Model Question Paper - I
Quality control & Quality Assurance (ETME – 402)
Prepared by: Dr. Mohit Singh
Mrs. Alka Sharma
Note: Attempt any five questions including Q.No. 1 which is compulsory.
Q.1
(a) How can quality be quantified?
(b) What are the benefits of TQM?
(c) What are the important habits of quality leader?
(d) Name a few barriers to Team’s progress?
(e) What are the benefits of Benchmarking?
(5x5)
Ans 1 (a)
Total Quality Management (TQM) is a philosophy aimed at improving business as a whole.
Some of the benefits lie in the continuous improvement of processes and products, and enhanced
efficiency of people and machines leading to improved quality.The application of Total Quality
Management helps in streamlining processes, and ensures a proactive work system ready to
counter deviations from the ideal state. What are some of the major benefits of Total Quality
Management? The major thrust of Total Quality Management (TQM) is to achieve productivity
and process efficiency by identifying and eliminating problems in work processes and systems.
TQM addresses key problem areas such as mistakes in work processes, redundant processes,
unnecessary tasks, and duplicate efforts. TQM interventions also help with predicting and preempting such mistakes and unproductive activities.
1(b)
A committed and involved management to provide long-term top-to-bottom organizational
support. An unwavering focuses on the customer, both internally and externally. Effective
involvement and utilization of the entire work force. Continuous improvement of the business
and production process. Treating suppliers as partners. Establish performance measures for the
processes.
1(c)
Effective leadership starts with the chief executive and his top team’s vision,capitalizing on
market or service opportunities,continues through a strategy that will give the organization
competitive or other advantage, and leads to business or service success. It goes on to embrace
all the beliefs and values held, the decisions taken and the plans made by anyone anywhere in
the organization, and the focusing of them into effective, value-adding action.
1(d)
Although quality and quality management does not have a formal definition, most agree that it
is an integration of all functions of a business to achieve high quality of products through
continuous improvement efforts of all employees. Quality revolves around the concept of
meeting or exceeding customer expectation applied to the product and service. Achieving high
quality is an ever changing, or continuous, process therefore quality management emphasizes
the ideas of working constantly toward improved quality. It involves every aspect of the
company: processes, environment and people. The whole workforce from the CEO to the line
worker must be involved in a shared commitment to improving quality.Therefore, in brief,
quality and total quality management (TQM) in particular can be defined as directing
(managing) the whole (total) production process to produce an excellent (quality) product or
service.
1(e)
1)Benchmarking helps us to learn from the best of the best.
2) Benchmarking helps us to improve our process.
3) Benchmarking helps us to have breakthroughs in quality
Q.2 (a)
Describe the six basic concepts of TQM.
(6.5)
Ans 2(a)
Constancy of purpose: short range and long range objectives aligned
_ Identify the customer(s); Customer orientation
_ Identification of internal and external customers
_ Continuous improvement
_ Workflow as customer transactions
_ Empower front-line worker as leader
_ Quality is everybody’s business
_ For a service industry, some elements of quality are:
- empathy
- trust; i.e. expertise, integrity, courtesy
- responsiveness
- tangible product attractiveness (curb appeal)
- reliability, on time, no interruptions
_ Customer orientation to child care services, a marketing perspective
_ Barriers that exist to a customer orientation
_ How do we find out what customers want?
_ Present Art Emlen findings on flexibility
Q.2 (b) What are the duties of quality council?
(6)
Ans 2(b) Quality Council
A Quality council is a team formed in the organization with an objective of building quality into
the culture of the organization. A quality council is established to provide overall direction for
quality in the organization. Quality council is considered the driving force behind the total
quality management in a organization.
The quality council is constituted with all the senior managers in the organization. All relevant
managers from various levels of the organization are also included.
They come from all the functional areas of the organization. If there are employee unions in the
organization, then suitable representation must be given to those unions also.
The objectives of the quality council are:
1.
2.
3.
To raise the quality consciousness in the organization through seminars, study tours and
using other forms of promotion.
To ensure effective functioning of the organization on the quality statement and plan.
To encourage basic and applied research and development in the field of quality and
dissemination of its results to the organization.
The duties of Quality Council are as follows:
1.
To make the Annual Business improvement plan
2. To cascade the Quality goals of the management.
3. To form teams of interested managers to lead the efforts.
4. To train people in Quality tools.
5. To sponsor improvement projects.
6. To recognize the improvements done by suppliers and employees
7. To assess the status of TQM implementation by diagnostic audit.
Q.3 (a) Discuss the Deming’s philosophy for TQM.
