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TVE
Furniture and
Cabinet Making
Quarter 1 – Module 4:
Engaging in Quality
Improvement
(Weeks 5 & 6)
 What I Need to Know

This module was designed and written with you in mind. It is here to help you master
how to Engage in Quality Improvement. The scope of this module permits it to be
used in many different learning situations. The language used recognizes the diverse
vocabulary level of students.

In this module, you will learn skills related to Furniture and Cabinet Making. You
will have first-hand experience in educational activities leading you to become a
successful learner.

After going through this module, you are expected to:

1. identify the different process flow engage in quality improvement in the
workplace;
2. explain the different process flow engage in quality improvement in the
workplace; and
3. apply the underlying principles engaging in quality improvement in the
workplace.

What I Know

Use a separate sheet in doing this activity. Please do not forget to write the
following in your answer sheet:
Name: ______________________________ Yr. & Section: _________
Yr. Level & Subject (Specialization): ________________ Module No: ___________
Name of the Activity: What I Know Date: _________________

Directions: Choose the letter of the best answer.

1. It is the planned or systematic action necessary to provide enough confidence

that a product or service will satisfy the given requirements for quality.
A. Implementation C. Planning
B. Inspection D. quality assurance
2. What is the meaning of QA?
A. Quality Appearance C. Quality Assurance
B. Quality Aspect D. Quality Audit
3. What type of chart displays statistically determined upper and lower limits
drawn on either side of a process average?
A. control chart C. flow chart
B. display chart D. monitoring chart

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 4. It applies at all stages of the development process but is underlined especially
during the prototype validation stages.
A. implementation
B. inspection
C. planning
D. quality and task-completion checking
5. To avoid delayed and high cost of production, the workers should follow the
__________.
A. co-worker C. superior
B. quality standards D. timetable
6. The process of ensuring quality in which duties and responsibilities should be
independent of production personnel so as not to be subject to the production
pressures imposed by the superintendent.
A. quality assurance C. quality controller
B. quality audit D. quality manager
7. What type of chart describes a process in as much detail as possible by
graphically displaying the steps in proper sequence?
A. control chart C. flow chart
B. display chart D. monitoring chart
8. It is a source of greater revenues, employment opportunities, and
technological advances.
A. delayed process C. improved productivity
B. faulty products D. repaired products
9. It is a procedure of procedures intended to ensure that a manufactured
product or performed service adheres to a defined set of quality criteria or
meets the requirements of the customer.
A. product development C. production process
B. process flow D. quality control
10. It refers to the perception of the degree to which the product or service
meets the customer's expectations.
A. process flow D. quality of a product and
B. product development services
C. product specification

What’s In

This Module is a useful document that you can use to add more knowledge and skills
that you acquired in the previous quarter. It includes instructions and procedures
on how to perform the different learning outcomes. The unit of competency contains
the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required on how to Engage in Quality
Improvement for Furniture and Cabinet Making NC II. You are required to go
through a series of learning activities in order to complete each of the learning
outcomes of this module

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 What’s New

Do these engage in quality improvement at the workplace look familiar to you? Get
to know these engage in quality improvement at the workplace so you may learn to
apply them in the next activity.

A Quality Control Organizational Chart may strike you as a trivial part of your
production quality plan. However, without an organization chart, your quality plan
will most likely be rejected. Plus, when it comes to managing quality, creating a
project quality organization chart is the first step in identifying who is responsible
for what on your project.

Your QC Organizational Chart is typically included in the Project Quality

Plan section of your production quality plan. Your contract specifications will tell you
some of what's required of your quality management organizational structure, but
not everything. Therefore, it's important to follow these simple tips; they can help
you correctly prepare your QC Organization Chart.

Make your QC organization chart specific to the project. Your QC organization

chart should only cover the quality management portion of your project.
Include the names and job positions of all the people with key quality responsibilities
leading up to the President (or company officer). You do not need a chart for the
entire organization.

Pay attention to Contract Specifications. There are often both requirements for
specific positions and restrictions on reporting their relationships that you need to
address.

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For example, some project specifications require that your Quality Manager be the
point of contact for the contracting officer on matters regarding quality. In this case,
define a point of contact by showing a dotted line between your Quality Manager and
the customer contact.

Do not have the Quality Manager report to the Superintendent. This is a

common mistake that I see often and one that will get your construction quality plan
rejected.

The Quality Manager should be independent of your production personnel so as not

to be subject to the production pressures imposed by your superintendent. You can
use dotted lines to show lines of communication between your Superintendent and
Quality Manager.

Do assign multiple job positions to one person. Your organization chart shows the
reporting relationships and lines of authority for key job positions regardless of whom
you assign to the position.

If your Project Manager performs the role of Quality Manager and Purchasing
Manager, leave the structure intact and simply put the same name in each of those
boxes. The only restriction is that the superintendent cannot be assigned as the
Quality Manager – except for very small projects, with the client's approval.

