Quality control

Quality inspector in a Volkseigener Betrieb sewing

machine parts factory in Dresden, East Germany,
1977.
Quality control (QC) is a process by which
entities review the quality of all factors
involved in production. ISO 9000 defines
quality control as "A part of quality
management focused on fulfilling quality
requirements".[1]

This approach places emphasis on three

aspects (enshrined in standards such as
ISO 9001):[2][3]

1. Elements such as controls, job

management, defined and well
managed processes,[4][5]
 performance and integrity criteria,
and identification of records
2. Competence, such as knowledge,
skills, experience, and qualifications
3. Soft elements, such as personnel,
integrity, confidence, organizational
culture, motivation, team spirit, and
quality relationships.

Inspection is a major component of quality

control, where physical product is
examined visually (or the end results of a
service are analyzed). Product inspectors
will be provided with lists and descriptions
of unacceptable product defects such as
cracks or surface blemishes for
example.[3]

The quality of the outputs is at risk if any

of these three aspects is deficient in any
way.

History and introduction

Early stone tools such as anvils had no
holes and were not designed as
interchangeable parts. Mass production
established processes for the creation of
parts and system with identical
dimensions and design, but these
processes are not uniform and hence
some customers were unsatisfied with the
result. Quality control separates the act of
testing products to uncover defects from
the decision to allow or deny product
release, which may be determined by fiscal
constraints.[6] For contract work,
particularly work awarded by government
agencies, quality control issues are among
the top reasons for not renewing a
contract.[7]
The simplest form of quality control was a
sketch of the desired item. If the sketch
did not match the item, it was rejected, in a
simple Go/no go procedure. However,
manufacturers soon found it was difficult
and costly to make parts be exactly like
their depiction; hence around 1840
tolerance limits were introduced, wherein a
design would function if its parts were
measured to be within the limits. Quality
was thus precisely defined using devices
such as plug gauges and ring gauges.
However, this did not address the problem
of defective items; recycling or disposing
of the waste adds to the cost of
production, as does trying to reduce the
defect rate. Various methods have been
proposed to prioritize quality control
issues and determine whether to leave
them unaddressed or use quality
assurance techniques to improve and
stabilize production.[6]

Notable approaches
There is a tendency for individual
consultants and organizations to name
their own unique approaches to quality
control—a few of these have ended up in
widespread use:
 Approximate
Terminology year of first Description
use

Statistical
quality The application of statistical methods (specifically control charts
1930s
control and acceptance sampling) to quality control[8]:556
(SQC)

Popularized by Armand V. Feigenbaum in a Harvard Business

Total quality Review article[9] and book of the same name.[10]; stresses
control 1956 involvement of departments in addition to production (e.g.,
(TQC) accounting, design, finance, human resources, marketing,
purchasing, sales)

Statistical The use of control charts to monitor an individual industrial

process 1960s process and feed back performance to the operators responsible
control (SPC) for that process; inspired by control systems

Company-
wide quality
1968 Japanese-style total quality control.[11]
control
(CWQC)

Total quality Quality movement originating in the United States Department of

management 1985 Defense that uses (in part) the techniques of statistical quality
(TQM) control to drive continuous organizational improvement[12]

Six Sigma Statistical quality control applied to business strategy[13];

1986
(6σ) originated by Motorola

Lean Six Six Sigma applied with the principles of lean manufacturing and/or
2001
Sigma (L6σ) lean enterprise; originated by Wheat et al.[14]

In project management
In project management, quality control
requires the project manager and/or the
project team to inspect the accomplished
work to ensure its alignment with the
project scope.[15] In practice, projects
typically have a dedicated quality control
team which focuses on this area.[16]

See also
Analytical quality control
Corrective and preventative action
(CAPA)
Eight dimensions of quality
 First article inspection (FAI)
Good Automated Manufacturing
Practice (GAMP)
Good manufacturing practice
Quality assurance
Quality management framework
Standard operating procedure (SOP)
QA/QC