Ans 3(a)
(6.5)
Deming had 14 points to help management as follows:
1 Create constancy of purpose towards improvement of product and service.
2 Adopt the new philosophy. We can no longer live with commonly accepted levels of delays,
mistakes, defective workmanship.
3 Cease dependence on mass inspection. Require instead statistical evidence that quality is built
in.
4 End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag.
5 Find problems. It is management’s job to work continually on the system.
6 Institute modern methods of training on the job.
7 Institute modern methods of supervision of production workers. The responsibility of foremen
must be changed from numbers to quality.
8 Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.
9 Break down barriers between departments.
10 Eliminate numerical goals, posters, and slogans for the workforce asking for new levels of
productivity without providing methods.
11 Eliminate work standards that prescribe numerical quotas.
12 Remove barriers that stand between the hourly worker and his right to pride of workmanship.
13 Institute a vigorous program of education and retraining.
14 Create a structure in top management that will push every day on the above 13 points.
Q.3 (b) What are the suggestions to improve the appraisal system?
(6)
Ans 3(b)
Total Quality Management (TQM) emphasizes the continuous improvement of product and
processes to ensure long term customer satisfaction. Its a problem solving focus encourages
employees empowerment by using the job related ingenuity & expertise of the workforce. Cross
functional teams develop solutions to complex problems often shortening the time taken to
design, develop or produce product and services. Since a team may not include a representative
of management, therefore the dividing line between labor and management often becomes
blurred. In practice as workers themselves begin to solve organizational problems thus
adaptation of TQM generally requires cultural change within the organization as management
reexamines its past methods and practices in the light of demands of the new philosophy.Father
of TQM W. Edwards Deming had his way, appraisal system that tie individual performance to
salary adjustments would be eliminated. In his view, such system hinders team work, create fear
& mistrust and discourage risk taking behavior, thereby stifling innovation. Deming argues,
most appraisal system are based on the faulty assumption that individuals have significant
control over their own performance, i.e. the most individuals can improve if they chose to do so
by putting forth the necessary effort.
In the basis of his arguments everything done in an organization is done within the frame work
of one or more systems. The systems provide limit on the activities of machines, processes,
employees and even managers. In a well designed system, it is impossible to do a job
improperly. Conversely, a poor system can thwart the best effort of the best employee. If the
system itself prevents good work, performance appraisal cannot serve its intended purpose of
differentiating among individuals for purposes of salary adjustment. Further, since employees
have little opportunity to change those systems, they may become frustrated and demoralized.
Organization need not sacrifice their performance appraisal programs on the altar of TQM. Here
are three suggestions for harmonizing the two processes.
1.
2.
3.
Let customer expectations generate individual or team performance expectations.
Include result expectations that identify actions to meet or exceed those expectations.
Include behavioral skills that make a real difference in achieving quality performance and
total customer satisfaction.
Q. 4 (a) Explain the seven step plan to establish the TPM in an organization in detail.
(6.5)
Ans 4 (a) TPM is a partnership between the maintenance and production organization to improve
product quality, reduce waste, reduce cost, increase equipment availability and improve
maintenance state.
o
o
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TYPES OF MAINTENANCE
Corrective (or) breakdown maintenance
It implies that repairs are made after failure of machine or equipment
Scheduled (or) Routine maintenance
It is a stitch-in-time procedure aimed to avoiding breakdowns
Preventive maintenance
It is carried out before the failure arises (or) prior to the equipment actually
breakdowns. E.g. Overhauling & Periodic upkeep.
Predictive maintenance
Equipment Condition evaluated periodically and maintenance carried out.
OBJECTIVES OF TPM
Improve Equipment Effectiveness
Achieve Autonomous
Plan Maintenance
To Train all staff in maintenance skills
To Zero Breakdowns
The major factors that contribute to productivity loss are
1.
2.
3.
Downtime losses
Losses due to slow speed
Losses due to poor quality
Downtime loss
The factors that contribute to down time loss can either be a planned one or unplanned one. The
factors that come under or contribute to planned down time loss are
1.
2.
3.
4.
Start up losses
Loss due to shift changes
Loss because of lunch breaks
Loss due to planned shutdowns for maintenance
The factors that contribute to unplanned down time losses are
1.
2.
Due to the breakdown of machines
Due to the lack of raw materials
Losses due to change in speed
1.
2.
Loss due to idling and major stoppages
Slow speed of the machine because of some factors
Losses due to poor quality
The factor that contribute to this loss are
1.
2.