Do not have your Superintendent report to your Project Manager. If you assign
your Superintendent to report to your Project Manager, you won’t have the flexibility
for your Project Manager to act as an alternate Quality Manager (remember your
Quality Manager should be independent of your production personnel). This can be
important when you must have a quality representative on the job site while work is
in process.

Have your subcontractors and crew foremen report to your Superintendent. The
Superintendent should have the line of authority to control subcontractor and crew
activities. Otherwise, how can the superintendent be responsible for their work
without the authority to control their actions?

Show inspection and testing agencies reporting to your project Quality

Manager. Your project Quality Manager is responsible for all inspection and testing,
even when it is performed by an outside agency.

Quality Control Flow Chart

Quality control (QC) is a procedure of procedures intended to ensure that a
manufactured product or performed service adheres to a defined set of quality criteria
or meets the requirements of the customer.

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Ensure that high-quality standards are achieved every day of every week on every
product. This isn´t just about the final inspection. It's about the right manufacturing
procedures and controls throughout the process. This is how we get it right the first
time.

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Be committed to giving your best! Take time to carefully select the right raw material,
apply the proper manufacturing techniques and equipment, and above all, ensure
that the finishing process truly enhances the beauty of the furniture. Adhere to tight
controls and undertake rigorous inspections at every stage of the manufacturing
process.

Every part of the manufacturing process is completed within our own facility, right
from the raw material selection to processing and through to finishing. Nothing is
subcontracted and everything is under our control. This way can be sure that the
quality of our furniture meets our high standards both structurally and aesthetically.

What is It

Engage in Quality Improvement

In technical usage, quality can have two meanings:

1. the characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy
stated or implied needs.
2. a product or service free of deficiencies.

The quality of a product or service refers to the perception of the degree to which the
product or service meets the customer's expectations. Quality has no specific
meaning unless related to a specific function and/or object. Quality is a perceptual,
conditional, and somewhat subjective attribute.

The dimensions of quality refer to the attributes that quality achieves in Operations
Management:

Quality <-> Dependability <-> Speed <-> Flexibility <-> Cost

• Quality supports dependability
• Dependability supports Speed
• Speed supports Flexibility
• Flexibility supports Cost.

In the manufacturing industry, it is commonly stated that “Quality drives

productivity.” Improved productivity is a source of greater revenues, employment
opportunities, and technological advances. The best way to think about quality is in
process control. If the process is under control, inspection is not necessary. However,
there is one characteristic of modern quality that is universal. In the past, when we
tried to improve quality, typically defined as producing fewer defective parts, we did
so at the expense of increased cost, increased task time, longer cycle time, etc.

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Quality Management Terms:
• Quality Improvement can be distinguished from Quality Control in that
Quality Improvement is the purposeful change of a process to improve the
reliability of achieving an outcome.
• Quality Control is the ongoing effort to maintain the integrity of a process to
maintain the reliability of achieving an outcome.
• Quality Assurance is the planned or systematic actions necessary to provide
enough confidence that a product or service will satisfy the given requirements
for quality.

Quality and Task-Completion Checking

With development teams of two or three in daily contact and frequently exchanging
views and criticisms, detailed, written quality and task-completion checking
procedures may be felt to be unnecessary. Procedures still need to be agreed and the
results need to be documented. The need to check the quality and task completion
applies at all stages of the development process but is underlined especially during
the prototype validation stages.

Quality Improvement Processes

Manufacturers can choose from a variety of tools to improve their quality processes.
The trick is to know which tools to use for each situation and increasing the
sophistication of the tools in the repertoire.

Easy to implement and follow up, the most commonly used and well-known quality
process is the plan/do/check/act (PDCA) cycle. The PDCA cycle promotes
continuous improvement and should thus be visualized as a spiral instead of a closed
circle.

Another popular quality improvement process is the six-step PROFIT model in which
the acronym stands for:
P = Problem definition.
R = Root cause identification and analysis.
O = Optimal solution based on root cause(s).
F = Finalize how the corrective action will be implemented.
I = Implement the plan.
T = Track the effectiveness of the implementation and verify that the desired
results are met.

If the desired results are not met, the cycle is repeated. Both the PDCA and the
PROFIT models can be used for problem-solving as well as for continuous quality
improvement. In companies that follow total quality principles, whichever model is
chosen should be used consistently in every department or function in which quality
improvement teams are working.

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Once the basic problem-solving or quality improvement process is understood, the
addition of quality tools can make the process proceed more quickly and
systematically. Seven simple tools can be used by any professional to ease the quality
improvement process: flowcharts, check sheets, Pareto diagrams, cause and effect
diagrams, histograms, scatter diagrams, and control charts.

