the wrong things right is good;
- doing the right thing right is good;
- doing wrong things wrong is bad;
- doing the right thing wrong is bad.
Quality tools
Modern quality management tools are as follows:
- brain attack technique;
- affinity diagram;
- connection diagram;
- tree diagram;
- matrix chart;
- arrow chart;
- network diagram;
- Gantt chart;
- flow diagram of the process;
- priority matrix.
All described tools for monitoring the production process have the following goals:
- mastering the basic tools of quality assurance in the design of products and the provision of services to consumers;
- development of practical skills for benchmarking and QFD methodology;
- a detailed study of ways to analyze the level of quality as the basis for making managerial decisions in the field of TQM;
- gaining skills in creating a quality control system with static methods at the core.
Seven popular tools
There are also seven quality management tools that no production can do without:
- bar graph;
- Pareto chart;
- control cards;
- scatter chart;
- stratification;
- checklist;
- Ishikawa diagram.
What is a goal matrix?
Experts recommend that the following rule be followed during production: “You can bargain at a price, but not at a price.” It is for this reason that the quality of products should remain the fundamental goal of any entrepreneur.
It should be laid at the initial stage of production of the product, since later it will not work to integrate it. You need to start planning quality from the very first stage of product development. Quality issues are best addressed through the creation of an effective, economically sound system of preventive measures that will steadily improve the quality of services and products.
Another important rule to keep in mind throughout production is the tenfold rule. It was experimentally proved that eliminating a product defect at the design stage is on average costing an enterprise ten times cheaper than if such a defect had been identified in the production process itself. If a significant flaw has already been identified in the hands of the consumer, then the price of its elimination rises another ten times, which amounts to twenty.
New tools in production
Most of the previously considered tools for quality control in production are used to analyze numerical indicators, which meets the requirement of TQM: when making decisions, the main emphasis is on facts.
But it is important to remember that facts are not always numerical, so in order to be ready to make decisions of any nature, it is important to at least minimally understand the behavioral sciences, operational analysis, optimization theory and statistics. For this, the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers on the basis of the sciences reviewed has created a powerful and effective set of tools for the quality work of the enterprise, which helps to greatly facilitate the quality management process in the enterprise.
Although quality control tools are often considered new, different companies have already managed to apply them at different time intervals. They are effective in resolving issues that arise in the process of product design, in contrast to other tools that are useful only at the time of production.
Such assistants are best suited to improve the quality of production by creating a product or service. New quality management tools include:
- affinity chart;
- connection diagram;
- tree diagram;
- matrix diagram;
- arrow chart;
- program flow chart;
- priority matrix.
It is important to remember that each of the described tools is closely interconnected and inseparable in production.
How is it carried out?
The collection of information for quality tools is most often carried out at the time of brain attacks. A brain attack is used to develop in the group the maximum number of new and different ideas from each other on a specific issue in a short time.
It is carried out in several ways:
- Orderly - each employee of the enterprise in the next order submits an interesting idea, which he considers the most successful in a specific situation for the project. This is how even the most silent people can be encouraged to communicate, but in this case it is important to remember the elements of pressure that can sometimes interfere.
- Disordered - members of the organization talk about their ideas not in a specific period of time, but as they come to mind. But in this way an atmosphere of high risk is created and there is a danger that attention will be given only to the ideas of those people who, by their nature, speak a lot.
How to behave to the leader?
In both methods, the rules for conducting a brain attack are almost the same. The organizer of the organization is best to behave, following the following pattern.
- Never criticize the ideas received from employees - each of them is recommended to be taken into account, written on a board or on a separate sheet. If the participant’s thought is conveyed clearly and written on the board, then everyone will be able to understand it and, based on it, even create new ideas.
- Everyone should agree with the question that will be raised at the time of the brain attack.
- It is recommended that you put word on word on a piece of paper or a board of ideas without modifying them.
- Brainstorming should be carried out quickly, it is best to devote 15-45 minutes to this, but not more.