When the product does not meet the required conformities
Scrap
Q. 4 (b) Explain the ISO control cycle
Ans. 4(b) ISO Control cycle
(6)
Q.5 (a) Explain about the strategic planning.
(6.5)
Ans 5 (a)
Strategic planning of any company starts with the visioning exercise.In this exercise, top
management deliberates about the company’s future direction and arrives at thevision statement (and
sometimes a mission statement also).This vision statement serves the purpose of telling every
one where the company is determined to goand carry out its work.For example, Motorola
vision clearly states that “ it intends to be the most trusted integrator of complex communication
and information systems” which means that the company emphasizes onthree things.
1.winning the trust of the customers
2.role as an integrator rather than a supplier
3.stay as a company known for the competence in technically complex areas.
Once the mission/vision statements are declared, the SWOT analysis is carried out with
theexecutives from different functions to know the feasibility of adopting certain strategies.
Inputs aretaken from different agencies at this point of time as follows.
1.Market segmentation and changes in the segments
2.Competitor activity
3 . Global economic indicators
4.Supplier capacity and abilities
5.Human resources
6.Legal scenarios
In the second stage, the goals or strategic objectives are arrived at and released with a time
plan or calendar.They could be as follows:
1.Entry into small car market in 2010.
2.Become a market leader in Africa by 2012.
3.be the leader in India by 2013
The strategic objectives need to be cascaded to every function and even to dealers and suppliers.This III stage is
enabled by adopting techniques like Policy Deployment or MBO. Some companiesrecently have started
Balance score Card.In the IV stage the management needs to review the progress of action plans and modify
the plansdue to certain changes happening in the environment.
Q.5 (b) Discuss the need, construction and applications of control charts for variables.
(6)
Ans 5 (b)
The need of control charts:
From days of the early industrial revolution till 1920s the only way to control quality was to inspect.
Loto f m a n h o u r s w e r e s p e n t i n i n s p e c t i o n a t a l l s t a g e s a n d a n a r m y o f
i n s p e c t o r s t h r o n g e d t h e workplaces. However, it hardly improved the quality.
Inspectors did mistakes and managers over reacted to variations as per their own
judgement. W A Schewart created the control charts to let themanagers to avoid employing
large number of inspectors but still have control on the output.
The control charts are needed to
1. avoid spending on inspection
2.know when to intervene and correct the process.
3.find whether the process is stable or not.
4.empower the operator to act if required.
5.save time in waiting for inspection to pass the lot.
6.transparent as far as the process is concerned with customers
Construction of control chart:
Control charts are constructed as follows:
A process which is to be put under statistical control is selected.
The items produced are taken from routine production every hour in groups of 4 or 5 and thecharacteristic say weight
is measured. This is called sub group. These 4 or 5 sample have a mean Xbar and a standard deviation sigma.
Similarly, it is possible to continue collecting about 30 readingscontinuously.
Now, we have enough data to construct a control chart. Before we do it, some checks are required tobe done.
1. If there are outliers meaning some point which is totally irrelevant and could be error theyshould be
removed as they will affect the calculation.
2.All data should be independent meaning one point should not affect the other.
3.There should not be trend time wise.
4.Distribution of data should be normal.
After carrying out these checks. The mean of sample means is calculated ( average of sampleaverages) this
is called X bar bar.
The control limits are calculated as follows.
LCL = X bar bar – 3 times sigma or standard deviation (Xbarbar- A2 R bar )
UCL= X bar bar + 3 times the sigma ie standard deviation (X bar bar + A2 R bar)
The control chart looks like this:
Similarly the range values in each sub group are plotted as a range chart.
The centre line of the chart being R bar (mean of ranges). The contol limit for ranges Rbar+ D4 Rbar and
R bar-D3 R bar where value of D3 and D4 are taken from the statistical tables for the sub groupsize.
Control charts for variables:
For subgroup based data Xbar R chart is the most suitable one. Typical applications are from anymanufacturing
industry. For instance in injection moulding four plastic bottles are produced in everystroke. Here, the weight
of the bottle is critical. So, a control chart can be constructed where everyhour, 4 bottles are taken
and the readings taken.
The contol chart read at the end of the day shows the variation in the weight of bottles from
hour tohour. As far as the variation in weight is within the control limits, the process is stable
and is behavingwithin the statistical control, In case any data point has gone out of the control
limit, the process hasdeviated at that time due to an assignable cause and this needs to be acted upon by
stopping theprocess and investigating.
The range chart is to be studied for within group variation. Incase any point has go ne out of
thecontrol limit then the inter group (one of the four moulds) is the cause for creating
instabiulity.