The key to successful problem resolution is the ability to identify the problem, use
the appropriate tools based on the nature of the problem, and communicate the
solution quickly to others. Inexperienced personnel might do best by starting with
the Pareto chart and the cause and effect diagram before tackling the use of the other
tools. Those two tools are used most widely by quality improvement teams.

FLOWCHARTS
Flowcharts describe a process in as much detail as possible by graphically displaying
the steps in proper sequence. A good flowchart should show all process steps under
analysis by the quality improvement team, identify critical process points for control,
suggest areas for further improvement, and help explain and solve a problem.

Flowcharts can be simple or they can be made up of numerous boxes, symbols, and
if/then directional steps. In more complex versions, flowcharts indicate the process
steps in the appropriate sequence, the conditions in those steps, and the related
constraints by using elements such as arrows, yes/no choices, or if/then statements.

CHECK SHEETS

Sample of a Check Sheet

Check sheets help organize data by category. They show how many times each
particular value occurs, and their information is increasingly helpful as more data
are collected. More than 50 observations should be available to be charted for this
tool to be really useful. A basic production process flowchart displays several paths
a part can travel from the time it hits the receiving dock to final shipping.

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PARETO DIAGRAM

Sample of a Pareto Diagram

The Pareto diagram is named after Vilfredo Pareto, a 19th-century Italian economist.
are caused by 20% of the potential sources. A Pareto diagram puts data in a
hierarchical order, which allows the most significant problems to be corrected first.
The Pareto analysis technique is used primarily to identify and evaluate
nonconformities, although it can summarize all types of data. It is perhaps the
diagram most often used in management presentations. To create a Pareto diagram,
the operator collects random data, regroups the categories in order of frequency, and
creates a bar graph based on the results.

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CAUSE AND EFFECT DIAGRAM

Sample of a Cause and Effect Diagram

The cause and effect diagram is sometimes called an Ishikawa diagram after its
inventor. It is also known as a fishbone diagram because of its shape. A cause and
effect diagram describes a relationship between variables. The undesirable outcome
is shown as an effect, and related causes are shown leading to the said effect. This
popular tool has one severe limitation, however, in that users can overlook important,
complex interactions between causes. Thus, if a problem is caused by a combination
of factors, it is difficult to use this tool to depict and solve it. By rearranging random
data, a Pareto diagram identifies and ranks nonconformities in the quality process
in descending order.

Fishbone diagrams display the various possible causes of the final effect. Further
analysis can prioritize them. A fishbone diagram displays all contributing factors and
their relationships to the outcome to identify areas where data should be collected
and analyzed. The major areas of potential causes are shown as the main bones,
Later, the subareas are depicted. A thorough analysis of each cause can eliminate
causes one by one, and the most probable root cause can be selected for corrective
action. Quantitative information can also be used to prioritize means for
improvement, whether it be to machine, design, or operator.

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HISTOGRAM

Sample of a Histogram

The histogram plots data in a frequency distribution table. What distinguishes the
histogram from a check sheet is that its data are grouped into rows so that the
identity of individual values is lost. Commonly used to present quality improvement
data, histograms work best with small amounts of data that vary considerably. When
used in process capability studies, histograms can display specification limits to
show what portion of the data does not meet the specifications. After the raw data
are collected, they are grouped in value and frequency and plotted in a graphical
form. A histogram's shape shows the nature of the distribution of the data, as well
as a central tendency (average) and variability. Specification limits can be used to
display the capability of the process. A histogram is an easy way to see the
distribution of the data, its average, and variability.

SCATTER DIAGRAM

Sample of a Scatter Diagram

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A scatter diagram shows how two variables are related and are thus used to test for
cause and effect relationships. It cannot prove that one variable causes the change
in the other, only that a relationship exists and how strong it is. In a scatter diagram,
the horizontal (x) axis represents the measurement values of one variable, and the
vertical (y) axis represents the measurements of the second variable. The plotted data
points in a scatter diagram show the relationship between two variables.

CONTROL CHART

Sample of a Control Chart

A control chart displays statistically determined upper and lower limits drawn on
either side of a process average. This chart shows if the collected data are within
upper and lower limits previously determined through statistical calculations of raw
data from earlier trials. Data points that fall outside the upper and lower control
limits lead to investigation and correction of the process. In preparing a control chart,
the mean upper control limit (UCL) and lower control limit (LCL) of an approved
process and its data are calculated. A blank control chart with mean UCL and LCL
with no data points is created; data points are added as they are statistically
calculated from the raw data.

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 What’s More

Use a separate sheet in answering the test. Be sure to write the following:
Name: ______________________________ Yr. & Section: ____________
Yr. Level & Subject (Specialization): ________________ Module No: ______________
Name of the Activity: What’s More Date: ____________________

Directions: Provide the definition or your understanding of the following terms

below.

