Quality Planning Drives to a Product Quality

8/7/2019 Quality Planning Drives to a Product Quality

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QUALITY PLANNING DRIVES TO A PRODUCT QUALITY

B. Sc. Mech. Eng. Miodrag Vukovi,Senior consultant Conseko d.o.o. Beograd, ( www.conseko.rs )

Summary

Product planning in the phase of preliminary analysis is done through iterations. Input requirements determine product specification, production process and resources. Quality Planning is performed in order to satisfy input requirements. It is done in several phases that embrace translating demands into specifications, and fulfillment of the specification.

Key words:development process, quality planning, resources planning

"When something starts wrong, it usually continuesthat way." - was said in one film. In order to obtainthe final product that meets customer needs,development process should be effectively done.Important aspect in development process is QualityPlanning, which if not correctly done would leave allefforts and spent resources without return.

1. Management by Quality Policy

Product development professionals may be familiar with outstanding methods used in developmentprocess. Bearing in mind that restricted time andbudget put pressure on managers, the question is to

which extent our managers do support the use of these methods. Management relation to thedevelopment process should be stressed indevelopment or development quality policies.The following case presents good developmentquality policy in Bosch GMBH Corporation. One partof the overall Quality Policy stated the nextprinciples:Our quality objective is to offer to our customer modern and reliable products.Quality must be planned. This begins in the phaseof defining product concept and construction.Cost reduction must not be on account of quality.

Through the quality policy, managers should pointout their attitudes and principles against the productdevelopment. Quality Policy in Development shouldinclude if the case may be:- Products are developed strongly focused on

users needs,- Every new idea is welcomed and would be

analyzed,- Development process is founded on team work,- In the development processes outstanding

techniques are used, confirmed through bestpractices

- To every participant in development growth andlearning from other's experience are enabled.- Good results are recognized and rewarded.

By the way, quality policy should not present someunrealistic objectives, like Americans said pie onthe sky. For example, in some average companydeclarations as our products are always first in themarket, or we are innovations leader do notcorrespond to their position. Quality Policy shouldbe real and understood. Quality Policy drives theemployees to act.

Managers' attitudes should encourage creativeenvironment, which means freedom from criticism;ideas are encouraged; all ideas are recognized andacknowledged; there is respect for different gifts,etc.

2. Techniques used in PreliminaryAnalysis

One decade of isolation of Yugoslavia has leftvisible traces to companies in the country.Professionals dealing with research anddevelopment did not master the methods andtechniques extensively used for almost twenty yearsin the developed countries. They still perform their activities in the old manner.

Negative attitudes

Weve done that before...

Our customers would never buy that!It will take to long to build, or cost to much.There is the list of known problems and risks,and the project is urgent.There are still a lot of questions we do notknow how to answer.Are people still arguing about priorities?The technical problems will be resolvedbecause other people have done similar thin s.
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Figure 1: Quality Planning Process

QRProductConceptDefinition

Design Parts Design ProcessPlanningProductionPlanning

QD Produce theProduct

QA

Important techniques used in preliminary analysis of design are herein below listed, not with the intention

to be the final list. They are applied to: generate ideas: Brainstorming, MorphologicalBox, Problem Reformulation, Mind Mapping

determine requirements: Seven tools for newproduct planning, Attractive Quality, AffinityDiagram, Poka Yoke

compare with competition: SWOT analysis,Benchmark test

evaluation of feasibility: Feasibility Study reduction of costs in product: ValueEngineering, Optimization

control risks: FMEA, planning process quality: QFD, Juran's qualityplanning

to focus on intended purpose: DFX techniques simulations and tests: Design of Experiment(DOE)

evaluate life-cycle status: Portfolio Analysis, reduction of time to market and avoidance of miscommunication: Concurrent Engineering (CE),QFD

and other techniques.

3. Quality Planning

Product development is a process that can befocused on different aspects. Speaking in the termsof management, new product planning considersmarketability, costs, return on investment, time tomarket. These factors should not be the only fewthat are responsible why only one of the seven newproducts in the USA becomes successful. Primaryfocus in development process is to create productthat results in satisfied customer.Quality means satisfying customer needs by choiceand creation of product features.

Can we develop the products without QualityPlanning?When we make poor quality planning in later stagesthe failures in design could hardly ever be removedby means of quality assurance. Sometimescorrection of failures is done with big expenses andsometimes it's not feasible. What happens to theproduct then?Well, without proper action the product will surely goto the end of life cycle.

Process of Quality Planning is performed in several

phases. It begins with Product Concept Definitionand ends with Production Planning. Theseprocesses are shown in figure 1.

First phase means defining product with its use andneeds that should be satisfied. Outcome of this

phase is product concept with its required quality(QR).In the design phase required quality is translatedinto product features. This phase output is designedquality (QD). After this, validation should beperformed to verify that design specification meetscustomer needs and other requirements.Achieved quality (QA) is in production process.Achieved quality should conform to designedquality.Nevertheless, two main processes should bedifferentiated. These are translating demands intospecifications, and realization of the specification.

