Introduction to Quality and Quality control Dr. Layla M.

Hasan

Introduction
In any business organization, profit is the ultimate goal. To achieve this, there are several
approaches. Profit may be maximized by cutting costs for the same selling price per unit.
But, to survive in a competitive business environment, goods and services produced by a
firm should have the minimum required quality.
Quality
Quality has many definitions. Quality can be defined in many ways, depending on who is
defining it and to what product or service it is related.
The definition of quality by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the
American Society for Quality Control (ASQC) is “the totality of features and
characteristics of a product or service that bears on its ability to satisfy given needs.”
Variables and Attributes
Quality characteristics fall into two broad classes: variables and attributes. Characteristics
that are measurable and are expressed on a numerical scale are called variables like,
length, width, height, diameter, surface finish, etc.
A quality characteristic that cannot be measured on a numerical scale is expressed as an
attribute. The attributes will include performance, reliability, appearance, etc.
Fundamental factors affecting quality
The nine fundamental factors (9 M’s), which are affecting the quality of products and
services, are: markets, money, management, men, motivation, materials, machines and
mechanization. Modern information methods and mounting product requirements.
1. Market: The customer wants are changing dynamically. So, it is the role of companies
to identify needs and then meet it with existing technologies or by developing new
technologies.
2. Money: As competition has increased, profit margins have decreased. Companies have
to spend heavily on new equipment’s and processes. To absorb these costs productivity has
to the increased, which means reworks and scrap has to be kept to the minimum. Quality
costs have to be kept low which mean cost saving due to quality improvement has to be
kept in prime focus.
3. Management: The quality related responsibilities lie with persons at different levels in
the organization.
4. Men: The rapid growth in technical knowledge leads to development of human
resource with different specialization.

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5. Motivation: The increased complexity of the product means that every employee has to
give his best if quality is to be maintained. This requires that quality realization among
employees are high. This can be achieved only through continuous education and
motivation of the work force. Motivation, therefore, needs to be on the top of the agenda
for any management team of an organization.
6. Materials: Due to high material costs engineers have to constantly keep coming up
with ways to bring down the cost of material used. They also need to come up with new
alternate materials that can replace costlier older material.
Selection of proper materials to meet the desired tolerance limit is also an important
consideration. Quality attributes like, surface finish, strength, diameter etc., can be
obtained by proper selection of material.
7. Machines and mechanization: The demand to cut costs is forcing companies to use
newer machines, which will deliver better quality and product using lesser cycle times.
Further the machines need to deliver higher quantities also to keep production costs low.
This means maintaining of these machines also becomes critical as any and only down
time of these machines leads to increased costs.
8. Modern information methods: The modern information methods help in storing and
retrieving needed data for manufacturing, marketing and servicing.
9. Mounting product requirements: Product diversification to meet customers taste leads
to intricacy in design, manufacturing and quality standards. Hence, companies should
plan adequate system to tackle all these requirements.
Dimensions of Quality
The quality of a product can be described and evaluated in several ways. It is often very
important to differentiate these different dimensions of quality
1. Performance
Will the product do the intended job? .For example, how well a car handles etc.
2. Features
(What does the product do?) Usually, customers associate high quality with products that
have added features—that is, those that have features beyond the basic performance of the
competition. Features are the “extra” items added to the basic features, such as stereo CD
or a leather interior in a car.
3. Reliability
(How often does the product fail?) Complex products, such as many appliances,
automobiles, or airplanes, will usually require some repair over their service life. For
example, you should expect that an automobile will require occasional repair, but if the car
requires frequent repair, we say that it is unreliable.