References
1. ISO 9000:2005, Clause 3.2.10
2. Praxiom Research Group Limited (16
August 2017). "ISO 9001 Translated
Into Plain English" . Praxiom Research
Group Limited. Retrieved
29 November 2017.
3. Aft, L.S. (1997). "Chapter 1:
Introduction". Fundamentals of
Industrial Quality Control. CRC Press.
pp. 1–17.
4. Dennis Adsit (9 November 2007).
"What the Call Center Industry Can
Learn from Manufacturing: Part I"
(PDF). National Association of Call
Centers. Retrieved 21 December 2012.
5. Dennis Adsit (23 November 2007).
"What the Call Center Industry Can
Learn from Manufacturing: Part II"
(PDF). National Association of Call
Centers. Retrieved 21 December 2012.
6. Shewhart, Walter A. (Walter Andrew);
Deming, W. Edwards (William
Edwards) (1939). Statistical method
from the viewpoint of quality control .
Washington: The Graduate School,
The Department of Agriculture. pp. 1–
5.
7. "Position Classification Standard for
Quality Assurance Series, GS-1910"
(PDF). US Office of Personnel
Management. March 1983. Retrieved
21 December 2012.
8. Juran, Joseph M., ed. (1995), A
History of Managing for Quality: The
Evolution, Trends, and Future
Directions of Managing for Quality ,
Milwaukee, Wisconsin: The American
Society for Quality Control,
ISBN 9780873893411,
OCLC 32394752
 9. Feigenbaum, Armand V. (1956). "Total
Quality Control". Harvard Business
Review. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press. 34 (6): 93–
101. ISSN 0017-8012 .
OCLC 1751795 .
10. Feigenbaum, Armand Vallin (1961),
Total Quality Control, New York,
McGraw-Hill, OCLC 250573852
11. Ishikawa, Kaoru (1985), What Is Total
Quality Control? The Japanese Way
(1 ed.), Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey:
Prentice-Hall, pp. 90–91 , ISBN 978-0-
13-952433-2, OCLC 11467749
12. Evans, James R.; Lindsay, William M.
(1999), The Management and Control
of Quality (4 ed.), Cincinnati, Ohio:
South-Western College Publications,
p. 118 , ISBN 9780538882422,
OCLC 38475486 , "The term total
quality management, or TQM, has
been commonly used to denote the
system of managing for total quality.
(The term TQM was actually
developed within the Department of
Defense. It has since been renamed
Total Quality Leadership, since
 leadership outranks management in
military thought.)"
13. "What Is Six Sigma?" (PDF).
http://www.motorolasolutions.com .
Schaumburg, Illinois: Motorola
University. 19 February 2010. p. 2.
Archived from the original (PDF) on 3
December 2013. Retrieved
24 November 2013. "When practiced
as a management system, Six Sigma
is a high performance system for
executing business strategy." External
link in |website= (help)
14. Wheat, B.; Mills, C.; Carnell, M. (2001).
Leaning into Six Sigma: The Path to
integration of Lean Enterprise and Six
Sigma. Publishing Partners. p. 100.
ISBN 9780971249103.
15. Phillips, Joseph (November 2008).
"Quality Control in Project
Management" . The Project
Management Hut. Retrieved
21 December 2012.
16. Rose, K.H. (2014). Project Quality
Management: Why, What and How. J.
Ross Publishing. p. 224.
ISBN 9781604271027.
   This article incorporates public domain
material from the General Services
Administration document "Federal
Standard 1037C" (in support of MIL-
STD-188).

Further reading
Radford, George S. (1922), The Control
of Quality in Manufacturing , New York:
Ronald Press Co., OCLC 1701274 ,
retrieved 16 November 2013
Shewhart, Walter A. (1931), Economic
Control of Quality of Manufactured
 Product, New York: D. Van Nostrand Co.,
Inc., OCLC 1045408
Juran, Joseph M. (1951), Quality-Control
Handbook, New York: McGraw-Hill,
OCLC 1220529
Western Electric Company (1956),
Statistical Quality Control Handbook (1
ed.), Indianapolis, Indiana: Western
Electric Co., OCLC 33858387
Feigenbaum, Armand V. (1961), Total
Quality Control, New York: McGraw-Hill,
OCLC 567344

External links
 ASTM quality control standards

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