Quality management ensures that an organization, product or service is consistent. It has four main components: quality planning, quality assurance, quality control and quality improvement. Quality management is focused not only on product and service quality,
but also on the means to achieve it. Quality management, therefore,
uses quality assurance and control of processes as well as products to
achieve more consistent quality.
What a customer wants and is willing to pay for it determines quality.
It is a written or unwritten commitment to a known or unknown consumer
in the market. Thus, quality can be defined as fitness for intended use
or, in other words, how well the product performs its intended function.
Evolution
Quality
management is a recent phenomenon but important for an organization.
Civilizations that supported the arts and crafts allowed clients to
choose goods meeting higher quality standards rather than normal goods.
In societies where arts and crafts are the responsibility of master
craftsmen or artists, these masters would lead their studios and train
and supervise others. The importance of craftsmen diminished as mass
production and repetitive work practices were instituted. The aim was to
produce large numbers of the same goods. The first proponent in the US
for this approach was Eli Whitney
who proposed (interchangeable) parts manufacture for muskets, hence
producing the identical components and creating a musket assembly line.
The next step forward was promoted by several people including Frederick Winslow Taylor, a mechanical engineer who sought to improve industrial efficiency. He is sometimes called "the father of scientific management."
He was one of the intellectual leaders of the Efficiency Movement and
part of his approach laid a further foundation for quality management,
including aspects like standardization and adopting improved practices. Henry Ford was also important in bringing process and quality management practices into operation in his assembly lines. In Germany, Karl Benz,
often called the inventor of the motor car, was pursuing similar
assembly and production practices, although real mass production was
properly initiated in Volkswagen after World War II. From this period
onwards, North American companies focused predominantly upon production
against lower cost with increased efficiency.
Walter A. Shewhart
made a major step in the evolution towards quality management by
creating a method for quality control for production, using statistical
methods, first proposed in 1924. This became the foundation for his
ongoing work on statistical quality control. W. Edwards Deming
later applied statistical process control methods in the United States
during World War II, thereby successfully improving quality in the
manufacture of munitions and other strategically important products.
Quality leadership
from a national perspective has changed over the past decades. After
the second world war, Japan decided to make quality improvement a
national imperative as part of rebuilding their economy, and sought the
help of Shewhart, Deming and Juran, amongst others. W. Edwards Deming
championed Shewhart's ideas in Japan from 1950 onwards. He is probably
best known for his management philosophy establishing quality, productivity, and competitive position. He has formulated 14 points
of attention for managers, which are a high level abstraction of many
of his deep insights. They should be interpreted by learning and
understanding the deeper insights. These 14 points include key concepts such as:
- Break down barriers between departments
- Management should learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership
- Supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job
- Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service
- Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement
In the 1950s and 1960s, Japanese goods were synonymous with cheapness
and low quality, but over time their quality initiatives began to be
successful, with Japan achieving high levels of quality in products from
the 1970s onward. For example, Japanese cars regularly top the J.D. Power
customer satisfaction ratings. In the 1980s Deming was asked by Ford
Motor Company to start a quality initiative after they realized that
they were falling behind Japanese manufacturers. A number of highly
successful quality initiatives have been invented by the Japanese (see
for example on this pages: Genichi Taguchi, QFD, Toyota Production System).
Many of the methods not only provide techniques but also have
associated quality culture (i.e. people factors). These methods are now
adopted by the same western countries that decades earlier derided
Japanese methods.
Customers recognize that quality is an important attribute in
products and services. Suppliers recognize that quality can be an
important differentiator between their own offerings and those of
competitors (quality differentiation is also called the quality gap). In
the past two decades this quality gap has been greatly reduced between
competitive products and services. This is partly due to the contracting
(also called outsourcing) of manufacture to countries like China and
India, as well internationalization of trade and competition. These
countries, among many others, have raised their own standards of quality
in order to meet international standards and customer demands. The ISO 9000 series of standards are probably the best known International standards for quality management.
Customer satisfaction
is the backbone of Quality Management. Setting up a million dollar
company without taking care of needs of customer will ultimately
decrease its revenue.
There are many books available on quality management. Some themes have become more significant including quality culture, the importance of knowledge management, and the role of leadership in promoting and achieving high quality. Disciplines like systems thinking are bringing more holistic
approaches to quality so that people, process and products are
considered together rather than independent factors in quality
management.
The influence of quality thinking has spread to non-traditional
applications outside of walls of manufacturing, extending into service
sectors and into areas such as sales, marketing and customer service.
