DRIVE- FALL 2013

PROGRAM/SEMESTER-MBADS – (SEM 3/SEM 5) / MBAN2 / MBAFLEX – (SEM 3) PGDTQMN – (SEM 1)

SUBJECT CODE & NAME-QM0010- FOUNDATION OF QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Q1. Explain Quality Social Approach and Quality Environmental Approach. (Explanation of Quality Social
Approach, Explanation of Quality Environmental Approach) 5, 5

Answer:

Quality Social Approach

The quality social approach is to provide quality in every dimension of life -, Heath, education, culture,
family religion, environment, and society. Quality is as large as life itself. Quality needs betterment and
improvement, free from all grudges well in all dimensions of society. A stable society is the outcome of
quality. A global society of quality shall not have war, starvation fear and oppression. Quality social
approach is to make organizations realize the need; to be aware of their social responsibilities, consider the
effects, business can have on the local community. Social aspect of quality is to provide community,
society a better standard of living, health, education, attitude, quality life and overall development and
growth. Business organizations need to provide the products, services, which are environment friendly. In
These ways they can act responsibly towards the different parts of society that they come into contact with.

Quality social approach is:

People centric and customer focused

Quality is about meeting or exceeding customer expectations. The customer is the judge of quality, value
and product. Total quality approach focuses on customer satisfaction and delight in terms of product quality
and services. The approach is customer satisfaction through innovation, as there are many factors
throughout the customers overall purchase and service experiences. To accomplish this, a company efforts
need to extend well beyond merely meeting specifications, reducing errors, or resolving complaints, the
entire process of a company shall be an unending chain to deliver improve products and services This
must include both designing new products that truly delighting the customer and responding rapidly to
changing consumer and market demands. A company should focuses on customer needs and wants, and
know how the customer uses it, and anticipates the needs that the customer may not even able to express.
The approach focuses on continually development of new ways of enhancing customer relationship. The
underlying approach is total customer satisfaction

The strategy of Total Quality Management is to try to build customer orientation so that each one in the
organization feels committed to provide customer satisfaction.

Quality Environmental Approach

Industrial and economic development have led to faster depletion of natural resources, forestry, water,
coal, and petroleum etc have given impetus to growth and now with the fast depletion of resources the
crisis is approaching. Pollution, carbon and gaseous emission, are adding to crisis. Large scale usage of
natural resources is not only causing depletion but also leading to wide spread air, water and noise
pollution that is again leading to hazardous health problem and severe consequences. Emission of
hazardous gases are depleting the ozone layer in the atmosphere and disturbing ecological imbalance.
The consequences have alarmed the society, organization and various other institutions. Now
organizations are aware of their environmental and social responsibility and are taking various measures to
safeguard environment. Social responsibility of business organization is to keep check on issues pertaining
to environment. To discharge the responsibility organizations need to accomplish “Environmental Quality
policy”. Total quality management provides a model for business excellence by advocating on environment
management as a key business process to create eco-friendly environment and built premises of secure
environment and better working condition. Quality management concentrates on the activity that lead to
environment pollution directly or indirectly and causes harm to environment and health, hygiene of people
in an around the business. It checks the problem and consequences of the environmental issues and
concentrates on the following areas:

1. Generation and discharge of pollutants to the environment, namely air, waste or excessive noise
2. Industrial energy management
3. Management of industrial health, hygiene and safety
4. Management of ecology and forestry

Q2. What is a Quality Manual? How does it help in documentation? Explain the measurement of Quality.
(Meaning of a Quality Manual, Explanation on how it helps in documentation, Measurement of quality) 3, 2, 5

Answer: Meaning of a Quality Manual

An official document produced by a business that details how its quality management system operates. A typical
quality manual will include the company's quality policy and goals, as well as a detailed description of its quality
control system that might include staff roles and relationships, procedures, systems and any other resources that
relate to producing high quality goods or services.

How it helps in documentation

The working methods and procedures for planning and quality, and its achievement as applicable to
different stages, right from design to delivery need to be documented as quality manuals. Each one of the
subsequent details furnishes necessary inputs in diverse forms to prepare quality manuals related to
design, measurement control, process control etc.The general outline of a manual are its title; scope and
objectives; points of control and responsibility for implementing control plan; feed-back and action; do‟s
and don‟ts. Every manuals must enrich through check-lists; self instructing formals. feed-back and action-
routes; specifications; operational guide lines; defect-cause-effect-remedy information; precautions to be
taken etc.

