Quality Control Edwards Deming Statistical Process Control

Today’s business arenas are extremely competitive nationally and internationally. Please thoughtfully consider the following statements and provide answers supported from information in your textbook and include at least two outside sources with appropriate citations.

1. Support a leadership impact ideology for TQ implementation by synthesizing the processes necessary to provide an organization with a TQ paradigm.

2. Assess three (3) characteristics that contribute to a TQ organization by prioritizing the steps necessary to achieve a competitive advantage in the marketplace using TQ methodology.

3. Evaluate how you, as a manger, would integrate three (3) specific leadership initiative tools to provide your company with a TQ organization.

The statistical process was first introduced by Dr. Walter A. Shewhart in the mid-1920s. “Statistical Process Control, commonly referred to as SPC, is a method for monitoring, controlling and, ideally, improving a process through statistical analysis. The philosophy states that all processes exhibit intrinsic variation. However, sometimes processes exhibit excessive variation that produces undesirable or unpredictable results. SPC, in a manufacturing process optimization context, is used to reduce variation to achieve the best target value” (Edgell, 2018).
The rationale for Western manufacturers to embrace SPC was not only to improve product quality and simultaneously reduce costs, but also to improve their product image to successfully compete in the world’s markets. This rationale is much the same as for total quality. In fact, SPC was the starting point for the growth of Japanese total textbook explains, the correlation between SPC and total quality can best be supported by the following five concepts.
1. Continual Improvement: Continual improvement is a key element of total quality, focused on continual improvement in terms of processes, rather than in terms of products and services. It is often the improvement of processes that yields improved products and services. Both are critical to the continued viability of the organization.
2. Predictability of Processes: When a process is not under control, its capability is not very predictable. When that is the case, managers cannot know with certainty the capability of their processes, and therefore whether a customer’s requirements can or cannot be met. Organizations must have predictable, stable, consistent processes, and that can be achieved and maintained through SPC.
3. Elimination of Waste: When waste is eliminated, the cost of goods produced (or services rendered) is reduced—not just from the cost of the defective product, but also the cost of inspection. At the same time, the quality of the product is enhanced. By eliminating waste, a company reduces cost and increases quality–a direct competitive advantage.
4. Sampling: Inspection can be done on every piece or on a sampling basis. It is naturally faster and less expensive to inspect only a percentage of the product. Sampling schemes are not only possible, they are accepted by such critical customers as the US government and the automobile industry, but there is a condition: For sampling to be accepted, processes must be under control. Only then will the processes have the consistency and predictability necessary to support sampling.
5. Auditing: When a company’s processes can produce acceptable products, and after they are in control using SPC, the internal quality assurance organization can reduce its inspection and process surveillance efforts, relying to a greater degree on a planned program of process audits. This reduces quality assurance costs, and with it, the cost of quality.