Principles
The
International Standard for Quality management (ISO 9001:2015) adopts a
number of management principles, that can be used by top management to
guide their organizations towards improved performance.
Customer focus
The primary focus of quality management is to meet customer requirements and to strive to exceed customer expectations.
Rationale
Sustained success is achieved when an organization attracts and
retains the confidence of customers and other interested parties on whom
it depends. Every aspect of customer interaction provides an
opportunity to create more value for the customer. Understanding current
and future needs of customers and other interested parties contributes
to sustained success of an organization.
Leadership
Leaders
at all levels establish unity of purpose and direction and create
conditions in which people are engaged in achieving the organization’s
quality objectives.
Leadership has to take up the necessary changes required for quality
improvement and encourage a sense of quality throughout organisation.
Rationale
Creation of unity of purpose and direction and engagement of
people enable an organization to align its strategies, policies,
processes and resources to achieve its objectives.
Engagement of people
Competent, empowered
and engaged people at all levels throughout the organization are
essential to enhance its capability to create and deliver value.
Rationale
To manage an organization effectively and efficiently, it is
important to involve all people at all levels and to respect them as
individuals. Recognition, empowerment and enhancement of competence
facilitate the engagement of people in achieving the organization’s
quality objectives.
Process approach
Consistent
and predictable results are achieved more effectively and efficiently
when activities are understood and managed as interrelated
processes that function as a coherent system.
Rationale
The quality management system consists of interrelated processes.
Understanding how results are produced by this system enables an
organization to optimize the system and its performance.
Improvement
Successful organizations have an ongoing focus on improvement.
Rationale
Improvement is essential for an organization to maintain current
levels of performance, to react to changes in its internal and external
conditions and to create new opportunities.
Evidence based decision making
Decisions based on the analysis and evaluation of data and information are more likely to produce desired results.
Rationale
Decision making can be a complex process, and it always involves some uncertainty.
It often involves multiple types and sources of inputs, as well as
their interpretation, which can be subjective. It is important to
understand cause-and-effect relationships and potential unintended consequences. Facts, evidence and data analysis lead to greater objectivity and confidence in decision making.
Relationship management
For sustained success, an organization manages its relationships with interested parties, such as suppliers, retailers.
Rationale
Interested parties influence the performance of an organizations
and industry. Sustained success is more likely to be achieved when the
organization manages relationships with all of its interested parties to
optimize their impact on its performance. Relationship management with
its supplier and partner networks is of particular importance.
Criticism
The social scientist Bettina Warzecha (2017)
describes the central concepts of Quality Management (QM), such as e.g.
process orientation, controllability, and zero defects as modern myths.
She demonstrates that zero-error processes and the associated illusion
of controllability involve the epistemological problem of
self-referentiality. The emphasis on the processes in QM also ignores
the artificiality and thus arbitrariness of the difference between
structure and process. Above all, the complexity of management cannot be
reduced to standardized (mathematical) procedures. According to her,
the risks and negative side effects of QM are usually greater than the
benefits (see also brand eins, 2010).
Quality improvement and more
The PDCA cycle
There are many methods for quality improvement. These cover product
improvement, process improvement and people based improvement. In the
following list are methods of quality management and techniques that
incorporate and drive quality improvement:
- ISO 9004:2008 — guidelines for performance improvement.
- ISO 9001:2015 - a certified quality management system (QMS) for organisations who want to prove their ability to consistently provide products and services that meet the needs of their customers and other relevant stakeholders.
- ISO 15504-4: 2005 — information technology — process assessment — Part 4: Guidance on use for process improvement and process capability determination.
- QFD — quality function deployment, also known as the house of quality approach.
- Kaizen — 改善, Japanese for change for the better; the common English term is continuous improvement.
- Zero Defect Program — created by NEC Corporation of Japan, based upon statistical process control and one of the inputs for the inventors of Six Sigma.
- Six Sigma — 6σ, Six Sigma combines established methods such as statistical process control, design of experiments and failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) in an overall framework.
- PDCA — plan, do, check, act cycle for quality control purposes. (Six Sigma's DMAIC method (define, measure, analyze, improve, control) may be viewed as a particular implementation of this.)
- Quality circle — a group (people oriented) approach to improvement.
- Taguchi methods — statistical oriented methods including quality robustness, quality loss function, and target specifications.
- The Toyota Production System — reworked in the west into lean manufacturing.
- Kansei Engineering — an approach that focuses on capturing customer emotional feedback about products to drive improvement.
- TQM — total quality management is a management strategy aimed at embedding awareness of quality in all organizational processes. First promoted in Japan with the Deming prize which was adopted and adapted in USA as the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and in Europe as the European Foundation for Quality Management award (each with their own variations).
