QUALITY PLANNING

By Zaipul Anwar Business & Advanced Technology Centre, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

QUALITY PLANNING

What Is Quality Planning? Quality planning is the activity of

determining customer needs and developing the products and processes required to meet those needs

QUALITY PLANNING

For managers to provide this leadership requires that they

Understand how quality planning is being done Understand how quality planning should be done Provide the needed infrastructure and resources

The leadership for change must come from the managers

QUALITY PLANNING

MULTIPLE LEVELS OF QUALITY PLANNING

The worker level. The departmental level. The multifunctional level This level is concerned with broad processes,

such as new product development, recruitment, purchasing, and billing. Such processes thread their way through multiple company functions

The corporate or divisional level

QUALITY PLANNING
OUR ROLE Customer Processor Supplier

Our Supplier

Our Inputs

OUR PROCESS (ES)

Our Product (s)

Our Customer

The Quality Planning diagram

To illustrate, the company is a processor team. In its role as a customer it receives such inputs as

Information concerning client needs, competitive products, and government regulations Money from sales and investors Purchased goods and services Feedback from customers

The Quality Planning diagram

In its role as a processor, the company converts these and other inputs into products such as sales contracts, purchase orders, saleable goods and services, invoices, and reports of many kinds

The Quality Planning diagram

In its role as supplier, the company provides clients with goods services, and invoices, and provides suppliers with purchase orders, payments, and feedback. Information is provided to all

Existing Product and Process

Identify Customers List of Customers

APPLY MEASUREMENT

Discover Customers Needs List of Customers Needs (in their language) Translate Customers Needs (In our language) Develop Product Product Features Develop Process Process Features (process ready to produce) Transfer to Operations

THE QUALITY PLANNING ROAD MAP

QUALITY PLANNING
INPUT PROCESS OUTPUT Existing Product and Process Identify Customers List of Customers

Input-output diagram for identifying customers

The input is the subject matter of the planningthe product (or process) under consideration The process consists of the activities conducted to discover who is affected by the product The output is a list of those who are affectedthe customers

Flow Charting
A. Macro-level Flow Charting B. Micro-level Flow Charting

Source: AT&T Network Operations Group

Provides understanding of the whole

Identifies customers previously neglected Identifies opportunities for improvement

Pareto analysis of customers and sales volume

Use of the Pareto principle A relative few (vital few), each of whom is of great importance to us. A relatively large number of customers, each of whom is only of modest importance to us (the useful many)
100 Useful Many Percent Vital Few 0 Customers Sales

Use of the Pareto principle example

For example, two types of clients book hotel rooms:

Travellers who arrive one by one at random Planners of meetings and conventions who book blocks of rooms far in advance

The planners of meetings and conventions constitute the vital-few customers. These planners receive special attention from the hotel. The travellers are the useful many, and they receive standardised attention

Key Interfaces
BUSINESS INTERFACE Banking Restaurant Hotel Retailing Telephone EXAMPLE OF KEY
Bank teller and depositor Waiter and diner Reception clerk and guest Salesperson and shopper Operator and subscriber

A Customer Is a Cast of Characters

Example: Those who sell supplies to hospitals soon learn that their customers include the hospital administrator, the purchasing director, the quality director, various heads of specialized departments (e.g., pharmacy, X-ray, histology, and cardiology), and various professionals (e.g., physicians, surgeons, and nurses). All have needs, and all have some degree of influence on what is to be bought, and from whom

A Customer Is a Cast of Characters

Internal Customers Internal customers include the managers of the affected departments. Their influence on quality is considerable. Internal customers also include the work force. Individually, they are among the useful many. Collectively, they are one of the vital few

A Customer Is a Cast of Characters

Consumers Consumers are a vital category of useful-many customers. Their limited technological literacy forces them to rely heavily on fallible, biased human sensing in making their decisions about which products to buy. They discover the technological adequacy of the product later, through subsequent usage. The results of that usage are then influential regarding repeat purchases.

A Customer Is a Cast of Characters

Consumers
Suppliers face these realities in various ways: 1. Accept some consumer perceptions, bias and all, and then design products and practices to respond to those consumer perceptions. 2. Try to change consumer perceptions by such methods as providing demonstrations or opportunities for trial use of products. 3. Publish technological data and propaganda to stimulate changes in perceptions.

Classification Based on Use

Processors. They use a product as inputs to their process. They then perform additional processing after which they sell the resulting product to their customers. In consequence, the initial product affects multiple levels of customers. Merchants. They buy a product for resale. As part of the resale they may perform some processing along with breaking bulk and repackaging. As with the processors, the initial product affects multiple levels of customers: the merchant, the merchants clients, and so on through the distribution chain. Ultimate users. They are the final destination of the product. In some product lines there is a market for used products, so that there are multiple tiers of ultimate users. The public. Members of the public may be affected by a company even though they do not buy its products. The most obvious impacts relate to product safety or to damage to the environment. There are other impacts as well.

