Michael J. Fox

The prevention-appraisal-failure model

To know your quality costs, and to act in accordance with that knowledge, is crucial. The costs incurred as a result of errors or failures are the measure of your success in achieving quality — the lower the costs, the better the quality.

Quality in service industries

In Parts One and Two of this book we have examined: 1. ‘What managing quality means’; the achievement of quality throughout the organization, and at the different stages of the production cycle; 2. The organizational structure necessary to achieve quality, and the techniques and disciplines associated with quality assurance.

Statistical process control

In Chapter 11, Part Two, we looked at the application of statistical techniques to quality appraisal, in the form of statistical acceptance sampling. In this chapter we shall be looking at more applications of statistics in aid of quality assurance, but this time at the role of statistical techniques in anticipating failures, through statistical process control; the design and interpretations of experiments to optimize process conditions and manufacturing tolerances; and the limitations of traditional statistical process control (SPC) in assuring ‘parts per million’ quality.

ISO 9000 — the international quality standard

Chapter 7 of Part Two stressed the importance of having a quality management system. This chapter will explain the structure and administration of the International Quality System standard, the ISO 9000 series of rules.

Statistical sampling inspection

We shall begin this chapter by introducing three significant statistical distributions which provide the mathematical basis for the topics of the remainder of this chapter, and also the following one. These distributions are known as the binomial, the Poisson and the normal. They are important when we wish to predict the likelihood or significance of finding specific numbers of defective items, defects, and measured values respectively.

Quality in purchasing

Very few organizations are totally self-sufficient in that all their products or services are generated in-house. Some materials, components or services are generally purchased from outside organizations and the primary objective of the purchasing department is to obtain the correct supplies or service from the vendors at the correct time, to the current specification at the right price. Note that I did not say ‘cheapest’ price. Remember our motto: ‘Price is negotiable, quality is not.’

The sociology of people at work

This first chapter of Part Three will highlight the work of some theorists who have had a major effect on the ways people have tried to increase the effectiveness of their workforces. You will see that the methods of each of the them has been strongly criticized by other theorists, who have questioned their methods, or failed to reproduce their findings. That will not trouble us unduly. Their ideas are a framework around which others have created working environments, and we can consider what has been found to happen in practice.

Total quality management

This chapter will review Total Quality Management (TQM), as presented by Professor John Oakland and endorsed by the British Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). You will be encouraged to compare TQM with the other versions of the quality message summarized in Chapters 17 and 19 of Part Three of this book.

Creating the quality system

This chapter will look in more detail at the requirements for a quality system, a concept introduced in Chapter 1 of Part One.

Quality in the United Kingdom

This chapter looks at the extent to which United States and Japanese ideas have been accepted in the United Kingdom, particularly in relation to ‘getting the best from people’. It also explains how the BS 5750 system works, this being the pioneer National Standard for Quality Management Systems.