an excurse on the evolution of quality

An Excurse on the Evolution of Quality

Nicola Mezzetti, Ph.D.

Department of Information Engineering and Computer ScienceUniversity of Trento

[email protected]

A.A. 2014/2015

Nicola Mezzetti, Ph.D. An Excurse on the Evolution of Quality

Let’s talk about quality...

”You can’t fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.”(W. Burroughs)


What do we mean by the term quality?


What is the common meaning?

Oxford Dictionary

Quality:

1 The standard of something as measured against other thingsof a similar kind; the degree of excellence of something.

2 A distinctive attribute or characteristic possessed by someoneor something.

Unfortunately, this definition does not workfor us!


So, what do we mean by quality?

Let’s look for some hints in ancient times!


Some hints from the ancient times...

Historians have traced theconcept of quality as far back as3000 B.C. in Babylonia.

Among the references to qualityfrom the code of Hammurabi,ruler of Babylonia, is thefollowing excerpt: ”The masonwho builds a house which fallsdown and kills the inmate shallbe put to death.”



In 1500 B.C. Papyrus, the Egyptian medical, used to describeprecisely how to prepare pharmaceutical drugs.



Archimedes of Syracuse (287 - 212 B.C.) tested the goldproportion of a votive crown of King Hiero II.



The Roman architect Vitruviuswrote ”The ten books onarchitecture” to describe hispersonal experience about thequality of construction work andcustomers’ needs.



Since 13th century craftsmenbegan organizing into unionscalled guilds to developknowledge about productionstages and materials.

Apprenticeship has beeninstituted at those times, withinguilds.


The last mile...

The evolution of quality in the 20th century


1911: The Principles of Scientific Management (F. Taylor)

Identifies reasons for inefficiency:

1 Belief that a material increase in the output of each man oreach machine in the trade would result in throwing a largenumber of men out of work

2 Defective systems of management which make it necessary foreach workman to soldier, or work slowly

3 Rule-of-thumb methods

Four principles of scientific management:

1 Develop a science for each element of a man’s work, whichreplaces the old rule-of-thumb method.

2 Scientifically select and then train, teach, and develop theworkman, whereas in the past he chose his own work andtrained himself as best he could.

3 Heartily cooperate with the men so as to ensure all of the workbeing done in accordance with the principles of the sciencewhich has been developed.

4 Equal division of the work and the responsibility between themanagement and the workmen.


1913: Assembly Line Production (H. Ford)

Application of Taylor’s scientific management to theproduction of Model T.

Allowed to break down the assembly process in 84 steps

The chassis of the car was pulled down the line by a chainconveyor and then 140 workers applied their assigned parts tothe chassis.Interchangeable parts were produced in mass quantities and

... brought directly to the workers who were trained to work atspecific assembly stations.

Impact:

The use of interchangeable parts allowed for continuous workflow and more time on task by laborers.The production time for a single car dropped from over twelvehours to 93 minutes.These concepts allowed Ford to increase his profit margin andlower the cost of the vehicle to consumers ($260 in 1924).


1924: Statistical Quality Control (A. Shewhart)

SQC was pioneered by Walter Shewhart at Bell Laboratories in theearly 1920s.

Shewhart’s principle was that bringing a process into a stateof statistical control would allow the distinction betweenassignable and chance cause variations and the prediction offuture output

Assignable cause: the variation is due to

differences in quality of raw materialdifferences in machines or in operatorsdifference of time

Chance cause:

the variation is negligible and inevitablethe variation appears randomly and is due to chance and notto defects in machines or materials or to any other factorthe process is said to be under the state of statistical control

Shewhart developed the control chart in 1924.


Shewhart’s Control Chart


1941: Pareto’s principle in quality management (J. Juran)

The Pareto principle states that, for many events, roughly 80% ofthe effects come from 20% of the causes.


1949: PDCA Cycle (W. Deming)

Four step model for carrying out change

Plan: recognize an opportunity and plan a change.

Do: test the change.

Check: review the test, analyze the results and identify whatyou have learned.Act: take action based on what you learned in the study

if the change did work, incorporate what you learned from thetest into wider changesotherwise, go through the cycle again with a different plan


1951: Total Quality Control (A. Feigenbaum)

Quality control: an effective system for coordinating the qualitymaintenance and quality improvement efforts of the various groupsin an organization so as to enable production at the mosteconomical levels which allow for full customer satisfaction.Idea of modern quality control as management-based:

Increasing operator efficiency by educating them on quality inorder to enhance overall quality.

