Читать книгу Statistical Quality Control - Bhisham C. Gupta - Страница 34

It is the responsibility of top management to lead the quality improvement program and, by removing any barriers, to implement the quality improvement program. Then the process owners have the responsibility to implement quality improvement in their company or organization. To do this, they first must understand that quality improvement takes place by reducing variation. The next step for them to understand is what factors are responsible for causing variation. To control such factors, the best approach is if management collaborates with the workers who work day in and day out to solve problems, who know their jobs, and who know what challenges they are facing. By collaborating with workers, management can come to understand everything about quality improvement and what is essential to achieve it. This, of course, can be achieved if management has better communication with those workers who do work for quality improvement.

The next step after the implementation of quality improvement is to focus on customers and their needs. By focusing on customers, loyal customers are created, and they can be relied on for the future of the company. Note that when there is focus on the needs of customers, the use of SPC tools becomes essential to achieve the company's goals, which in turn helps improve quality on a continuous basis. According to Crosby, quality improvement is based on four “absolutes of quality management”:

1 Quality is defined as conformance to requirements (a product that meets the specifications), not as “goodness” or “elegance.”

2 The system for causing quality is prevention (eliminating both special and common causes by using SPC tools), not appraisal.

3 The performance standard must be zero defects, not “close enough.”

4 The measurement of quality is the price of nonconformance (producing defective parts, or parts that do not meet specifications), not indices.

Thus, to implement quality improvement, top management should follow these absolutes. Management must also implement training for workers so that they understand how to use all the tools of SPC and thus can avoid any issues that infiltrate the system. Management must make sure that supplier(s) also understand that quality improvement is an ongoing part of the company's policy and get assurance from suppliers that they will also use SPC tools to maintain the quality of everything they supply.