QUALITY AWARENESS

Product: It is the output of any process.

It consists of goods, software and services. Goods are physical things

Software means instruction programmes for computers

Service is work performed for someone else.

Customer: A customer is some one who is impacted by the product.

Customer Need: All customers have needs to be met and product features should be responsive to these needs

Product feature: It is a property which is possessed by a product and which intends to meet certain customer needs

Product Satisfaction: Product features which do respond to customer needs are said to provide “product satisfaction” a state of affairs which is decisive as to saleability of product

Product Deficiencies Late delivery, field failure of goods, errors in invoice, rework and design changes which makes trouble for customer

Product Dissatisfaction A consequence of product deficiencies that customers are dissatisfied in the form of complaints, returns and claims

“Product satisfaction and Product Dissatisfaction are not opposite” The two concepts are unrelated.

Product satisfaction has its origin in product features and is why clients buy the products. Product dissatisfaction has its origin in non-conformance and is why customer complains. “There are many products which give little or no dissatisfaction; the products do what the supplier said they would do. Yet the products are not saleable because some competing product provides greater product satisfaction.”

Fitness for use: It would be most convenient to have some short phrase which is universally accepted as a compromise definition of quality. In attempt of this, quality was defined as ‘fitness for use’. This definition has in fact attained wide acceptance, though it has not achieved universal acceptance.

Parameters of fitness for use Beyond those product features which bear directly on product dissatisfaction there are additional aspects of the product which also contributes to fitness for use. These additional aspects are often called parameters of quality. a. Availability: It is continuity from available source.

A product is said to be available when it is in an operative state.

When product is in operative state is known ‘uptime’ and ‘down time’ when it is in non operative state.

And availability could be expressed as

Uptime Availability = Uptime + Down time b. Reliability: If the product never failed then availability is 100%.Then we can say product is reliable.

Reliability is defined ‘The probability of a product performing without failure a specified function under given condition for a specified period of a time’

c. Maintainability: The need for continuity of service has also stimulate to improve maintenance of long life product.

‘The ease with which maintenance can be conducted’ Measure of Maintainability

i. Mean time to repair ii. Probability of restoring service iii. Mean time for scheduled maintenance

Effectiveness of maintenance is also strongly influenced by availability of spare parts (i.e. logistical support)

d. Produceability: This parameter measures the extent to which the product design can be readily produced with facility and process available to operating force.

QUALITYASSURANCE

It is the activity of providing the evidence to establish confidence among all concerned, that the quality function is being effectively performed. ‘IT IS THE PROOF THAT PRODUCT IS FIT FOR USE ‘

QUALITY CONTROL The purpose of quality control is to ensure that the quality designed into product is actually in the finished product and to minimise the production of defective work. Basic objective of any quality control programme are

(i) To achieve optimum costs (ii) To ensure control (iii) To build customer goodwill and confidence (iv) Implementing the quality

In broad sense the word “control’ implies regulation and of course regulation implies observation and manipulation ‘Quality control in manufacture is an analogous situation. It is simply a means by which management can be assured that the quality of product manufactured is consistent with quality-economy standards that have been established” QC is the technique by means of which products of uniform acceptable quality are made “ Makes the things right first time”

QUALITY COST Implementing the quality control programmes costs money in the form of salaries and other payment to be concerned personnel investment in measuring instruments, the rent of space utilised and other office expenses Cost of quality can be analysed as

a. Prevention cost b. Appraisal cost c. Failure cost

Prevention cost: are those cost incurred in manufacturing a quality product. These occur in design control,

preproduction testing, special testing, special training, planning for quality etc… These are real cost which can be measured and the amount spent on them will depend upon the policy of company.

Appraisal cost: Money spent to ascertain whether products turned out are in accordance with quality

norms. Appraisal cost is incurred in evaluating the quality of product. Failure cost: are those occurred due to product not meeting the quality standard. Failure within

organisation like re-work, rejection, scrap, wastage, spoilage etc also compute while fixing norms for the cost.

Quality control cuts the two major cost segments of company quality cost viz. Appraisal cost & Failure cost Note;

1. When prevention cost increased reduction in failure due to less defects in product 2. When upgrading of quality control equipment reduction in appraisal cost