1. Quality
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
2. Flow Chart
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
3. Quality Control
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
4. Quality Improvement Process
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
5. Quality Assurance
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________

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 What I Have Learned

Use a separate sheet in answering the test. Be sure to write the following:
Name: ______________________________ Yr. & Section: ____________
Yr. Level & Subject (Specialization): ________________ Module No: ______________
Name of the Activity: What I Have Learned Date: ____________________

Instructions. Identify the type of quality improvement process from each

statement.

___________1. It may strike you as a trivial part of your production quality plan.
___________2. It is a procedure of procedures intended to ensure that a manufactured
product or performed service adheres to a defined set of quality criteria
or meets the requirements of the customer.
___________3. Manufacturers can choose from a variety of tools to improve their
quality processes. The trick is to know which tools to use for each
situation and increasing the sophistication of the tools in the
repertoire.
___________4. The development teams of two or three in daily contact and frequently
exchanging views and criticisms, detailed, written quality, and task-
completion checking procedures may be felt to be unnecessary.
___________5. It is called an Ishikawa diagram after its inventor. It is also known as
a fishbone diagram because of its shape.
___________6. It displays all contributing factors and their relationships to the
outcome to identify areas where data should be collected and analyzed.
___________7. The diagram shows how two variables are related and are thus used
to test for cause-and-effect relationships.
___________8. It displays statistically determined upper and lower limits drawn on
either side of a process average.
___________9. It refers to the perception of the degree to which the product or service
meets the customer's expectations.
___________10. The cycle promotes continuous improvement and should thus be
visualized as a spiral instead of a closed circle.

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 What I Can Do

Use a separate sheet on answering the test. Be sure to write the following:
Name: ______________________________ Yr. & Section: ____________
Yr. Level & Subject (Specialization): ________________ Module No: ______________
Name of the Activity: What I Can Do Date: ____________________

Instructions. Perform the given task:

Draw a quality control flow chart and explain briefly each of the processes. (50 points)

Assessment

Use a separate sheet in answering the test. Be sure to write the following:
Name: ______________________________ Yr. & Section: ___________
Yr. Level & Subject (Specialization): ________________ Module No: _____________
Name of the Activity: Assessment Date: ___________________

Directions: Write the letter of the correct answer.

1. The process of ensuring quality in which duties and responsibilities should be

independent of production personnel so as not to be subject to the production
pressures imposed by the superintendent.
A. quality assurance C. quality controller
B. quality audit D. quality manager
2. What type of chart describes a process in as much detail as possible by
graphically displaying the steps in proper sequence?
A. control chart C. flow chart
B. display chart D. monitoring chart
3. It is a source of greater revenues, employment opportunities, and
technological advances.
A. delayed process C. improved productivity
B. faulty products D. repaired products
4. It is a procedure of procedures intended to ensure that a manufactured
product or performed service adheres to a defined set of quality criteria or
meets the requirements of the customer.
A. product development C. production process
B. process flow D. quality control
5. It refers to the perception of the degree to which the product or service
meets the customer's expectations.
A. process flow C. product specification
B. product development D. quality of a product and services

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 6. It is the planned or systematic action necessary to provide enough confidence
that a product or service will satisfy the given requirements for quality.
A. implementation C. planning
B. inspection D. quality assurance
7. What is the meaning of QA?
A. quality Appearance C. quality Assurance
B. quality Aspect D. quality Audit
8. What type of chart displays statistically determined upper and lower limits
drawn on either side of a process average?
A. control chart C. flow chart
B. display chart D. monitoring chart
9. It applies at all stages of the development process but is underlined especially
during the prototype validation stages.
A. implementation C. planning
B. inspection D. quality and task-completion checking
10. To avoid delayed and high cost of production, the workers should follow the
__________.
A. co-worker B. quality standards C. superior D. timetable

Additional Activity

Use a separate sheet in answering the test. Be sure to write the following:
Name: ______________________________ Yr. & Section: ___________
Yr. Level & Subject (Specialization): ________________ Module No: _____________
Name of the Activity: Additional Activity Date: ___________________

Instructions. As a Furniture and Cabinet Making student, give at least ten (10)
kinds of tools used in making common wood joints. Draw or cut pictures and
be able to identify each of their functions.

References
https://www.slideshare.net/BongBandola/applying-qualitystandard-css-
85792577?fbclid=IwAR2Pl6k5huALecRkICc25TZbqr3hAYSI6M76CUOrqCLI6w6-
26nYkvPOnG0
http://www.paramounthealthcare.com/body.cfm?id=65
http://www.mcrcc.osmre.gov.ph http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk
http://www.swce.gov.uk
http://deming.eng.clemson.edu/pub/tutorials/qctools/flowm.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_management
http://www.empf.org/empfasis/aug04/prop.htm

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