SIE/ENTR 457/557

Project Management
Project Quality Management

Quality Control

SIE 457 / 557

Bob Lepore
Systems & Industrial Engineering
[email protected]
 Quality Control (QC)

• QC involves monitoring specific project results to:

• Determine whether they comply with relevant quality standards.

• Identify ways to eliminate causes of unsatisfactory results.

• QC should be performed throughout the project.

• Project results include deliverables and Program Management

results, such as cost and schedule performance.

• QC is often performed by a Quality Control Department.

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 Perform Quality Control

Quality Control Measurements

• These measurements are the result of the QC activities.

• These measurements are fed back to the QA function to

reevaluate and analyze the quality standards & processes.

Validate Changes

• Changed or repaired items are inspected and will be either

accepted or rejected before notification of the decision is provided.

• Rejected items may require rework or become scrap.

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 Quality Control

Validated Deliverables

• QC aims to determine the correctness of deliverables.

• The result of the execution of quality control process are validated

deliverables.

Change Requests

• If the corrective or preventive actions or a defect repair require a

change to the project management plan, a change request should be
initiated in accordance with the defined Change Control process.

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 Inspections
• Inspection includes activities such as measuring, examining and
testing that is undertaken to determine whether results conform to
requirements.

• Inspection can be carried out on

the level of a single activity or a
final product.

• Inspections can be called reviews,

product reviews, audits, testing,
and walk-throughs.

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 Flowcharting

• Helps to analyze how problems occur.

• A graphical representation of a process.

• Shows how various elements of a system interrelated

and the order of processing.

• Helps the project team anticipate what and where quality

problems might occur.

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 Quality Control Charts

A control chart is a graphic

display of data that illustrates the
results of a process over time. It
helps prevent defects and allows
you to determine whether a
process is in control or out of
control.

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 Quality Control Charts

• Determines whether or not a process is stable and has predictable

performance.
✓ When a process is outside acceptable limits the process should be adjusted.

✓ The upper control limits and lower control limits are usually set at +/- 3 sigma (i.e. standard
deviation).

• Specification limit – are normally drawn from contract or customer

requirement. It is typically less stringent than control limits.

• Mean - represents the average of control limits or specification

limits

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Example Quality Control Chart

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 Control Charts (cont’d)

• Out of control – A process is considered out of control if:

• A data point falls out of control limits
• Breaks the rule of seven.
• Rule of seven – Is a “rule of thumb” or heuristic. A set of seven
consecutive data points on one side of a mean is considered out of
control, even though the data points are within control limits.
• Assignable Cause / Special Cause Variation – is a data point
that requires investigation (either out of control limits or breaks rule
of seven)

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 Construction of a Quality Control Chart

Data Point x (x-x ̅ )2 20.00

𝑥ҧ = = 2.00
1 2 0 10 𝐷𝑎𝑡𝑎 𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑠

2 2.01 0.0001
3 2.02 0.0004
𝑥 − 𝑥ҧ 2
4 1.99 0.0001 𝜎= = 0.01
𝑁−1
5 1.99 0.0001
6 1.98 0.0004
7 1.99 0.001
UCL = 2.0 + 3 (0.01) = 2.03
8 2.01 0.0001
9 2.01 0.0001 LCL = 2.0 - 3 (0.01) = 1.97
10 2.01 0
20 0.0014

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 Control Chart Exercise
1

Exercise: Label examples of …

1. Upper specification limit
2. Lower control limit
3. Normal/expected variation
4. Rule of seven
5 6 5. Process out of control
5 6
4 6. Assignable/special cause

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 Quality Control Chart Example
Chart A
Which Chart is:
1. A “run”?
2. A point outside of control limits?
3. “Hugging” the control limits?

Chart B

Chart C

What are possible causes:

1. Operator made a mistake
2. Process out of alignment
3. Faulty raw material
4. Worn out tooling

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 Process Capability

• Process capability involves evaluating process variability relative to present

specifications in order to determine whether the process is capable of producing
the product. It is measured by the process capability index, Cp, which is
calculated as:
USL - LSL
Cp = UCL - LCL
• There are three possible ranges of Cp:
• Cp = 1: Means the process variability just meets specifications and is minimally
capable
• Cp < 1: Means the process variability just is outside the specifications and the
process is not capable of producing within specification
• Cp > 1: Means the process variability is tighter than specifications and the
process exceeds capability

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 Run Chart
• It shows the history and pattern of variation.
• It is a line graph that shows data points plotted in the order in which they occur.
• Can be used to perform trend analysis to forecast future outcomes based on
historical patterns

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 Scatter Diagrams

Scatter Diagram:
Shows the pattern of the
relationships between two
variables.

Level of Correlation:
• None
• Weak
• Strong
• Complex

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 Cause and Effect Diagram

• Ishikawa (a.k.a. fishbone diagram)

• Used to show how various factors are linked to identify
problems/ adverse effects
• Diagnostic
• Facilitates data analysis
• Helps determines defects
• Often employs brainstorming technique
• Also used to Facilitate Root Cause Analysis (RCA)

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Cause and Effect Diagram

Fishbone Diagram
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 Sample Cause-and-Effect Diagram

Information
21 Technology Project Management,
Fifth Edition, Copyright 2007 21
 Histogram

• A bar chart showing the distribution of variables.

• Each column represents an attribute or characteristics of a

problem or situation

• The height of each column represents the relative frequency

of the characteristics.

• Histogram helps identify the cause of the problem in a

process by the shape and width of the distribution

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 Pareto Diagram – 80/20 Rule

• Pareto Principle states that, for many events, 80% of the effects come from
20% of the causes.

• Vilfredo Pareto developed the principle in 1906 when he observed that 20%
of the pea pods in his garden contained 80% of the peas.

• A Pareto chart is a bar chart where the data is arranged in order of

importance - most significant problem is listed first and other problems
following in descending order

• The idea is to spend the majority of your time fixing the most important
problems.
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Sample Pareto Chart

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 Statistical Sampling
• Statistical sampling involves choosing part of a population of interest
for inspection (e.g., selecting ten engineering drawings at random
from a list of 75).
• Sample frequency and sizes should be determined during the Quality
Planning process and the cost of quality should include the number
of tests, expected scrap, etc.
• Sampling types include
• Random sampling
• Acceptance sampling (drives acceptance or rejection)
• Attributes sampling (binary – yes/no)

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 Statistical Sampling
• Statistical sampling involves choosing part of a population of interest for
inspection

• The size of a sample depends on how representative you want the sample to be

• It is best to take a sample of a population if you believe there are not many
defects, or if the entire population would:

• Take too long

• Cost too much

• Be too destructive

• Be sure to consult with an expert when using statistical analysis

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