Reference no: EM133168636

Quality and Continual Improvement

Understand the narrow local focus of the quality cost model and the importance of controlling the process rather than inspecting out the defects.

Use an SPC chart to identify special and common cause variability in a production process.
Calculate the process capability

Critically discuss how the PDSA cycle relates to the scientific approach and the culture of continual improvement.

Critically discuss the wider implications of adopting a systems approach reflected in TQM and SS.

Exercise
Deming's Red Bead Experiment

Deming used this exercise to stimulate thought about how common management practice is at odds with systems thinking.

The experiment provides a typical illustration of bad management

Too many employees involved (e.g. inspectors)

Rigid procedures do not allow workers to offer suggestions for improvement

The manager continually blames the workers for defective products that are caused by the system

System variation is present in any process, operation or activity

Knowledge of one source of system variation (the no of red beads) in the incoming supply, cannot be used to determine the defects in the output. This is because unobservable factors will always affect performance and there is no basis for assuming that the effects of these factors will be equally distributed across workers

All workers perform within a system that is beyond their control

Always some workers are above and some workers are below the average

A worker's position in the ranking may vary from one period to the next

Workers should not be ranked because doing so merely represents a ranking of the effect of the system on the workers. In the red bead experiment 100% of the performance variation is determined by the system. Although workers all use the same inputs and tools, they are all victims of the system and cannot be compared in a meaningful way
Only management can change the system

Empirical evidence is never complete. There are always a large no of variables that affect any set of performance results, many of which are unknown and unknowable

The scientific (PDSA) experimental cycle is used to make changes with predicted outcomes. The SPC chart can then be studied to establish if the prediction was correct.