Zhu Lan Quality Manual: 5th Edition

Author: Zhu Lan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-11-01
Features: Dr. Zhu Lan believes that the ultimate goal of economic development is to improve people's quality of life. The 21st century is the century of quality. The concept of quality has extended to all fields of society, including the quality of the environment people rely on for survival, the quality of healthcare, and people's spiritual needs and satisfaction in social life. This book is meticulously crafted by top quality experts globally, refined over half a century, and distills the essence of modern quality management thought, integrating the best research and practice in contemporary quality management. Whether you are in any industry—manufacturing, construction, services, software, government, education, healthcare, etc.—in any functional area—R&D, operations, marketing, finance, human resources, etc.—in any position—CEO, department manager, or frontline staff—this book will be your trusted assistant.
1. About the Target Audience of This Handbook: This is a reference book for all aspects related to product, service, and process quality. Based on the previous four editions, the "all relevant aspects" here include:
· Various industries that constitute the international economy: manufacturing, construction, various types of services—such as transportation, communications, utilities, finance, healthcare, medical services, government agencies, and so on.
· Functional areas involved in the production of products (tangible products and services), such as R&D, market research, finance, operations, marketing and sales, human resources, supplier relations, customer service, administrative management, and supportive activities.
· All levels of personnel in an organization, from top management to ordinary employees. If one assumes this book is only for the needs of quality managers and quality professionals, that would be incorrect. This book aims to serve the entire quality function, involving all departments of the organization and personnel at all levels.
· Specialized personnel involved in quality planning, quality control, and quality improvement processes. This handbook can also serve as a guide for "stakeholders" who, although not directly involved in the production and sales of products and services, need to understand the quality of what is produced and related side effects. These stakeholders include the customer chain, the public, owners, the media, and government regulatory bodies.
2. About the Uses of This Handbook: The Juran Quality Handbook has very broad uses. Experience shows that the following uses are the most common:
· Studying the materials in the book to help solve problems
· Finding ready answers in charts and formulas
· Self-study
· Finding tools and methods needed for reliability engineering, experimental design, or statistical quality control
· Serving as material for training and education
· Serving as a basic reference for quality training, quality management practice, and the design and management of basic work functions.
In addition to these common uses, there are numerous other uses, such as:
· Reviewing when preparing for a meeting speech
· Comparing and examining methods for solving a problem
· Serving as a reference for teachers and students in training courses
· Imbuing superiors with knowledge
· Training new employees
· Using the materials and authority of this handbook to persuade others.
People often use this handbook more frequently during times of change, such as when developing new initiatives, preparing new contracts and projects, adjusting functions, or refining new ideas.
3. About the Structure of This Handbook: To know where to find the desired information, one must first understand the structure of this handbook. This handbook consists of the following major sections:
· Management Section (Chapters 2-17): This section discusses basic concepts, the process of quality management (planning, control, and improvement), and other related topics, such as human resources and project management.
· Functional Section (Chapters 18-26): This section is organized roughly according to the series of activities from product conception to the transformation into marketable products and services.
· Industry Section (Chapters 27-33): This section focuses on how quality is implemented and maintained in major industries.
· International Section (Chapters 35-43): This section discusses the state of quality management in various regions of the world. The first four sections together account for more than 70% of the entire book.
· Statistical Section (Chapters 44-48): This section discusses the application of major statistical methods in quality management. The Symbol Summary (Appendix 1) and Supplementary Charts (Appendix 2) are also included in this section. The content of the Statistical Section accounts for about 25% of this handbook.
4. About How to Use This Handbook: In many cases, practitioners must adapt the knowledge they have gained to a specific situation, which comes from completely different technical fields, such as different industries, products, or processes. To achieve this transfer, it is necessary to identify the commonalities between them, i.e., the common principles between the specific situation and the knowledge acquired. This commonality is essentially managerial and is relatively easy to grasp. For example, the concept of self-control is a universal management concept that applies to everyone in the company. The commonality in statistics is even easier to grasp because a large amount of data has been summarized into formulas that are unrelated to specific technologies. Even in technical issues, despite the apparent differences, it is still possible to find commonalities. For example, the concept of process capability not only applies to manufacturing processes but also equally applies to healthcare, services, administrative, and supportive processes. Similarly, regardless of the technical differences, there is great commonality in conducting quality improvement by identifying the special causes of defects. In all these cases, establishing a connection between the specific situation and the background of the relevant methods and techniques is the challenge faced by practitioners. Only by identifying the commonalities between them can such a connection be established.
Juran Quality Handbook on New Developments in Quality Control: In recent decades, the effectiveness of quality control has been steadily improving due to the continuous adoption of modern concepts, methods, and tools. This includes:
· Systematic planning activities for quality control, involving extensive participation of operational personnel.
· The formal application of feedback loops, along with the clear assignment of responsibility for related decisions and actions.
· Granting decision-making authority to employees at the operational level through self-control and self-inspection.
· The widespread use of statistical process control and training for operational personnel.
· A structured information network providing a factual basis for decision-making.
· A systematic process for taking corrective actions against occasional adverse changes.
· Formal corporate quality control handbooks, along with regular audits to ensure the system does not become outdated or neglected.
Juran Quality Handbook on the Indispensable Role of Top Management in Quality Improvement: Top management must actively participate in quality improvement activities. Merely creating awareness and setting goals, then leaving everything to subordinates, is far from sufficient. Such attempts, if repeated, will inevitably lead to repeated failures. I have never known a company to become a quality leader without the active involvement of top management. It is also crucial to understand what "participation" truly means. It involves a series of roles that top management must personally undertake. The following are the roles actually performed by top management in quality-leading companies. These roles are "non-delegable."