For manufacturing situations where the subgroup is not possible because the events are taking placeone
at a time, individual x readings are plotted and it is called I –MR or individual and moving rangechart.
These two charts are used for variables which are continuous.
For discrete/ attribute type data.
P charts for proportions and np charts for non conforming items are used.
For low numbers like defects or complaints
C charts or u charts are used.
Q.6 (a) Discuss the implementation of ISO:9000:2000 quality systems. (6.5)
Ans 6 (a)
The ISO 9001:2000 (now revised to 2008) needs be implemented in a planned way. For a
bigcompany this exercise may take about six to eight months and for a small company it may
take 3 to 5months time depending on the efforts put in continuously.
The activities are detailed as follows.
1.Management should declare the intention to go for ISO standard QMS and nominate a
teamwhich will implement the standard.
2.The team meets and deliberates about the present status and decides the time required.
3.Management to declare the Quality Policy and objectives to all the people.
4.management will inform the functional Heads to study the requirements and understand
theneed to have processes which are cutting across the functions.
5.The team defines the key processes in the company they may be 5 to 10 depending on
thecomplexity of the company’s operations.
6.The process maps are prepared and verified by all the managers.
7.thius constitutes the main implementation document.
8.The Quality manual is written with the process maps as guiding document.
9.The II level procedures are written by the dept heads with the assistance of all the employees.
10.The documentation is completed for all activities and the documents are released for all
theemployees.
11.the Internal auditors are trained for conducting the audits on all aspects of the company andits
operations.
12.The internal audits are conducted and the flaws in the system are reported.
13.The management reviews the audit findings and takes the corrective actions.
14.After getting convinced that the system is stable, the management requests the certificationagency to
come and do an external audit.
15.The selected agency sends its team of auditors who come and do the audit and submit thereport to the
management.
16.In case there are no major discrepancies or non conformances the certificate is awarded tothe
company’s Quality management system which is valid for 3 years subject to an annualsurveillance audit.
Q 6 (b) Explain the need for the quality systems in an organization?
(6)
Ans 6(b)
In a situation where one product is manufactured and supplied to one customer and the
relationship isestablished over a period of time, it is possible that the employees working in the
organization in anyfunction are clear about the requirements. they may be knowing the correct
parameter to be employed, the right tool and the right packing. But, today we have several
suppliers all over the world supplyingto many different customers and each has his own
requirement. The customer wants his requirementsto be translated into product without errors.
Quality systems fulfil the need of speaking on behalf of thecustomer to all in the organization
and coordinating their activities with one goal ie customer satisfaction.
Q.7 Write short notes on :a. Principles of TQM
b. Kaizen
c. superfinisking
Ans 7 a. Principles of TQM
1.Achieving Customer satisfaction
2.Ensuring the employee involvement in whatever we do
3.Continuous improvement is all processes.
4.Following PDCA in all improvement activities
5.Safety and interests of Community to be protected.
6.Respect for every individual.
7.A defined way of cascading the goals to employees.
(12.5)
8.Supplier involvement in Quality of product.
7 b. Kaizen
Kaizen means literally “change for the good”. This is a philosophy and as a concept originated
inJapan but it has been adopted all over the world for carrying out small improvements.
Normally thereis a team called kaizen team which finds out certain scope for improvement which
can be carried outwithout much investment. It can be marking entry and exit or putting self
glowing signages or evenredesigning trolleys. The team sits down, finds the solution and
implements the solution in a weekend.Kaizen is simple, quick and participative way of getting
improvmements.
7c. Six Sigma
Six sigma derives its origin from the greek letter sigma meaning standard deviation. (σ). Six
sigma isalso a measure of the process as in normal distribution, 99.3 % of the data is estimated
to fall withinthe linmits of 3 sigma on one side of the mean and 3 sigma on the other side of the
mean. Since 99.7% is a very close figure to 100% and due to the curve of normal distribution
not touching the xaxis, this is taken as the figure to indicate the capability of the process.When
the six sigma limits are closer and less than the spec limits the process is
considered to begood as at any time the products are going to conform to requirements.The six sigma
is also a methodology to ensure that the variation comes down and the six
sigmacontinuously shows that the process variation is less than the tolerance
limits. The lesser it is thebetter is the Quality and more is the customer satisfaction.Six sigma
methodology was introduced by Motorola in 1988 and became the flag ship improvementprocess in the
company. Six sigma now is adopted all over the world and the improvement projectssave millions of rupees
every day.The projects are taken through the five phases as follows:
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