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4. Conformance
Conformance is the degree to which a product meets pre-established standards.
5. Durability
(How long does the product last?). This is the effective service life of the product.
Customers obviously want products that perform satisfactorily over a long period of time
i.e. its life span before replacement.
6. Serviceability
(How easy is it to repair the product?) There are many industries in which the customer’s
view of quality is directly influenced by how quickly and economically a repair or routine
maintenance activity can be accomplished.
7. Aesthetics
(What does the product look like?) This is the visual appeal of the product, often taking
into account factors such as style, color, shape, packaging alternatives, tactile
characteristics, and other sensory features.
8. Safety
Safety refers to assurance that the customer will not suffer injury or harm from the
product. It is an especially important consideration for automobiles.
9. Perceived Quality
(What is the reputation of the company or its product?) In many cases, customers rely on
the past reputation of the company concerning quality of its products.
10. Conformance to Standards
(Is the product made exactly as the designer intended?)
We usually think of a high-quality product as one that exactly meets the requirements
placed on it.
Other Perceptions
A customer relative to the cost of the product weighs these quality characteristics. In
general, consumers will pay for the level of quality they can afford. If they feel they are
getting what they paid for, they tend to be satisfied with the quality of the product.
One way to understand quality as a consumer-driven concept is to consider the example
of eating at a restaurant. How will you judge the quality of the restaurant? Most people
apply such criteria as the following:
Service, response time, food preparation, environment or atmosphere, price.

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Quality control
Quality Control (QC) may be defined as the regulatory process through which we
measure actual quality performance.

Benefits of Quality Control

1. Improving the quality of products and services.
2. Increasing the productivity of manufacturing processes.
3. Reducing manufacturing and corporate costs.
4. Determining and improving the marketability of products and services.
5. Reducing consumer prices of products and services.
6. Improving and/or assuring on time deliveries and availability.
7. Assisting in the management of an enterprise.

Seven tools for quality control

The seven quality control tools are simple statistical tools used for problem solving. The
seven quality control tools are:
1. Pareto charts 2. Check sheets 3. Cause and effect diagram
4. Scatter diagrams 5. Histogram 6. Graphs or flow charts
7. Control charts
1. Pareto charts
Pareto Diagram is a tool that arranges items in the order of the magnitude of their
contribution, thereby identifying a few items exerting maximum influence. Pareto charts
help prioritize by arranging them in decreasing order of importance. The origin of the tool
lies in the observation by an Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. Pareto principle known as
the 80/20 rule which states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from
20% of the causes
Example: The Fig. 1 shows a Pareto chart of reasons for poor quality. Poor design will be
the major reason, as indicated by 64%. Thus, this is the problem that the manufacturing
unit should address first.
A — Poor Design, B — Defective Parts, C — Operator Error, D — Wrong Dimensions
E — Surface Abrasion, F — Machine Calibrations, G — Defective Material

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 Figure 1: Pareto chart
2. Check sheets
Data collection through the use of a checklist is often the first step in analysis of quality
problem. A checklist is a form used to record the frequency of occurrence of certain product
or service characteristics related to quality, Figure 2.
Example: The table is a check sheet for TV set related problems.

Component replaced by lab

Figure 2: Checklist
3. Cause and effect diagram
It is sometimes called as Fish-bone diagram. It is first developed by Kaorv Ishikawa in
1943 and is sometimes called as Ishikawa diagram. This diagram helps identify possible
reasons for a process to go out of control as well as possible effects on the process.
Figure 3.

Figure 3: Fishbone diagram

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4-Scatter diagrams (scatter plots)
It often indicates the relationship between two variables. They are often used as follow-
ups to a cause and effect analysis to determine whether a stated cause truly does impact
the quality characteristics. The way the points lie scattered in the quadrant gives a good
indication of the relationship between the two variables, Figure 4.

Figure 4: Scatter plots and correlation examples

5. Histogram (or) bar charts

A bar chart is a series of bare representing the frequency of occurrence of data
characteristics, the bar height indicates the number of times a particular quality
characteristic was observed, Figure 5.

Figure 5: Bar chart

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6. Flow charts and graphs
Flow chart shows the sequence of events in a process, Figure 6.

Figure 6: Flow chart

Graphs of various types are used for pictorial representation of data. Pictorial
representation enables the user or viewer to quickly grasp the meaning of the data. Different
graphical representation of data are chosen depending on the purpose of the analysis and
preference of the audience.
7. Control charts
The charts are made by plotting in sequence the measured values of samples taken from a
process. Characteristic such as the thickness of a sample from a production line are plotted.
The center line on a control chart represents the average value of characteristics being
plotted. Two limits known as the upper control limit (UCL) and lower control limit (LCL)
are also shown on control charts. These limits are constructed so that if the process is
operating under a stable system of chance causes, the problem of an observation falling
outside these limits is quite small. Figure 7 shows a generalized representation of a control
chart.

Figure7: Control charts

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