Lean Manufacturing

Deming's 14 Points For Implementing Quality Improvement:

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and to stay in business, and to provide jobs.

2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.

3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.

4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move toward a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.

5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.

6. Institute training on the job.

7. Institute leadership. The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of overhaul as well as supervision of production workers.

8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.

9. Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encountered with the product or service.

10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.

11. a. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership.

b. Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leadership.

12. a. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.

b. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, inter alia, abolishment of the annual merit rating and of management by objective.

13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.

14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job.

If a company works hard to implement Dr. Deming's ideas on quality, they are likely to see an improvement in their all around environment. Training employees in order to fill a position skillfully and efficiently, benchmarking to identify areas that need improvement, and rethinking their approach to performance appraisal, are all indications of total-quality management that can result in a successful enterprise for all those involved.

Crosby's name is best known in relations to the concepts of do it right the first time and zero defects. Zero defects means that the company's objective is 'doing things right first time'. This will not prevent people from making mistakes, but will encourage everyone to improve continuously. He considers traditional quality control, acceptable quality limits and waivers of sub-standard products to represent failure rather than assurance of success. Crosby therefore defines quality as conformance to the requirements, which the company itself has established for its products, based directly on its customers' needs. He does not believe that workers should take prime responsibility for poor quality; the reality, he says, is that you have to get management straight. In the Crosby scheme of things, management sets the tone on quality and workers follow their example; whilst employees are involved in operational difficulties and draw them to management's attention, the initiative comes from the top.

The ultimate goal is to train all the staff and give them the tools for quality improvement, to apply the basic precept of Prevention Management in every area. He also views quality improvement as an ongoing process since the work itself implies a temporary situation. Crosby's Quality Improvement Process is based upon the

Four Absolutes of Quality Management:

1. Quality is defined as conformance to requirements, not as 'goodness' or 'elegance'.

2. The system for causing quality is prevention, not appraisal.

3. The performance standard must be Zero Defects, not "that's close enough".

4. The measurement of quality is the Price of Nonconformance, not indices.

J M Juran sees quality planning as part of the quality trilogy of quality planning, quality control and quality improvement. The key elements in implementing company-wide strategic quality planning are in turn seen as identifying customers and their needs; establishing optimal quality goals; creating measurements of quality; planning processes capable of meeting quality goals under operating conditions; and producing continuing results in improved market share, premium prices, and a reduction of error rates in the office and factory.

Juran's 'Quality Planning Road Map' consists of the following steps:

1. Identify who are the customers.

2. Determine the needs of those customers.

3. Translate those needs into our language.

4. Develop a product that can respond to those needs.

5. Optimize the product features so as to meet our needs as well as customer needs.

6. Develop a process, which is able to produce the product.

7. Optimize the process.

8. Prove that the process can produce the product under operating conditions.

9. Transfer the process to Operations.

Illustration of Quality Trilogy via a Control Chart:

Juran concentrates not just on the end customer, but