Affinity chart
The affinity diagram is one of 7 statistical type quality management tools. It helps identify underlying disorders using verbal data. Sometimes such a chart is called the KJ method (in honor of its founder, a Japanese scientist Jiro Kawakita).
The affinity diagram is built when, after a brain attack, the organizer received too many new and interesting ideas, information and points of view that need to be grouped into one in order to determine their relationship. This method of analysis is most often used in order to creatively correlate all the ideas expressed by members of the organization. The construction of an affinity diagram, as a rule, proceeds as follows.
- A subject or topic is identified that will become the basis for collecting useful information.
- Collection of information that employees of the company will express during a brain attack. It is very important to collect ideas in a disordered manner. Each message must be entered on the map by a separate participant.
- Then you need to make sure that all related data is grouped in the direction of different levels.
To do this, find cards that seem even to a minimum degree related to each other, they are stacked together. After being folded again. The work ends at the moment when all the information is laid out on shelves, understandable and clear. This makes it possible to obtain groups of related data in which a particular focus is located. This focus should combine the affinity of each data group. This can be done in another way by choosing one card and making it the main one or creating a new direction.
The described manipulations can be repeated, but with a summary of the main directions, thereby creating a real hierarchy. The analysis is considered complete when all the data obtained are grouped in accordance with the number of leading directions.
Link diagram
Connection diagram - a tool and method of quality management that helps to determine the logical connections between the main and secondary ideas, solves problems with different data. The basis for constructing a diagram is the same principle as with an affinity diagram. The main idea, problem or question is put at the center, and then additional links are put aside that link individual factors that are directly or indirectly related to the question posed.
The relationship diagram can be easily recreated based on the ideas that were taken into account during the construction of the affinity diagram. It is important to look for those links that can provide a critical result. A connection diagram is the most effective logical tool, as opposed to an affinity diagram, which refers to a more creative direction.
When is a link diagram beneficial?
- when the issue in question has such a complex structure that the connection between the ideas put forward cannot be determined through a simple discussion;
- when the time sequence on the basis of which steps are taken is decisive;
- when it is suspected that the problem raised in the question is a symptom of a more complex and unaffected problem.
As in the case of the affinity diagram, the procedure for constructing the table should be carried out in a specific group. In this case, it is most important to pay attention to the fact that the studied subject must be determined in advance.
Tree diagram and its construction principle
A tree diagram (systematic) is a tool and method of quality management that helps to determine the method for resolving the issue raised, the central idea, as well as meet the needs of different levels of complexity. A tree diagram can be considered as a continuation of the relationship diagram. It is created on the basis of a multi-stage tree structure, the elements of which are different means and methods of solving the issue.
The tree diagram as a tool for management and quality control is considered the most effective and useful for the production process. The process of reproducing a diagram is similar to the process of constructing an affinity diagram, but in this case it is important to remember that the subject that is being investigated must be previously defined and recognized.
The tree diagram is the main quality management tool that is used in the following cases:
- when the organizing group is unclear to the end the wishes of the consumer regarding a particular product;
- when it is necessary to conduct research on all parts that somehow affect the problem;
- when short-term goals need to be achieved earlier than the results of work, even at the time of product design or project preparation.
As an example, we can touch on the goal of creating English courses. More often than not, the main goal is to provide in-depth knowledge of the subject. However, each person who is about to start learning a language, by deep knowledge means something of his own. Someone needs conversational practice, someone has grammar rules, someone wants to improve their pronunciation.
For this reason, when creating the courses, a tree diagram was created that helps to put to the practical level all the requirements put forward in a random order. On the basis of such a diagram, the most effective program for teaching schoolchildren and students is being developed.
Matrix chart
The matrix diagram is a management and quality control tool that helps to recreate the relationship between the main idea and the problem, various data obtained during the discussion. The use of quality management tools is important for organizing a large flow of incoming information and illustrating the relationships between different elements through graphs.
The main goal of the diagram is to depict the relationship outline and the correlation between functions, tasks and characteristics, followed by highlighting the degree of their importance.