· Participating in quality committees. This is crucial for top management's involvement. Other members of the organization view this as an indicator of whether top management values quality.
· Receiving training in quality management. This includes visiting successful companies and taking courses specifically designed for top management. They can also attend relevant conferences. (Top management lacking quality management training may lose credibility within the organization when leading quality initiatives.)
· Approving the quality vision and quality policy. Increasingly, companies define their quality vision and policy, which undoubtedly require approval from top management before being published.
· Approving major quality goals. Quality goals included in business plans must be broken down to determine what needs to be done and the resources required. Top management plays an important role in this goal expansion process.
· Establishing the infrastructure. The infrastructure includes a series of tools for proposal and selection of projects, developing mission statements for projects, appointing team leaders and members, training teams and sponsors, and reporting progress. Without such an infrastructure, quality improvement can only be carried out locally without significantly impacting core business indicators.
· Providing resources. In the 1980s, many top managers allocated significant resources for training, primarily in enhancing awareness and statistical tools. However, they invested little in quality management and building the infrastructure for quality improvement.
· Reviewing progress. A clear failure in personal involvement by top management is the failure to regularly review the progress of quality improvement. In the 1980s, this failure led to no progress in quality improvement because it was not comparable to the traditional activities regularly reviewed by top management.
· Recognizing and rewarding. Recognition often involves ceremonial events, providing top management with high visibility opportunities to demonstrate support for quality improvement. Top management should seize these opportunities, and most do. (See the discussion later on "Recognition.")
· Modifying compensation systems. Under traditional compensation systems, rewards are given for the completion of traditional goals. However, in this system, quality improvement performance must be given appropriate weight. This involves top management, as any changes to the compensation system require their approval. (See the discussion below on "Compensation.")
· Participating in project teams. There are very compelling reasons for this role. (See the discussion earlier on "Project Teams: Upper Management in Teams.")
· Addressing employees' concerns. (See the discussion earlier on "Quality Committees: Fear of Losing Jobs.")
The above are the non-delegable roles of top management. In companies that have become quality leaders, top management takes on the majority, if not all, of these roles. I have never heard of a quality-leading company whose top management did not assume the roles mentioned above.
Juran Quality Handbook on the Significance of Process Quality Management: The dynamic environment of today's business operations can be summarized as the so-called "Six Cs": change (), complexity (), customer demands (), competitive pressure (), cost impacts (), and constraints (). These factors significantly affect an organization's ability to achieve its business goals. Traditionally, organizations have responded to these factors by introducing new products and services. They rarely change the processes that produce these products and services. Experience shows that the achievement of business goals largely depends on large and complex cross-functional business processes, such as product planning, product development, generating shipping lists, patient care, raw material procurement, and parts distribution, etc. If these business processes are not managed over the long term, many of them can become outdated, overloaded, cumbersome, costly, ill-defined, and unable to adapt to the requirements of a continuously changing environment. For processes that do not receive proper attention (for reasons to be discussed later in this chapter, the number of such processes is quite large), the quality of their output will be far below the performance level required by competitive standards. Business processes are the logical composition of activities that combine personnel, materials, energy, equipment, and information to produce expected outcomes (products or services) (Pall, 1986). There are three main dimensions for measuring process quality: effectiveness, efficiency, and adaptability. A process is effective if it meets customer needs. A process is efficient if it achieves its effectiveness at the lowest cost. A process is adaptable if it maintains effectiveness and efficiency over time despite the changes it faces. To meet customer needs and ensure the health of the organization, management must adopt a process-oriented mindset. Clearly, the necessity of maintaining high-quality processes is undeniable. However, in reality, good process quality is the exception rather than the rule. To understand this, one must carefully examine how processes are designed and how they evolve over time. First, let's look at the design of processes. Due to historical reasons, Western business organization models have evolved into a hierarchical structure composed of functionally specialized departments. Management's direction, goals, and evaluations are deployed top-down in this vertical hierarchical structure. However, the processes that produce products, especially those purchased by customers (which is why the organization exists), flow horizontally across the functional levels of the organization (see Figure 6–1). Traditionally, each functional part of a process has been the responsibility of a department, and the department head is accountable for that part's performance. However, no one is responsible for the entire process. Many problems arise from conflicts between departmental requirements and the requirements of the entire process. In competing with functional goals, functional resources, and functional growth, cross-functional processes are often neglected. As a result, these processes are often neither effective nor efficient in operation and are bound to lack adaptability. Another reason for poor process performance is the natural degradation that all processes undergo during evolution. For example, in a railway company, a company directory may show more "maintenance staff" titles than "staff" titles. Maintenance staff were hired to prevent the recurrence of severe problems that had occurred in the past. Over time, the imbalance in titles has become an external evidence that these processes have solidified maintenance as a routine in the organization. The acceleration of technological development, combined with rising customer expectations, has created global competitive pressures on cost and quality. These pressures have stimulated the exploration of cross-functional processes, prompting people to think about how to clarify and understand these processes and improve their performance. A substantial body of evidence shows that process management techniques are a major problem leading to poor process performance throughout the product production cycle. Functional goals often conflict with the customer needs that must be met by cross-functional processes. These processes also generate various types of waste (e.g., delays, processing defects, etc.). It is easy to see that many products, such as the creation of shipping lists, filling insurance forms, or processing payment receipts, could be completed in 20 minutes but actually take more than 20 days. They are also difficult to change in a timely manner to respond to the continuous changes in the environment. To better meet customer needs, these processes must be restored to effectiveness, efficiency, and adaptability.