11.7: Quality Control for the Manufacturing Sector

Quality is defined as the degree to which a product or service meets or exceeds customer expectations and adheres to established standards or specifications. It is a multifaceted concept that can be viewed through different lenses, such as product characteristics, customer satisfaction, and continuous improvement.^[1]

What do you do if your brand-new phone doesn’t work when you get it home? Like most people, you’d probably be more or less disgruntled. As a customer, you’re constantly assured that when products make it to market, they’re of the highest possible quality, and you tend to avoid brands that have failed to live up to your expectations or to producers’ claims. When you buy a mobile phone, you expect it to be able to connect to a mobile network and be easy to use for communication purposes. If your expectations are not met, you’ll conclude that you’re the victim of poor quality.

Quality control in manufacturing is the process of ensuring that products meet predefined quality standards and specifications, helping to deliver consistent and reliable outputs. It involves systematic planning, implementation, and evaluation of processes to maintain product quality.

Key aspects of quality control include:

• Inspection and testing
• Process monitoring (Statistical Process Control (SPC))
• Standardization (ISO 9001)
• Defect prevention (Six Sigma)

Examples of quality control in two precision-based industries include:

• Automotive: Toyota uses the Andon system to stop production immediately when quality issues are detected, integrating lean manufacturing with quality control.^[2]
• Electronics: Apple’s rigorous quality testing includes material durability and product performance tests before market release.^[3]

Total Quality Management (TQM)

Total quality management (TQM) is the continual process of detecting and reducing or eliminating errors in manufacturing. It streamlines supply chain management, improves the customer experience, and ensures that employees are up to speed with training.^[4]

A quality management system (QMS) is a formalized system that documents processes, procedures, and responsibilities for achieving quality policies and objectives. The QMS helps manufacturing companies coordinate and direct activities to meet customer and regulatory requirements.^[5]

The TQM strategy requires consistent feedback from employees and customers to determine how services and products can be improved across the organization and is designed to help companies find a path to strengthen their position in the market, increase productivity, improve customer loyalty and satisfaction, boost employee morale, and improve processes. Whereas many quality management strategies focus on specific departments, TQM includes every department in continually improving a company’s products and services. According to the TQM philosophy, the more you improve processes in every department, the easier it will be to deliver higher-quality products and services to customers. With TQM, everyone in the company should be focused on quality improvement with the shared goal of boosting customer loyalty and satisfaction. ^[6]

Total quality management (TQM), or quality assurance, includes all the steps that a company takes to ensure that its goods or services are of sufficiently high quality to meet customers’ needs. Generally speaking, a company adheres to TQM principles by focusing on three tasks: Customer satisfaction, employee involvement, and continuous improvement. Let’s take a closer look at these three principles.

Customer Satisfaction

Companies that are committed to TQM understand that the purpose of a business is to generate a profit through customer satisfaction. Thus, they let their customers define quality by identifying desirable product features and then offering those features to their clientele. They encourage customers to tell them how to offer services that work the right way. Armed with this knowledge, they take steps to make sure that providing quality is a factor in every facet of their operations—from design to product planning and control, to sales and service. To get feedback on how well they’re doing, many companies routinely use surveys and other methods to monitor customer satisfaction. By tracking the results of feedback over time, they can see where they need to improve.

Employee Involvement

Successful TQM requires that everyone in the organization, not simply upper-level management, commits to satisfying the customer. A mobile phone isn’t solely the responsibility of the manufacturer’s quality control department; it’s the responsibility of every employee involved in its design, production, and even shipping. To get everyone involved in the drive for quality assurance, managers must communicate the importance of quality to subordinates and motivate them to focus on customer satisfaction. Employees have to be properly trained not only to do their jobs but also to detect and correct quality problems. In many companies, employees who perform similar jobs work as teams, sometimes called quality circles, to identify quality, efficiency, and other work-related problems, to propose solutions, and to work with management in implementing their recommendations.

Continuous Improvement

An integral part of TQM is continuous improvement: the commitment to making constant improvements in the design, production, and delivery of goods and services. Improvements can almost always be made to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and improve customer service and satisfaction. Everyone in the organization is constantly on the lookout for ways to do things better.

Statistical Process Control

Statistical process control (SPC) is defined as the use of statistical techniques to control a process or production method. SPC tools and procedures can help you monitor process behaviour, discover issues in internal systems, and find solutions for production issues. Statistical process control is often used interchangeably with statistical quality control (SQC).^[7]

Companies can use a variety of tools to identify areas for improvement. A common approach in manufacturing is called statistical process control. This technique monitors production quality by testing a sample of output to see whether goods in process are being made according to predetermined specifications. An example of a statistical process control method is Six Sigma. A Six Sigma process is one in which 99.99966% of all opportunities to perform an operation are free of defects. This percentage equates to only 3.4 defects per million opportunities.

Assume for a moment that you work for Kellogg’s, the maker of Raisin Bran cereal. You know that it’s the company’s goal to pack two scoops of raisins in every box of cereal. How can you test to determine whether this goal is being met? You could use a statistical process control method called a sampling distribution. On a periodic basis, you would take a box of cereal off the production line and measure the amount of raisins in the box. Then you’d record that amount on a control chart designed to compare actual quantities of raisins with the desired quantity (two scoops). If your chart shows that several samples in a row are low on raisins, you’d take corrective action.

SPC is widely used in manufacturing industries to monitor and control production processes. By using tools like control charts, histograms, and Pareto charts, manufacturers can identify variations in processes, detect defects early, and improve product quality. This method is particularly effective in industries like automotive, electronics, food production, and pharmaceuticals.

Media Attributions

“Businesswoman, Presentation, Men’s suit image” by geralt, used under the Pixabay license.