- TRIZ — meaning "theory of inventive problem solving"
- BPR — business process reengineering, a management approach aiming at optimizing the workflows and processes within an organisation.
- OQRM — Object-oriented Quality and Risk Management, a model for quality and risk management.
- Top Down & Bottom Up Approaches—Leadership approaches to change
Proponents of each approach have sought to improve them as well as
apply them for small, medium and large gains. Simple one is Process
Approach, which forms the basis of ISO 9001:2008
Quality Management System standard, duly driven from the 'Eight
principles of Quality management', process approach being one of them.
Thareja
writes about the mechanism and benefits: "The process (proficiency) may
be limited in words, but not in its applicability. While it fulfills
the criteria of all-round gains: in terms of the competencies augmented
by the participants; the organisation seeks newer directions to the
business success, the individual brand image of both the people and the
organisation, in turn, goes up. The competencies which were hitherto
rated as being smaller, are better recognized and now acclaimed to be
more potent and fruitful".
The more complex Quality improvement tools are tailored for enterprise
types not originally targeted. For example, Six Sigma was designed for
manufacturing but has spread to service enterprises. Each of these
approaches and methods has met with success but also with failures.
Some of the common differentiators between success and failure
include commitment, knowledge and expertise to guide improvement, scope
of change/improvement desired (Big Bang type changes tend to fail more
often compared to smaller changes) and adaption to enterprise cultures.
For example, quality circles do not work well in every enterprise (and
are even discouraged by some managers), and relatively few
TQM-participating enterprises have won the national quality awards.
There have been well publicized failures of BPR, as well as Six
Sigma. Enterprises therefore need to consider carefully which quality
improvement methods to adopt, and certainly should not adopt all those
listed here.
It is important not to underestimate the people factors, such as
culture, in selecting a quality improvement approach. Any improvement
(change) takes time to implement, gain acceptance and stabilize as
accepted practice. Improvement must allow pauses between implementing
new changes so that the change is stabilized and assessed as a real
improvement, before the next improvement is made (hence continual
improvement, not continuous improvement).
Improvements that change the culture take longer as they have to
overcome greater resistance to change. It is easier and often more
effective to work within the existing cultural boundaries and make small
improvements (that is 'Kaizen') than to make major
transformational changes. Use of Kaizen in Japan was a major reason for
the creation of Japanese industrial and economic strength.
On the other hand, transformational change works best when an
enterprise faces a crisis and needs to make major changes in order to
survive. In Japan, the land of Kaizen, Carlos Ghosn
led a transformational change at Nissan Motor Company which was in a
financial and operational crisis. Well organized quality improvement
programs take all these factors into account when selecting the quality
improvement methods.
Quality standards
ISO standards
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) created the Quality Management System (QMS)
standards in 1987. They were the ISO 9000:1987 series of standards
comprising ISO 9001:1987, ISO 9002:1987 and ISO 9003:1987; which were
applicable in different types of industries, based on the type of
activity or process: designing, production or service delivery.
The standards are reviewed every few years by the International
Organization for Standardization. The version in 1994 was called the ISO
9000:1994 series; consisting of the ISO 9001:1994, 9002:1994 and
9003:1994 versions.
The last major revision was in the year 2000 and the series was called ISO 9000:2000
series. The ISO 9002 and 9003 standards were integrated into one single
certifiable standard: ISO 9001:2000. After December 2003, organizations
holding ISO 9002 or 9003 standards had to complete a transition to the
new standard.
ISO released a minor revision, ISO 9001:2008 on 14 October 2008.
It contains no new requirements. Many of the changes were to improve
consistency in grammar, facilitating translation of the standard into
other languages for use by over 950,000 certified organization in the
175 countries (as at Dec 2007) that use the standard.
The ISO 9004:2009
document gives guidelines for performance improvement over and above
the basic standard (ISO 9001:2000). This standard provides a measurement
framework for improved quality management, similar to and based upon
the measurement framework for process assessment.
The Quality Management System standards created by ISO are meant
to certify the processes and the system of an organization, not the
product or service itself. ISO 9000 standards do not certify the quality
of the product or service.
In 2005 the International Organization for Standardization released a standard, ISO 22000, meant for the food industry. This standard covers the values and principles of ISO 9000 and the HACCP
standards. It gives one single integrated standard for the food
industry and is expected to become more popular in the coming years in
such industry.
ISO has also released standards for other industries. For
example, Technical Standard TS 16949 defines requirements in addition to
those in ISO 9001:2008 specifically for the automotive industry.