Increasing quality awareness throughout the organization.

Involving the entire organization in each and every qualityinitiative undertaken.

Quality control as an administrative effort for continuousquality improvement:

Providing a channel for knowledge integration andcommunication, thus enhancing product quality.

Encouraging employee participation in organizational qualitycontrol initiatives.


1955: Toyota Production System (T. Ohno)

At the end of WWII, Toyota had to compete with Americanmanufacturers in order to survive.

Due to large lot production, an American worker producedapproximately nine times as much as a Japanese worker.

Given the small demand in Japan, Toyota could not rely on thesame methods. Taiichi Ohno had the idea of making profit bycost reduction.

Absolute elimination of wasteJust-in-time (JIT): getting the number of parts needed, whenthey are needed.Autonomation: automating a process to include inspection.

Multi-skilled workers: one worker assigned to moremachines.

Minimizing transportation: putting the machines of aprocess together.


1957: Quality Loss Function (G. Taguchi)

Quality is the loss imparted bythe product to society from thetime the product is shipped.

Taguchi and Wu proposed theabsolute quality conformanceapproach encouraging to paymore attention to upstreamactivities (i.e., product designand planning of processes):

any variation from the exactspecifications entails a costor loss to the organization.

Quality Loss Function

L(y) = k(y − T )2

where:y is the observed value

T is the target value

k is the cost coefficient


1960: Zero Defects (P. Crosby)

Quality as the conformance to the requirements which the company itselfhas established for its products based upon the customers needs.

Do It Right First Time: People are not prevented from makingmistakes, but encouraged to improve continuously.

The ultimate goal is to train all the staff and give them the tools forquality improvement, to apply the basic precept of PreventionManagement in every area.

Zero Defects: no allowed number of errors built into a product orprocess. Four principles:

1 Quality is conformance to requirements.

2 Quality prevention is preferable to quality inspection and correction.

3 Standard of quality is always be zero defect, not close enough.

4 Quality is measure on the basis of Price, Price of NonConformance (PONC).


1964: Managerial Breakthrough (J. Juran)

Juran is widely credited for adding the human dimension toquality management.

For Juran, human relations problems are the cause of isolation andresistance to change and thus the root cause of quality issues.

He wrote Managerial Breakthrough, which was published in 1964,outlining the issue.

The book established the know-how about capitalizing on thebenefits of quality. It was organized in two parts:

Breakthrough: creation of beneficial change.

Control: prevention of adverse change.


1984: Total Quality Management (NASC, USA)

Umbrella methodology based onprinciples and practices of:

behavioural sciences,

analysis of quantitative andnonquantitative data,

economics theories,

process analysis

... to continually improve thequality of all processes.

Primary Elements of TQM:

Customer-focused

Total employee involvement

Process-centered

Integrated system

Strategic and systematicapproach

Continual improvement

Fact-based decision making

Communications


Deming’s 14 Points on Total Quality Management

1 Create constancy of purpose for improving products and services.

2 Adopt the new philosophy.

3 Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality.

4 End the practice of awarding business on price alone; instead, minimizetotal cost by working with a single supplier.

5 Improve constantly and forever every process for planning, production andservice.

6 Institute training on the job.

7 Adopt and institute leadership.

8 Drive out fear.

9 Break down barriers between staff areas.

10 Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets for the workforce.

11 Eliminate numerical quotas for the workforce and numerical goals formanagement.

12 Remove barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship, and eliminatethe annual rating or merit system.

13 Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement foreveryone.

14 Put everybody in the company to work accomplishing the transformation.


1986: Six Sigma (Motorola)

Six Sigma is...

A strategy to improve process quality by identifying and eliminatingdefects and minimizing variation in process outputs.

A data driven approach based on measurement of the processvariation using Statistical Process Control.

A structured implementation approach based on a DMAIC cycle andcertified experts.


Six Sigma: DMAIC Cycle


1987: ISO 9000 Standard Family (ISO)

The ISO 9000 standard family comprises:

ISO 9000:2005 Quality management systems: Fundamentalsand vocabulary

Eight Principles of Quality Management

ISO 9001:2008 Quality management systems

Requirements of a quality management system

ISO 9004:2009 Managing for the sustained success of theorganization - A quality management approach

ISO 19011:2011 Guidelines for quality and/or environmentalmanagement systems auditing


ISO 9000: The Eight Principles of Quality Management

Eight Principles of Quality Management:

1 Customer focus

2 Leadership

3 Involvement of people

4 Process approach

5 System approach to management

6 Continual improvement

7 Factual approach to decision-making

8 Mutually beneficial supplier relationships


1988: Lean Production (Krafcik)

Lean

A systematic approach to identifying and eliminating wastethrough continuous improvement, flowing the product at the pullof the customer in pursuit of perfection.