Measurement of Quality

In the context of quality, measurement takes the following forms catering to different requirement:
Measurement of quality characteristics at technological level like weight, length, diameter, current,
electrical, capacitance, inductance, angular acceleration etc.

Measurement of quality in terms of product performance like life, fuel efficiency, power consumption etc.

Measurement of quality associated with errors and failure like defects per unit, percent specification
limits, percent rejection, MTBF, percent down time etc.

Measurement of cost of quality: cost of defect prevention, planning, enforcement, assurance.

Measurement of quality losses-internal and external.

Measurement of quality efficiency like comparative quality of the products of the enterprise with those of
competitors, cycle time for implementing changes in product and bringing new products cost of repairs and
free replacements for customers, as percent of sales value.

Q3.

a. How is the Human Relation Theory different form the Classical Theory?

b. Briefly explain Quality inspection, Quality control and Quality Assurance.

[(Differences, Explanation (Quality inspection, Quality control and Quality Assurance)] 4, 6

Answer :

Classical Theory
The classical theory model of organization reflects the scientific management approach developed by
Frederick Taylor, the Classical theory of Henri Fayol and Max Weber‟s Bureaucracy theory. These
collectively dominate the mainstream management thinking. Each of these approaches regards the design
of organizations as a technical exercise and depends upon fragmenting or dissecting an organization into
its component parts for analysis and efficient operation. The machine approaches to organization arose, as
suggested, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and may be considered logical extensions of
the advances then being made in machine technology. Machines are in general, designed to perform
specified tasks at known input/ output rates and within specified tolerances; these management
approaches assume that organizations can be similarly designed. Frederick Taylor‟s Scientific
management is based on four key principles: scientific task design, scientific selection, management-
worker cooperation and equal division of work. Taylor‟s objectives were first, to improve efficiency by
increasing output and reducing „underworking‟. Second, to achieve „standardization‟ of job performance,
by dividing tasks up into small and closely specified sub tasks. Finally, to instill discipline, by establishing
hierarchical authority and introducing system whereby all management‟s policy decisions could be
implemented. Taylor saw the organization as a machine capable of being specified, designed and
controlled by management to achieve a given purpose. The workmen were viewed as standardizes
machine parts, interchangeable with every other of like design and to be used at the discretion of
management.

Human relations Theory

While benefits could, and may still, be obtained from the rational approaches, their lack of humanity is
demonstrated by the difficulties which emerge during their application with the people involved. The Human
Relations Model of organization emerged as a means of addressing these difficulties and was the first
significant challenge to the „machine‟ view. The „organic‟ or „organism‟ analogy stem from the origins of
modern systems thinking in the biological sciences and attempts to deal with the attainment of survival of
the system or organization rather than the achievement of particular goals. While survival may be seen as
a legitimate goal, it may not sufficiently represent the purpose of the organization. This organic view first
found expression in organizations through what has become known as the Human Relations Model. This
considers that attention must be paid to the human aspects of organization and gives primacy to the roles,
needs and expectations of the human participants. Particular emphasis is given to issues of motivation,
management style and participation as critical factors. The „Hawthorne‟ studies of Roethlisberger and
Dickson with Elton mayo may be interpreted as an early systems approach to management. Although they
were originally focused on the application of scientific management principles, their findings led away from
this perspective, and they subsequently recognized the need to capture and understand the relatedness of
all the parts involved. Later work in this field by Maslow and Herzberg did not accept the systemic
perspective. These later developments still adopt a reductionist and „closed‟ system‟ view of the
organization, concentrating on improving the performance of parts, not wholes, and emphasizing internal
rather than external influences on the organization.

B)

Quality Control:

Quality Control activities include inspection and testing of the products or services after they are produced
and just before their delivery to the customers. The inspection and testing activities are carried out to check
conformity of the product with specifications / requirements. If any of the products are not in conformance
with the specifications, they are quarantined / segregated and the actions as specified (repair, re grade,
scrap) are initiated.

Quality Assurance:
Quality Assurance refers to planned and systematic production processes that provide confidence in a
product's suitability for its intended purpose. It is a set of activities intended to ensure that products (goods
and/or services) satisfy customer requirements in a systematic, reliable fashion. Quality assurance covers
all activities from design, development, production, installation, servicing and other associated activities.
This introduces the rule ”Right first time”. PDCA (Plan- Do- Check – Act) approach is the most widely used
concept in Quality Assurance. Quality Assurance is about improving and stabilizing the production and
associated processes to eliminate or limit the defects from occurring, while the Quality Control is about
inspection and testing and preventing the defects from getting delivered to the customers. However, QA
does not necessarily eliminate the requirement for Quality control in terms of inspection and testing.

