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Quality control in relation to EU accession
Many
companies, even some of the certified, have lost and, alas, are still
losing their customers. There are several reasons: their managements,
when building up the system, stressed preferences of all aspects of
administrative procedure, which usually resulted in not having enough
energy, money and knowledge to focus on real functionality and
efficiency of managerial procedures.
The real aim of building
of company quality scheme systems does not mean creating an
extensive documentation pyramid, nor the certification itself. It
is only maximization of customer satisfaction and loyalty, while
keeping down the costs at the same time. These are the essential
prerequisites of economic success. One of the most important
principles of any system of quality control management is based on
this fact. It is the feedback – i.e. creating such channels
which enable a systematic analysis and assessment of customer’s
satisfaction with the supplier’s product.
The battle of quality
began when the Japanese „declared“ trade war against Europe
and the USA, and has been still growing strong thanks to such
concepts like zero failure rate, zero spare parts need, zero
tolerance, and zero error level. The competition is no more local
or national, it is global. Thanks to growing globalisation, many
companies have to admit that being successful and profitable is
not guaranteed by faultless quality and goodwill but by satisfied
customers who will be willing to not only give favourable
references but above all, to be faithful and loyal.
Quality
This means a capability of
character set of a product, system, or process to meet the
requirements of the customer and of other concerned parties.
In practice, we can find
different definitions befitting the term „quality“, as e.g.:
- Quality is a capability to meet the
requirements of a user and of public interests through a
complex of properties expressing the capability of the product
to carry out a function for which it is intended. The quality
of product is a degree of capability to serve the purpose of
its use.
- Quality is a sum of product
characteristics decisive for functional performance under
specified operational conditions with the lowest possible
costs.
- Quality is when the customer returns,
not the product.
All
definitions suppose that the needs of a customer, consumer, or
user can be expressed as a set of requirements for particular
properties of a product or service. The overall quality then
includes so called partial product properties denominated as
product features and is divided into five groups:
-
technological
– physical and chemical properties
-
aesthetic
– fashionableness, design, finishing treatment, etc.
-
operational
– having effect when operating
-
economic
– production costs, operational costs, costs of transfer to
the customer, etc.
-
environmental
– recycling, reclaiming, disposal, impact on the environment,
etc.
If
we expect the new product to be successful on the market, then its
saleability considerably depends on its performance properties.
The most important performance properties of a product are:
-
reasonable price
– alternative of the lowest possible purchase price;
-
functionality
– capability of the product to be used for the
purpose it was made for;
-
performance
– capability of maximum performance without reducing
functionality;
-
long life
– capability of the product to maintain its optimum
functionality as long as possible;
-
manageability
– capability to meet user‘s requirements at minimal
exerted effort under supposed conditions;
-
reliability
– capability of the product to perform required functions
throughout the predetermined lifetime, maintaining at the same
time all the operational characteristics stated in the
technical documentation;
-
maintainability
– capability of the product
to prevent breakdowns if properly maintained;
-
safety
– capability of the product not to threaten user’s health;
-
aesthetic value
– capability to meet the aesthetical needs of the user;
-
environmental unobjectionality
– capability of the product not to threaten environment;
-
disposability
– capability of physical and economical liquidation of the
product without environmental side effects.
Historic
development of quality
In
the primitive communal system when humans lived in small groups
and communities and played their roles of producers and consumers,
they could produce such products, as regards quality and quantity,
which suited their own needs. The control of these variables
started only after certain extent of commerce was reached, when
measurement and weighing were applied. In the middle ages, control
by guilds was added, with the purpose of avoiding unfair trade
practices.
The
need of control was augmented with the growth of industrial
production and growing number of manufactories. First, it was
insured by workers themselves, by foremen and owners. As a matter
of fact, this system worked till the beginning of the twentieth
century. The need of specialised inspectors is derived from the
growth of R&D. Models of production processes containing quality control are
implemented and specialised departments begin to appear.
Further
growth of production after World War I results in development and
implementation of statistical methods suitable for industrial
production. Thanks to Americans Romig and Shewhart, first
statistical methods in quality control of manufacturing processes
came into practice in the thirties. Pre-war, war, and early post-war
period, nevertheless, was not much favourable to implementation of
statistical methods in manufacturing processes. A primary request
in production was not quality but quantity. Attention to quality
was mainly concentrated to quality checks at the beginning (inwards)
and end (outwards) of the process.