Eight Wastes:

Overproduction

Waiting

Transportation

Non-Value-Added-Processing

Excess Inventory

Defects

Excess Motion

Underutilized People

Some Lean Building Blocks:

Pull System

Work Cells

Total Productive Maintenance

Total Quality Management

Point-Of-Use-Storage

Batch Size Reduction

Visual Controls

Concurrent Engineering


Three stages in the evolution of quality

1 Performance improvementScientific ManagementStatistical Process ControlTotal Quality Control

2 Cost reduction (since 1950s)

Toyota Production SystemQuality Loss FunctionZero Defects

3 People Management (since 1960s)

Managerial BreakthroughTotal Quality ManagementISO 9000:2005


Corporate Social Responsibility: the 4th stage?

ISO defines Corporate SocialResponsibility (CSR) as follows:

A balanced approach fororganizations to address economic,social and environmental issues in away that aims to benefit people,communities and society.

In Europe CSR is regulated by law:The article K3 of the Treaty onEuropean Union (1998) obliges allthe member states to adoptanti-corruption measures.


There is not a unique definition of quality

”The total composite product and service characteristics ofmarketing, engineering, manufacture, and maintenance throughwhich the product and service will meet the expectations of thecustomer” (A. Feigenbaum, 1961)

”Quality is the loss imparted by the product to society from thetime the product is shipped.” (G. Taguchi, 1962)

”Conformance to requirements” (P. Crosby, 1979)

”The degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfillsrequirements” (ISO 9000:2005, 2005)

”Fitness for purpose” (J. Juran, 2010)

”Quality is a dynamic state associated with products, services,people, processes, and environments that meets or exceedsexpectations and helps produce superior value” (D. Goetsch andS. Davis, 2010)


However we can say that quality has to do with...

Building and managing organizations capable of

meeting customer requirements

protecting the business reputation by identifying andeliminating defects

reducing waste in production

understanding what’s important for the customer (currentand future needs)

rapidly adapting in order to provide flexible and fastresponses to market opportunities

... and of continuously improving itself.


The rising of Organization Excellence

In 1990s Organizational Excellence has been proposed as analternative to Quality Management. The main reasons:

Quality Management has no theoretical foundations;

There is quite a confusion over the very definition of”Quality”;

It remains unclear whether quality management is simply:

a collection of essentially independent techniques;a management philosophy;a coherent management methodology;a strategy;a theory for managing only the quality of services and process;a master theory for managing the entire enterprise.

Quality identified as an end in itself rather than a means ofcontributing to enterprise success.


Organization Excellence: The fundamental Concepts

Adding value for customers;

Creating a sustainable future;

Developing organizational capability;

Harnessing creativity & innovation;

Leading with vision, inspiration and integrity;

Managing with agility;

Succeeding through the talent of people;

Sustaining outstanding results.


Organization Excellence: relations with Quality Mgmt.

Adding value for customers ⇒ Customer Orientation;

Creating a sustainable future ⇒ Corporate Social Responsibility

Developing organizational capability ⇒ Process approach & SystemApproach to Management;

Harnessing creativity & innovation ⇒ Continuous qualityimprovement;

Leading with vision, inspiration and integrity ⇒ Leadership;

Managing with agility ⇒ Breakthrough;

Succeeding through the talent of people ⇒ Total employeeinvolvement;

Sustaining outstanding results ⇒ Continuous quality improvement& Zero Defects.


What is Quality Engineering?

Quality Engineering is a technology that deals with theimprovement of the organizations’ performance in understandingand meeting customers expectations.

Technology (etimological meaning)

gr. TECHNOLOGIA from TECHNE art and LOGIA for LOGOSdiscourse, treatise.Propr. Exposure of rules for dealing with art and scientifically asubject; Doctrine on immediate application of physics, chemistryand mathematics to arts and crafts, so that that the architect maynot act against the real scientific principles.


Thank you!

”Quality is not an act, it is a habit.” (Aristotle)

”It is most important that top management be quality-minded. Inthe absence of sincere manifestation of interest at the top, littlewill happen below.” (J. Juran)

”Quality is everyone’s responsibility.” (W. Deming)

”Quality is when your customers come back and your productsdon’t.” (E. Naumann, P. Shannon)


an excurse on the evolution of quality

Leadership & Management