Quality management involves everything to do with maintaining quality in the production and delivery of a company’s products and services. This includes making sure products arrive on time and ensures quality is consistent throughout.
Quality management focuses on product and service quality and how it is achievable. The four main components include: quality planning, quality control, quality improvement and quality assurance.
Quality Assurance
Quality assurance is a big part of quality management, its essentially about making sure everyone is doing everything correctly in every stage of the production process. Its main purpose is to prevent errors or defects during the manufacturing process. Quality assurance also boosts customer confidence because they know steps are in place to ensure quality.
Advantages of Quality Assurance:
- Lower costs due to less wastage from defective products
- More employee motivation due to workers having more ownership of what they do
- Everybody is responsible for quality; therefore, quality levels remain consistent.
Quality Control
Quality control is a system in manufacturing for maintaining standards. It involves testing a sample of the output. Testing finished products ensures no faulty goods get shipped to customers. The product inspector will have and lists of defects that are not acceptable. In most cases these defects will be things such as cracks and blemishes.
Advantages of Quality Control
- Helps prevent faulty goods and services being sold
- Doesn’t disrupt workers, therefore production can continue while inspectors check
- Improved reputation from the inspection system.
Quality Planning
This process is done to identify which quality standards are relevant to a particular project and determining how to achieve them. Quality planning includes a general introduction to the project and the processes which will be involved. It will also include members and external vendors which will be involved.
Advantages of Quality Planning
- Improved communication between all members involved.
- Planning will reduce any risks of potential errors happening during the process, evidently reducing costs.
- Faster Product Part Approval Process (PPAP)
Quality Improvement
Quality improvement refers to the combined efforts everybody in a company puts in, to make the production process better. The main goals are to reduce waste, less defects and rework in the process.
Advantages of Quality Improvement
- Continuous improvement creates better customer service and company reputation
- Less repeat work means increased productivity.
- Monitoring the data identifies ongoing opportunities for improvement.
The aim of quality assurance training is to improve your effectiveness and efficiency on a continuous basis teaching concepts of quality. At ISA Support, they provide small and medium sized companies in all industries with on-going and ad-hoc support associated with Quality Assurance, Environmental, Health and Safety and HR requirements. To see more about ISA and their quality management:
https://www.isasupport.co.uk/services/quality-assurance-training-and-management-system