What role should managers play at each step of the planning process? What role should managers play with respect to the quality planning process generally? auditing of the quality-planning process

(the quality-planning process generally, specific elements of the quality-planning process)

managers should assure that the methods in use for identifying customers are able to provide the quality planners with the essential customer base

Existing Product and Process

Identify Customers List of Customers

APPLY MEASUREMENT

Discover Customers Needs List of Customers Needs (in their language) Translate Customers Needs (In our language) Develop Product Product Features Develop Process Process Features (process ready to produce) Transfer to Operations

THE QUALITY PLANNING ROAD MAP

Input-output diagram for identifying customers needs

List of Customers INPUT

Discover Customers Needs

PROCESS

Customers Needs (in their language)

OUTPUT

Discovery of customers needs is the second step on the quality-planning road map

Types of customers needs

Stated Needs and Real Needs Perceived Needs Cultural Needs Needs Traceable to Unintended Use

Methods for Discovering Customers Needs

Be a Customer Communicate with Customers Market Research Simulate Customers Use

Customers Needs Are a Moving Target

A ROLE FOR MANAGERS

Visits with key customers Review of reports on market researches, sales, customer service, product dissatisfactions, etc. Attendance at industry conferences and shows

Existing Product and Process

Identify Customers List of Customers

APPLY MEASUREMENT

Discover Customers Needs List of Customers Needs (in their language) Translate Customers Needs (In our language) Develop Product Product Features Develop Process Process Features (process ready to produce) Transfer to Operations

THE QUALITY PLANNING ROAD MAP

Input-output diagram for translation

INPUT Customers Needs (in their language)

PROCESS

Translate

OUTPUT

Customers Needs (in our language)

Customer needs may be stated in any of several languages: 1. The customers language 2. The producer or suppliers (our) language 3. A common language

Common languages in the company

Upper Management: Language of Money Middle Management: Must be Bilingual Lower Management and Non-supervisors: Language of Things

A Role for Managers

Managers should accelerate this evolution by creating project teams whose missions are directed at establishing the needed glossaries, standardisation, and measurement.

Spreadsheet: Customer needs

NEEDS TRANSLATION

NEEDS Secondary Low purchase price

TRANSLATION Tertiary

Warranty coverage

Length of Warranty

Existing Product and Process

Identify Customers List of Customers

APPLY MEASUREMENT

Discover Customers Needs List of Customers Needs (in their language) Translate Customers Needs (In our language) Develop Product Product Features Develop Process Process Features (process ready to produce) Transfer to Operations

THE QUALITY PLANNING ROAD MAP

Input-output diagram for product development

Customers Needs (in units of measure) INPUT

Develop Product

PROCESS

Product Features
OUTPUT

Product development is the activity of determining the product features that respond to customer needs

The spiral of progress in quality

FEEDBACK MAINTENANCE

USE RETAIL WHOLESALE

The following table lists some of the products, along with who the suppliers are and who the principal customers are
PRODUCTS Invoices Purchase orders Financial statements Recruits Office Space Legal advice SUPPLIERS Finance Purchasing Finance Personnel Office service Legal department PRINCIPAL CUSTOMERS Clients Suppliers Managers All departments All office departments All departments

Product Features: The Criteria

Meets the needs of our customers. Needs here, means all customers needs: stated, perceived, real, and cultural. Meets our needs as a supplier including the needs of our internal customers. Meets competition. The fact that a product meets customer needs does not assure that customers will buy it; a competitors product may be better, or give better value. Hence, meeting competition is an important criterion for product developers. Minimises the combined costs. Customers and suppliers incur costs when they use or supply the product, and each tries to keep their respective costs to a minimum. However, the true optimum as viewed by society is to minimize the combined costs

Disciplines for determining product features include the quality-oriented disciplines

Models and data systems for evaluating and predicting product reliability and maintainability Process-capability studies for evaluating and predicting producibility Experiments for discovering the optimum result attainable from multiple converging variables Spreadsheets for assembling numerous interrelated data into condensed, easy-to-grasp forms Methods for evaluating cost of poor quality Methods for guarding against human error Decision trees, flow diagrams, and still other aids to quality analysis and decision making

Product Design

An essential part of product development (i.e., providing the product features required to meet customer needs) is product design. As used here, product design is the activity of defining the product features required meeting customer needs. Product design is a creative process based largely on technological or functional expertise. The designers are design engineers, systems analysts, and still other planners. The end results of product design are specifications, drawings, and procedures