After
the World War II, thanks to W.E. Deming, it is mainly Japan that
pioneers the statistical regulation of manufacturing processes. It
becomes an important instrument of feedforward control. The
Japanese succeed in expanding the efforts of statistical control
of processes into further areas of companies‘ activities
including preproduction stages. A truly modern system in quality
is established, called Company Wide Quality Control (CWQC).
The
necessity of better care of quality was increasing in companies
elsewhere in the world being influenced by a growing demand of
customers and users with a view to product quality and growing
competition as well as to a slowdown of the economies in the early
seventies. Many organizations felt urgent need of creating quality
scheme systems. First company and industry standards defining quality
requirements started to arise.
There
was an ever-greater coordination of all activities and fields as planning, marketing,
development, production, distribution, services, etc. The term TQM,
the author of which is A.V. Feigenbaum, starts
to appear. TQM spreads into non - production industries and is
subject of experiments which are all mainly based on principles of
quality management defined by W.E. Deming.
The effort to create documentation
system of quality eventuates in publication of ISO 9000 standards
in 1987, later followed by ISO 10000 standards. In 1994, the ISO
9000 standards were markedly revised for the first time.
Nevertheless, this revision did not bring a desirable turning
point in adjustment of their content to dynamic development trends
in modern management of quality. Therefore the second major
revision of ISO 9000
series was decided, known as ISO 9000:2000 revision. The
functionality of these systems is certified by certification
audit. The resulting document is a certificate which guarantees
quality level required by customers.
The end of the twentieth
century is characteristic of mushrooming of information
technologies and global competition. This makes the companies
willing to succeed on the market include other areas into their
schemes, like e.g. environment, safety, etc. In 1996, ISO 1400 series were
approved and published, which deal with
requirements to environmental management. This combined approach
is often called integrated management.
Quality
Management Concept
Nowadays there are three
concepts of quality scheme creation. They are an aggregate of grounds, rules, and standards upon which the quality
schemes can be built.
ISO
concept
In 1987, the International
Standard Organization (ISO) published a body of standards dealing
exclusively with quality requirements. The original body of five
standards was gradually enlarged and standards of ISO 10000 series
emerged. These standards were revised and innovated in 1994. Even
this revision could not guarantee all requirements, especially in
monitoring customers‘ degree of satisfaction and loyalty. A
considerable change was only brought by the revision of late 2000,
known as ISO 9000:2000, where missing problems are treated.
TQM
Total
Quality Management is a process of continuous improvement in all
areas, with participation of all employees of a company, aimed at
maximum satisfaction of customers and having an economic benefit
for the company at the same time. In other words, it is a
managerial approach to success in the long run through satisfied
customers. The concept of TQM is very creative and not governed by
any standards or regulations. It is based on six pillars:
-
customer-oriented
activities
-
prevention
of flaws
-
continuous
improvement
-
all
employees’ involvement
-
communication
and information
-
environmental
influences
An
important landmark was EFQM (European Foundation for Quality
Management) establishment in 1988 with 14 major European member
– founder companies. The purpose of this organization has been
to advocate principles of quality control in European
organizations. The model was innovated in 1999 and is in force as
of 2000. This innovated model is officially called The EFQM
Excellence Model.
Company
standards
American
companies were pioneering this process with a gradual join – in
of those who considered building of quality scheme a thing important especially for suppliers
and manufacturers. Some examples are.
- VDA standards – based on
requirements of German automotive industry;
- 2S 9000 - based on requirements
of American automotive industry;
- EAF2 – special regulations of
French automotive industry
- A2AP – quality assurance within NATO
No matter if they are
standards of ISO 9000, 9004 series, TQM, or company standards,
there is one thing in common for all of these systems and concepts
– the main priority is to maximize customer’s satisfaction.
Process
approach
The initial goal of
ISO 9000 standard series revision in 2000 was to increase
customers’ satisfaction by meeting their requirements.
This could not be done without support of
process approach in development and in efficiency improvement of
the system of quality management.
Many interrelated
activities must be identified and managed in order that the
organization can work efficiently. These activities make use of
resources to transform the inputs into outputs and this can
be defined as a process. An output of one process often
means input of another process.
The process approach can
be another name for process system application and their
identification within an organization. The emphasis is most of all
placed on:
- understanding the requirements and
meeting them
- necessity of evaluation of processes
from the point of view of added value
- achieving the results of performance and
efficiency of processes
- continuous improvement of processes
based on objective measurement.
An advantage of process
approach is its continuous management, interlinkage of single
processes, their further combinations and mutual interaction.
Petr Goiš,
Quality Scheme Director
Tajmac-ZPS, a.s.
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