 Does your company have a high quality reputation? Virtually all companies have the goal of achieving that status. But why do some succeed while others are prone to making manufacturing mistakes, resulting in costly recalls and product rejects? Let's explore several of the facets of quality, and attempt to understand some of the methods which have been used to assure consistent product and operating control.
I believe most would agree that the paper industry has made significant strides in quality control over the years. In the past, many of the product inspections relied on judgmental assessments by quality control personnel. For example, before on-line instrumentation and control were widely used, operators were required to submit samples for shade approval to a quality control testing center. An inspector would decide whether the paper shade was acceptable to the customer, after comparing the sample to a retained "standard" viewed under a standard light condition. During grade changes, there would frequently be tons of off-quality paper rejected before finally gaining approval for the shade. And, it was not unusual for the shade to "drift" out of acceptable visual limits while producing the manufacturing order. Obviously, to provide uniform and high quality colored paper to the customers was accompanied with an increased cost of production.
A number of basic factors need to be considered by the manufacturer when examining the total quality control system. There are many approaches to quality control, and not all are equally effective.
• Who decides upon the quality standards? What are the mill's expectations from a quality assurance viewpoint?
• A standard is not a goal. An agreed upon standard must be met within acceptable tolerances, regardless of the degree of difficulty.
• Will the quality control system involve not only meeting standards, but also contribute to improved product quality and minimization of manufacturing errors?
• Will the controls selected be adaptable to the operating system in use?
• Is the total system expected to assist in other areas, such as product design, R&D, purchasing, and training functions?
• Will the system used ensure legal compliance to product liability possibilities?
• Does management recognize the importance of quality control/assurance, and is management dedicated to supporting the quality system as a continuous function?
The mindset in the past was that improved quality was associated with higher manufacturing costs. The prevailing attitude was that "tighter" specifications would cause more product rejects, and installing new systems to provide better operating control during manufacturing were too expensive. But the demands of customers, related to the "runnability" of paper grades on their equipment, gradually made quality improvements a necessity. In addition, the competition of paper manufacturers intensified as the more technically advanced mills began to make the changes necessary to ensure more uniformity of their products. It was soon realized that simple control charts, with upper and lower tolerance limits, were very useful in quality control, even though it was sometimes difficult to correlate the deviations with the causes of out-of-specification products.
Let's focus for a moment on process and product quality control, and define quality as conformance to standards. This means that a good quality control system, with correctly established standards, must eliminate manufacturing errors and provide a consistent product to the end user. In attempt to achieve this, mills began to learn that statistical process control (SPC) could be expanded, using analysis from critical process monitoring to identify causes for out of specification product. It was also found that SPC, through feedback to operators, could be used for earlier detection of problems, product/process improvement, and to assist in analysis of designed experiment results. But while SPC led to many improvements in process control and product quality, this method alone was not sufficient to allow the companies to establish themselves as high-quality producers.
Increased quality demands from customers led to the need for systems that involved all departments, rather than just those related to product and process. It became apparent that quality involved all aspects of the business. Paper mills and other businesses were driven to become certified under the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and some sought to achieve recognition from using systems modeled after the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award program. ISO required a more thorough definition and knowledge of the total business through standardization of essentially all procedures used. Its weakness proved to be that some of the internally developed procedures were incorrect, leading to repeating mistakes in the affected department. Still, I think most companies would agree that obtaining and maintaining ISO 9000 series certification has contributed to more consistent results in their overall quality control efforts. In addition, those companies doing business internationally found that the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) provided excellent information about standards to be considered if products are sold world-wide.
The inclusion of all organizational functions into the quality system was largely due to the changes in quality concepts originating in Japan. These have been generally described as total quality control (TQC) or total quality management (TQM) systems, functioning with a continuous improvement point of view. The skill and experience of the workers were recognized as an important part in identifying control weaknesses and in the elimination of inadequacies. Later, learning about the Toyota® production methods brought us the concept of Lean Manufacturing, which is a systematic method for identifying what adds value to a process so that "waste" actions can either be reduced or eliminated.
Today in SPC, six sigma limits are becoming the goal, which means practically no items fail to meet specifications. This is far removed from the three sigma limits felt to be adequate years ago. Obviously achieving a six sigma level of control can be difficult and costly to implement, often taking years to achieve. Six sigma is viewed differently from total quality management systems, since it focuses specifically on reducing defects or variation. However, when included as an integral part of the system, there is little doubt that successfully reaching the goal will result in a high quality company reputation, and in achieving significant cost reductions.
Robert Moore is a retired chemical engineer, and is an experienced technical and fictional writer. His past work experience spanned the chemical, paper and equipment manufacturing industries, including holding management positions at Voith Paper, Scapa plc, and The Mead Paper Corporation. He is also the author of humorous short stories about life in southwest Virginia, circa 1940-1960.
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