If you are engaged in quality management in an enterprise, maybe you will be on the front line like a firefighter every day, busy solving various quality problems such as customer complaints, poor supplier materials, unstable processes, inadequate early-stage quality planning of projects, etc.
How can we do quality work? By grasping these seven aspects, you will grasp the quality!
1. Quality is determined by customers
Once the product reaches the customer, if it is not what the customer needs, then it will be useless no matter how luxurious the equipment, how excellent the performance, and how exquisite the appearance it advertises. Therefore we should replace "best quality" with "good quality".
It generally includes the following two aspects:
Meet the current needs of customers: meet specific specifications, have good functions, are easy to use, and have beautiful appearance;
Guarantee the future needs of customers: durable, not prone to failure, safe and reliable, with little impact on the external environment, and thoughtful considerations for customers.
2. Quality does not increase costs, it can also reduce costs.
When people mention quality, they first think that it means increased costs. In fact, this is a wrong understanding. Improving quality will make costs go down, not up.
Improved quality and reduced defective rates can save the cost of material replacement and machine adjustment, save the cost of inspecting and correcting defective products; more production opportunities can be obtained, and the cost will naturally decrease.
3. Quality management
Quality management is to minimize the instability of product quality. Start with unstable product quality
Unstable factors come from: personnel, equipment, materials, methods, environment (ie "5M"), etc.
Pay attention to the foundation of quality management
Standardization: Standardization is an indispensable criterion for managing the emergence of unstable quality and the "nemesis" of barbaric manufacturing. (Unification, generalization, serialization, simplification)
Informatization: Dataization can be said to be the most effective way to manage occasional instability. The so-called digitization means trying to express things with numerical values.
Quality education: Continuously improving employees' quality awareness is an eternal theme of the company, allowing employees to do it right the first time.
Equipment management: equipment optimization and equipment maintenance.
Quality cost analysis: prevention cost, identification cost, failure cost.
Quality defect analysis: minor defects, general defects, serious defects, fatal defects, product quality defect severity classification. (see table below for details)
4. “Three Follows” and “Three Inspections”
"Three follows"
Operators: to follow the processes, drawings, and standards
Inspectors: to inspect according to process, drawings and standards
Technical department: to prepare processes, draw drawings, and formulate standards
"Three inspections"
Independent inspection, patrol inspection, mutual inspection between employees
5. The 5R in quality controls
Incoming material control and inventory quality management
If 5R is realized, the requirements for material supply in terms of demand, cost, quality, etc. can be ensured.
Right Time: Supply materials promptly and continuously when needed;
Right Quality: The quality of purchased materials and materials sent from the warehouse meets the standards;
Right Quantity: Appropriate purchase quantity and inventory control to prevent wasted materials and excessive occupation of funds to obtain required materials at a reasonable cost;
Right Price: Obtain the required materials at a reasonable cost;
Right Place: Purchase goods from the nearest or most convenient supplier to ensure that materials are available at any time.
6. 6S and TPM
6S management and quality
Organize (SEIRI): distinguish between items that are used and items that are not used, remove items that are not used from the site, and only keep items that are needed;
Organize (SEITON): Arrange the items to be used neatly according to the prescribed positions, and manage the labels;
Cleaning (SEISO): Clean up dirty parts of equipment, environment and other production factors on site and keep them clean;
Cleaning (SEIKETSU): Maintain the above organized, straightened and cleaned situation, so it is also called "3S" activity;
Literacy (SHITSUKE): Everyone must abide by the company's rules and regulations and develop good working habits;
SAFETY: Work according to operating procedures to avoid accidents.
TPM and independent improvement by all employees
TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) refers to team activities in which all departments of the company, from top management to front-line employees, participate and carry out with the goal of pursuing production limits.
We will build a system that can prevent all waste, and challenge ourselves to become a highly efficient company with zero failures, zero waste, and zero defects, and a dynamic company with independent improvement activities for departments and teams.
Tangible effects: Improve quality, reduce costs, shorten production and management cycles, reduce inventory, improve labor productivity, equipment efficiency; reduce waste, reduce complaints, reduce losses, eliminate safety hazards, and improve the increase in the number of submissions.
Intangible effects: Enhance employees' awareness of improvement; improve employees' skill levels; cultivate a proactive corporate culture.
7. Zero defect management
The basic principle of zero-defect management is the guideline for enterprises to improve quality to achieve zero product defects. The core of quality management is prevention, and all work standards are zero defects.
Get it right the first time! In an enterprise, half of the operating expenses are spent on the cost of doing something wrong, and the cost of doing something wrong is about 25% of sales revenue, but the enterprise thinks it is natural. Doing it right the first time can avoid this cost, quality means meeting the requirements, and quality means profit.