Product Design

The Pros and Cons of Structure

Cons - It is a lot of extra work to prepare the spreadsheets (and other elements) of the structured approach Pros
It

is an aid to human effectiveness, supplementing human memory and helping to guard against human error It is an aid to participation in quality planning; that is, completing the spreadsheets requires inputs from the affected departments

Brief planning and lengthy execution versus lengthy planning and brief execution
Japan Plan U.S. Plan Japan Execute U.S. Execute Time

During the process of launching new products, use is made of three generic forms of spreadsheet

Example of spreadsheet showing standardised symbols

Qualitative customer needs and quantitative product

CUSTOMER NEEDS (in qualitative terms) Promptness Reliability Safety Roominess Purity

RESULTING PRODUCT FEATURES (in quantitative terms)

Delivery time Mean time between failures Tensile strength Spatial dimensions Parts per million of impurities

Existing Product and Process

Identify Customers List of Customers

APPLY MEASUREMENT

Discover Customers Needs List of Customers Needs (in their language) Translate Customers Needs (In our language) Develop Product Product Features Develop Process Process Features (process ready to produce) Transfer to Operations

THE QUALITY PLANNING ROAD MAP

Input-output diagram for process development

Product Goal
INPUT

Develop Process

PROCESS

Process Features

OUTPUT

A process is a systematic series of actions directed to the achievement of a goal. As used here, the term includes all functions, non-manufacturing as well as manufacturing. It also includes the human forces as well as the physical facilities

Process Development

Process development is a generic term that includes the activities of product design review, choice of process, and process design, provision of facilities, and provision of software (methods, procedures, cautions). Our emphasis is on process design, which is defined as follows: the activity of defining the specific means to be used by the operating forces for meeting the product goals. This definition covers (a) the physical equipment to be provided; (b) the associated software (the brain and nervous system of the equipment); and (c) information on how to operate, control, and maintain the equipment

Process Capability

In the case of process development a major aid for prediction is process capability: the inherent ability of a process to carry out its intended mission Example - Engineers who design goods are aided by tables that set out the properties of materials and the failure rates of components

Process Design

The end result of process design is a definition of the means to be used by the operating forces for meeting the product goals. To arrive at this definition the process designers require various inputs, especially knowledge of the product quality goals, of the operating conditions, and of the capability of alternative processes

Process Design
Most major processes consist of multiple operations (also called steps, tasks, unit processes, etc.). Examples of such operations are opening the mail and heat treating. Such operations are linked together in various ways, mainly by a combination of a procession and an Supplier Dept. assembly tree
In-House Dept.

SUPPLIER DEPARTMENT To Test and Usage

Sub- Assembly Dept.

Final Assembly
IN HOUSE DEPARTMENTS

To Test and Usage

FIGURE 22 The procession

Spreadsheet: Product features and process

PRODUCT FEATURE PRODUCT GOAL Parts Bin Arrangement ** * ** ** ** PROCESS FEATURES Wave Solder Conditions Solder Temp Contact Time Alloy Purity Identity of components Component polarity Continuity of solder joints 100% correct part numbers inserted 100% correct orientation 100% continuity

Key: ** Strong relationship * Weak relationship

Existing Product and Process

Identify Customers List of Customers

APPLY MEASUREMENT

Discover Customers Needs List of Customers Needs (in their language) Translate Customers Needs (In our language) Develop Product Product Features Develop Process Process Features (process ready to produce) Transfer to Operations

THE QUALITY PLANNING ROAD MAP

Transfer to operations

Transfer to operations includes a transfer of responsibility from the planners to the operating managers Proof of process capability can be provided by direct measurement of the process (if feasible) Other ways
The dry run The pilot test The Acceptance test Simulation

AUDITING OF THE QUALITYPLANNING PROCESS

The analysis should concentrate on providing answers to resultsoriented questions such as,
How well were customers needs met? How lengthy was the cycle time? How extensive was the redoing of prior work?

The analysis should also examine the quality-planning process used to secure these results. Here the need is to provide answers to questions such as,
What specific features of the quality-planning process seemed to have been associated with well-planned projects? What specific obstacles were encountered by the planners? What can be done to help the planners (e.g., superior data base and training)?

QUALITY CIRCLES

The World Turned Upside Down!

CONTROL

CUSTOMER FOCUSED / CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

CEO OPERATORS SNR MGT MANAGEMENT SUPERVISORS OPERATORS

SUPERVISORS
MANAGEMENT SNR MGT CEO
COACH

MASS PRODUCTIVITY / SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

THE BENEFITS OF QUALITY CIRCLES

A Direct Pay-off (cost/benefits) An Operator To Manager Dialogue (involvement, participation, communication) A Manager To Manager Dialogue (awareness) An Operator to Operator Dialogue (attitudes) A Quality Mindedness (product quality and reliability, prevention of non-conformance) The Personal Development of the Participants