Quality Management:
Quality Management has three components: Quality Control, Quality Assurance and Quality Improvement.
Quality management is focused not just on product quality, but also on the means to achieve it. Quality
management make use of the Quality assurance and control activities for planning and realizing the
product quality in a consistent manner.

Q4. Explain the concept of Cost of Quality. Give a few examples of External and Internal Failure costs. [(Meaning
of Cost of Quality, Components, Examples (External & Internal Failure costs)] 3, 3, 4

Answer:

Cost of Quality
Cost accounting is a most important function in many companies. All organizations measure and report
costs as a basis for control and improvement. This is true for both types of organizations – For profit and
Not for profit. The concept of cost of Quality (COQ) has emerged in 1950s. The concept of Quality Costs is
a means to quantify the total cost of Quality related efforts and deficiencies. This was first described by
Armand V. Feigenbaum. Generally, the people have the perception that higher quality involves higher
costs, either for buying better raw materials or machines or by hiring expensive skills. Further more, while
cost accounting had evolved to categorize the financial transactions in to revenues, expenses, overheads,
it had not attempted to categorize the costs related to quality. Management is well served if the Quality
related costs are segregated and reported so that the data can be evaluated to understand the impact of
investments on quality related activities and focus better on the quality improvement activities to reduce the
overall costs and enhance the profitability.

Components of Cost of Quality

Crosby has defined that the cost of quality has two main components.
a) Cost of conformance
b) Cost of Non-conformance.

a) Cost of Conformance (COC): It is the total cost to ensure that a product conforms to the requirements
– which it is of “Good Quality”. It includes the costs of Quality Assurance and Quality control activities. It
represents an organization’s investment in ensuring the quality of its products and services. The cost of
conformance is further classified in to: Prevention costs and Appraisal costs.

b) Cost of Non – Conformance (CNOC): It represents the total costs to the organization of failure to
ensure conformance to the requirements – which is “Bad Quality “. It includes in – process failure costs
generated by process failures and the post – delivery failure costs such as warranty. Cost of
Nonconformance is nothing but the Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ). The cost of
Non-conformance is further classified in to: External failure costs and internal failure costs.
However, the classification: Prevention costs, Appraisal costs, External failure costs and internal failure
costs are the most popular form of classification.

External Failure Costs

External failure costs are associated with deficiencies that are found after the customer receives the
product. This also includes the lost opportunities for sales revenue. This cost will automatically disappear in
the absence of the deficiencies.

Examples of this category:

Warranty charges – Costs involved in repairs or making repairs to products that are still within the
warranty period.
Complaints – The cost of investigation and price adjustments that needs to be made in case the
complaints are attributed to defective products or installation.
Field returns – The costs associated with receipt and replacement of defective products received from the
field.
Penalties for poor quality : Damages to be paid to the customer
Re-grading / down grading of the product: The cost of concessions made to the customer due to products
supplied which are not fully compliant to the requirements, but accepted by the customer as regrade / down
grade.

Internal Failure costs:

These are the costs of deficiencies discovered before delivery. These are associated with the failures to
meet the requirements of customers (both explicit and implicit). These costs include avoidable process
losses and process inefficiencies. Internal failure costs are broadly classified as a) Costs of failures to meet
customer requirements b) Costs of Inefficient processes.

Examples of costs of failures to meet customer requirements:

 Rework – correcting defects in physical products or errors in services.
 Increased inspection – Finding defective units in a production lots that contain unacceptably high
level of defectives.
 Re-inspection / re-test – Re inspection and re-test of products that has been reworked or modified.
 Scrap – The defective product that can not be repaired.
 Failure analysis – cost of analysis of defective products or services to determine causes.
 Down grading – Reduction in price because of poor quality
 Change in processes – cost of modifying manufacturing or service delivery process as part of
corrective actions.
 Redesign in hard ware and soft ware – cost of changes in designs of hard ware and software to
correct deficiencies.

Examples of Costs of Inefficient processes:

 Cost of unplanned down time of machines and equipments.
  Variation in the product characteristics from the specifications (variation within specification)
 Variations in process characteristics from the “best practices”
 Non-value added activities – like redundant operations, sorting operations.