ISO has a number of standards that support quality management. One group describes processes (including ISO/IEC 12207 and ISO/IEC 15288) and another describes process assessment and improvement ISO 15504.
CMMI and IDEAL methods
The Software Engineering Institute has its own process assessment and improvement methods, called CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) and IDEAL respectively.
Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) is a process
improvement training and appraisal program and service administered and
marketed by Carnegie Mellon University and required by many DOD and U.S.
Government contracts, especially in software development. Carnegie
Mellon University claims CMMI can be used to guide process improvement
across a project, division, or an entire organization. Under the CMMI
methodology, processes are rated according to their maturity levels,
which are defined as: Initial, Managed, Defined, Quantitatively Managed,
Optimizing. Currently supported is CMMI Version 1.3. CMMI is registered
in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by Carnegie Mellon University.
Three constellations of CMMI are:
- Product and service development (CMMI for Development)
- Service establishment, management, and delivery (CMMI for Services)
- Product and service acquisition (CMMI for Acquisition).
CMMI Version 1.3 was released on November 1, 2010. This release is
noteworthy because it updates all three CMMI models (CMMI for
Development, CMMI for Services, and CMMI for Acquisition) to make them
consistent and to improve their high maturity practices. The CMMI
Product Team has reviewed more than 1,150 change requests for the models
and 850 for the appraisal method.
As part of its mission to transition mature technology to the
software community, the SEI has transferred CMMI-related products and
activities to the CMMI Institute, a 100%-controlled subsidiary of
Carnegie Innovations, Carnegie Mellon University’s technology
commercialization enterprise.
Other quality management information
- VDA: Organisation developed for the German automobile industry VDA
- AVSQ: Organisation developed for the Italian automobile industry AVSQ
- EAQF: Organisation developed for the French automobile industry EAQF
- QS-9000: Standard developed for the US automobile industry QS9000
- ISO 19011 Standard developed for auditing a management system (international) ISO 19011
Awards
- EFQM Excellence Award (Formerly the European Quality-Award: European award for Total Quality Management
and organizational excellence which has been presented since 1991 by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM).
www.efqm.org
Similar awards are presented by the EFQM's National Partner
organisations across Europe. For example, in the UK the British Quality
Foundation (BQF) run the UK Excellence Awards. These awards are based on
the EFQM Excellence Model, an organizational framework. www.bqf.org.uk
- Deming-Award: Japanese award for Quality management since 1951.www.deming.org
- Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award: US-American Award for performance excellence created in 1987.
Certification
Since 1995, the American Society for Quality
has offered a Certified Manager of Quality/ Organizational Excellence
(CMQ/OE). This was known until 2005 as the Certified Quality Manager
(CQM).ASQ
Quality management software
Quality
Management Software is a category of technologies used by organizations
to manage the delivery of high quality products. Solutions range in
functionality, however, with the use of automation capabilities they
typically have components for managing internal and external risk,
compliance, and the quality of processes and products. Pre-configured
and industry-specific solutions are available and generally require
integration with existing IT architecture applications such as ERP, SCM, CRM, and PLM.
Quality Management Software Functionalities
- Non-Conformances/Corrective and Preventive Action
- Compliance/Audit Management
- Supplier Quality Management
- Risk Management
- Statistical Process Control
- Failure Mode and Effects Analysis
- Complaint Handling
- Advanced Product Quality Planning
- Environment, Health, and Safety
- Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Points
- Production Part Approval Process
Enterprise Quality Management Software
The intersection of technology and quality management software
prompted the emergence of a new software category: Enterprise Quality
Management Software (EQMS). EQMS is a platform for cross-functional
communication and collaboration that centralizes, standardizes, and
streamlines quality management data from across the value chain. The
software breaks down functional silos created by traditionally
implemented standalone and targeted solutions. Supporting the
proliferation and accessibility of information across supply chain
activities, design, production, distribution, and service, it provides a
holistic viewpoint for managing the quality of products and processes.
Quality terms
- Quality Improvement can be distinguished from Quality Control in that Quality Improvement is the purposeful change of a process to improve the reliability of achieving an outcome.
- Quality Control is the ongoing effort to maintain the integrity of a process to maintain the reliability of achieving an outcome.
- Quality Assurance is the planned or systematic actions necessary to provide enough confidence that a product or service will satisfy the given requirements.
Academic resources
- International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, ISSN 1746-6474, Inderscience
- International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, ISSN 0265-671X, Emerald Publishing Group
- Qualität und Zuverlässigkeit, ISSN 0720-1214, Carl Hanser Verlag (Germany)
