Malawi University of Science and Technology

Malawi Institute of Technology

Engineering Department

Quality Control and Management

QCOM 5205

Assignment 1

FROM: Precious Phiri MNE/019/19.

TO: Mr. A Sichali.

TITLE: Strategies to enhance quality control.

DUE DATE: 20TH February, 2025.

 INTRODUCTION

Quality is a very important issue that needs to be taken seriously when

manufacturing different products or providing services. In a manufacturing
company quality can be defined as a degree to which manufactured products
meet the stated specifications, totality of features, ability to perform its intended
function and also conformance to regulatory standards, so that it can satisfy the
customer needs.

To fulfill quality requirements operational techniques and activities needs to be

put in place by the management to control the quality of products. This will help
to improve the company’s income by providing products that satisfy the customer
needs. This essay describes strategies that I can implement to enhance quality
control if hired as a Quality Assurance Officer.

1. Ensuring higher quality raw materials and components

The quality of the raw materials and components that are coming into a
manufacturing process is very important in maintaining quality control. So being
employed as a quality assurance officer it is important to implement raw material
quality management programs. End the practice of awarding business on the basis
of a price alone instead, depend on meaningful measures of quality, along with
price, one of the famous 14 points in “Deming’s philosophies”. The following are
some of the ways to ensure the quality of raw materials in recent years: providing
detailed specifications of the materials required to the supplier, inspect the
suppliers quality system regularly, and conducting raw material inspection. Raw
material inspection typically involves four steps: Keep All New, Untested Material
in a Separate Area, Conduct a Receiving Inspection to Test Raw Material, Reject
Any Material That Does Not Match Specifications and Move Accepted Material to
Pre-Production Storage [1].
 For example if the company manufacturers screw shafts for tobacco bell binder
machine where steel round bars are used as raw material, the following steps can
be followed to ensure the quality of the raw material or component: provide
detailed specification to the supplier e.g. type of steel, shape (round bar) and
tensile strength, make sure they comply with industrial standards like ISO 9001
and inspect the material e.g. visual inspection to check visible defects like rust and
physical damage as well as use of measuring properties like Vernier’s and tensile
testing to check dimension and required strength.

2. IMPLEMENTING TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT.

Involvement of everyone in a company including managers (top managers,
middle managers and line managers) and workers in an integrated effort towards
continuous quality improvement at all levels is important in enhancing quality
control. This can be achieved by adopting the “Kaizen philosophy” which
suggested the following: Encouragement, making effort to help works help by
making suggestions and Education and training to both managers and workers to
implant TQM thinking in all [2]. In recent years Total Quality management also
involves understanding customer needs and involve them by conducting surveys
[3]. Also TQM can be achieved by empowering teams to address quality control
issues.
Using the previous example about a company manufacturing of screw shafts,
Total Quality Management can be practiced in a way that, a lathe machine
operator can suggests a new method for storing steel bars to prevent corrosion
and as the quality assurance officer I can implement the suggestion and if it
decreases the rejection rate of raw materials due to rust, the operator receives a
bonus or a reward just to encourage him or her.
3. IMPLEMENTING SIX SIGMA METHODOLOGY
Identifying and eliminating defects in manufacturing process and products is also a
very important task in enhancing quality control. Adoption of six sigma
methodology which uses data-driven approach to improving the quality of
processes by identifying and eliminating defects is another technique that i can
adopt as a Quality Assurance Officer to maintain quality. The backbone of Six
Sigma is the DMAIC framework which stand for Define (clearly define the
problem and customer requirements), Measure (the current performance of the
process), Analyze (the data to identify the root cause of defects), Improve
(implement the solution to eliminate the root cause) and Control (establish
controls to maintain the improvements made) [4].

Using the same example of screw shafts manufacturing this is how I can apply the
six sigma approach. The cases may include: improving the torque that the screw
can withstand without failure Based on customer feedback, collect number of
defective screw shaft produced per batch, identify root cause e.g. machine
calibration issues that can cause the defects and many others.

4. ADOPTING STATISTICAL PROCESS CONTROL

Monitoring and controlling the manufacturing process and operation is also
important to achieve high quality products that conform to standards and satisfies
the customer needs. Statistical quality control is the best technique to monitor and
control the process as it assist in collecting and analyzing of data about the
manufacturing process. There the company can be able to identify variations and
take corrective actions to maintain consistency and quality. Control charts is one
of the tools that can be used in statistical process control and is very useful when
unusual variations are present in the process. It plots the average measurements of
a quality characteristics in samples taken from the process against time or sample
number [5].
 In the example of screw shaft manufacturing the required processes to produce the
shafts are facing, turning and threading. The quality characteristics can be length
and diameter of the shaft and thread pitch which can be measured by a thread
gage in threads per inch and all these characteristics must conform to the required
specification. After some time during manufacturing a sample of these shaft can be
taken out of the production line and measured the length, diameter, and thread
pitch using calibrated measuring tools. Data is recorded in a quality control log for
analysis and control charts can be used.

5. USING FAILURE MODE AND EFFECTS ANALYSIS.

FMEA is a systematic technique used to identify potential failure modes within a
process and assess their potential impact. It helps to identify and prevent
problem’s that can cause defects before they occur. So by following this in the
manufacturing company will also enhance quality control.

For example in a tobacco binder screw shaft manufacturing company the failure
mode and effects analysis can be used in the following way. identify potential
failure modes, here it may be: Incorrect Length, the screw shaft may be produced
longer or shorter than specifications, Poor Thread Quality, threads may be cut
poorly leading to poor fit with tobacco bell binders and corrosion or Rusting,
Inadequate surface treatment may lead to corrosion during storage or use. After
that analyze the effects of those possible failures. Then determine how much
damage can be caused, how many times can the failure occurs and be able to
detect the failure before it occurs. Then develop methods on how to reduce and
eliminate the failure modes.
 CONCLUSION
Quality control processes in a can be enhanced by the techniques that have been
explained in this essay. There are so many benefits to the company like: reducing
manufacturing cost, improving product quality, satisfying consumers and hence
making profit. Therefore as a Quality Assurance Officer is very important to
implement these techniques.

References

[1] A. c. a. I. team, "Insight Quality Services," November 2017. [Online]. Available: https://insight-
quality.com/handling-incoming-materials/.

[2] J. W. &. Sons, Fundamentals of quality control and improvement, Aurbun: Wiley, 2021.

[3] J. S. Oakland, Total Quality Management and Operational Excellence, London, 2014.

[4] T. &. K. P. Pyzdek, The Six Sigma Handbook., McGraw-Hill Education., 2018.

[5] D. Montgomery, "Introduction to Statistical Quality Control," vol. 7th ed, 2013.