Q5. Discuss the importance of Knowledge Management. Explain the role of Quality in Knowledge Management.
(Meaning of Knowledge Management, Importance of Knowledge Management, Role of Quality in Knowledge
Management) 2, 3, 5

Answer:

Knowledge Management
Concept:
Knowledge management constitutes, the practices applied in an organization to identify, create, represent,
distribute and enable implementation of perceptiveness and experiences. The experiences and insights are
embedded in organizational processes and practices. It is the management of information, experiences,
insights which helps to improve the process and enhance quality.

Knowledge is information in context to produce an actionable understanding. It can be said that

knowledge is information and context that leads the ability to act.

Knowledge management focuses on how an organization identifies, creates, captures, and acquires
shares and leverages knowledge.

Importance of Knowledge Management:

The quality principle should be applied in managing and creating knowledge.

Following are some of the features to manage quality in information:

Capture data only once and keeping its close to the origin of data
Eliminating human error by encouraging electronic support
Using single database
Ensuring proper training
Defining targets and measures of data quality
Error check and backup
Error checking capability into software system
Ensuring data availability and validity

Data Accessibility: Total quality focuses on data availability to everyone besides top manager’s.
Collected information should be available to right person whenever needed. Right information, to right
person, at right time is quality approach.
Data accessibility empowers employees and encourages their participation in quality improvement
Data security: Data are to be kept secure from the external threat .To prevent the external threats
systems have to be safeguarded with the use of firewalls and passwords. Sensitive data are to be
accessed by only authorized users to safeguard the data security.

Role of Quality in Knowledge Management

Managing Quality in knowledge assets is prerequisite, organization must ensure that data and information
are valid and accurate, systems that process data (hardware and software) are reliable and information is
accessible to all who need it.

Data Validity: Data used for planning and decision making requires being accurate and valid. Good data
yield good results. A sound decision requires quality data. To collect reliable data a systematic approach is
required, internal cross functional teams or external auditors can conduct periodic audits of the process to
collect the data. Standardized forms, clear instructions and adequate training lead to consistence
performance in data collection For example Data security AT&T Universal Card Services, used standard
data entry and procedures to facilitate the consistency and uniform editing of manually input data and
followed stringent guidelines and standards for developing ,maintaining ,documenting and managing data
system.

Q6. Discuss the major Barriers/obstacles to Quality. Briefly explain some of the methods/ tools, techniques that
can be deployed to overcome the barriers in an organization. (Barriers/Obstacles to Quality, Methods/tools) 5, 5

Answer:

Barriers / Obstacles to Quality

The barriers/obstacles to implement TQM seem endless. The barriers are found never-ending with
plenty of issues. In fact it starts from top management itself and flows down to all working levels. This is so
in all business sectors, whether they are manufacturing, services, government and even education.

The question is: Is there any way to adopt TQM and finally overcome these barriers? Therefore, it is
important for organizations to understand these barriers first and avoid them both before and during the
TQM implementation.

Main Groups of barriers: The barriers to quality could be grouped under four:

Physical: (Processes, Tools, & Structures, Organization design & Management perspectives)

Infrastructure: (Strategy, Measurements, Rewards, Systems & Procedures)

Behavioral (What groups or individual do)

Cultural: (Deeply held Assumptions, Values, Beliefs, & Norms. attitudes, values and beliefs.
Method and tool

Methods/tools:

Brain storming process:

The simplest method to generate ideas is brainstorming process. Given a specific area to improve or
problem to solve, as many ideas as possible should come up to solve. This method encourages innovation,
invention, and creativity; and it could produce solutions, thus removing
the foreseen and unforeseen barriers

The process mapping technique

This process Involves creation of flowchart to pinpoint where the problems arises and identify areas
that could be improved. Mapping is particularly useful for spotting bottlenecks and to remove unnecessary
barriers in the operations.

Kaizen:
Kaizen is a Japanese set of techniques which promotes efficiency as a means to higher quality. Any
process deemed to be wasteful resources are removed, and the process is refined/improved upon,
monitored by the team to ensure that changes are adhered to, transformation happens, removes
impediments and continuous improvements takes place. This reduces barriers
Use of QC Tools:
It is possible to overcome the barriers by treating symptoms and focusing on a quick fix through a
logical problem-solving process. By using QC tools like Cause and Effect Diagrams, and Force Field
Analysis, the problems can be broken to manageable pieces, solve, and implement corrective measures.

Involve people
People involved in the decision-making process take more responsibility for finding and implementing
solutions. A team' process makes individuals to contribute to the long-term success of a business, thus
overcoming barriers. Involving people throughout the organization can help overcome these barriers.

Take a long-term approach

Short-term outlook generally creates problems instead of overcoming. A long-term plan is important to
success. Of course, answer depends on the situation.