3.1. Product Concept Definition

Traditional way of product development was mainlyback-room process, where ideas weren't sharedwith customers. Organizations today drive productdevelopment with focus on users and competitivedemands.If the developed product is intended for massproduction dominant role will have marketingfunction. The idea for product may come fromdevelopment function, or other, but all the researchis focused on customers.Quality planning method begins with analysis of needs and expectations of customer. There are alsocompetitive demands. These things are acquired inproduct concept that contains input requirementsthat should be translated later into productspecification.

Needs analysis is performed through the processguided by the questions:1. Who are the customers?2. What does the customer really need?

Analyzing need means also considering usability,which often means operability, learn ability, andunderstandability.For example, to avoid incorrect use of a product,Poka Yoke is been used.

Comparing product weaknesses and strengths tocompeting products does Positioning Analysis. JohnRuskin said, "If you don't have competitiveadvantage, than don't compete."

Frankly, customers often cannot explain their expectations.What must be observed in determining customer requirements is that there are the needs thatcustomer doesn't express, those they assume that"must be in". Such requirements refer to safety andliability.


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main problem is that from the customer point of viewzero-defect product is expected. If the product is notobtained as such, customer won't be satisfied.Hence the operations should be designed so thatthey are to maintain parameters inside tolerancesand are independent of outside disturbances.Process planning relates to both the final product

and the developed components.Specific aspects of Process Planning include:- Choice of machine quality and other facilities- Choice of accessory facilities- Choice of instrument accuracy- Planning of flow of information- Planning of packaging quality and delivery

In the beginning we should start from productionprocess.Each operation is identified and plotted.Successively showed operations are the basis for other elements of planning, such as resources,

quality plans, operations risk plans and others.Sample of table for operations planning is showed atfigure3.Specific attention has been devoted to criticalprocesses. Critical process is a process that mayproduce serious risk for human life and health,environment, and risk for loss of significant amountof money. To such processes specific measures,safety conditions, systems of alarms, and other mean of protection are applied.Moreover, process of planning asks for riskevaluation. FMEA technique should be used todetermine measures for elimination of potential risk

or reduction at acceptable level.Resources Planning

In addition to process planning we are to makeresources planning.

While the product is defined in the preliminaryanalysis, the Feasibility Study is performed. Both theFeasibility Study and the Process Planning take intoaccount resources to create the product. Theseresources include infra structure, facilities, labor andinformation.Planning of resources embrace resources directly

involved in production process and proper accessory resources. These second groups providegood performances of production process.While performing Feasibility study, preliminary planof operations should be made. For that purpose thesame table for planning should be used. Eachoperation includes resources, where we shouldconsider if they are available and changes thatshould be made.So, outputs of planning of resources are:

- Required resources to produce theproduct,

- Required accessory resources,-

Required quality of resources (facilities,machines, devices),- Required changes in existing resources,- Required investment in resources,

An information is regarded as a resource thatenables process control. These kinds of informationare obtained from measuring instruments and visualinspection. Such information enables controllabilityof process. It is also important to avoid so called"passive feedback information", which means thatthe information is available when there is no use of it.

In addition to this basic information are SPC toolsproviding qualitative evaluation of process.

3.4. Production planning

Production planning is final phase. The termproduction planning in this context does not meanplanning of the volumes. The aspect of productionherein means:

- Quality plans for process control andproduct control,

- Work instructions,- Corrective measures to be taken- Treatment of defective products- Labor training requirements and plansThis phase is performed prior to serial production.

Operations Quality PlansWe design quality plans as add on to the plan of operations. It considers required quality of product.As it is known, quality plans specify operations,checkpoints, work instructions, characteristics to betested, frequency of inspection, means of inspectionand responsible persons.From the quality plan we define measuringequipment. These instruments should be availableprior to serial production.Finally, a treatment of defective products has to bepredicted. We should consider which way thedefective products would be used.

Plan of operations

No. Operation Equipment Workinstruction

Inputparts/mater.

Responsibleperson

Operations Plan of resources

No. Operation Equipment Accessoryequipment

Operationqualitycharacteristics

Potentialrisks

Operations Quality Plan

No. Operation Workinstruction

Controlledparameters

Scopeof

control

Measuringmethod

Inspectioncheck list

Responsibleperson

Figure 3 Planning of operations processes


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0 20 40Time u nits

Product Definitio

Design

Verification

Prototype

Redesign

Reverification

Reprototype

Test Generation

Production

Test

Sequential Engineering

Concurrent Engineering

Figure 4. Product develpoment time line

4. Design Changes

Americans researches in the field of software qualityassurance have pointed out 5 common problems in

the software development process. These are:

poor requirements, unrealistic schedule, inadequate testing, featuritis, miscommunication.

Poor requirements and additional requirementsmake the most of headaches. Resolving of theseproblems is done through changes and additionsto requirements that are realized in terms of configuration management.The customer doesn't buy a specification; thecustomer buys the product or service to fulfill a

need.With a better definition of the product, the user may find more details to comment. It is necessaryto confirm the conceptual solutions with targetusers in the process of validation. Validation is doneby comparing the performances and functionality of design to both the customer needs, and regulationsThe changes in requirements are identified in thevalidation process. In the phase of product planning,validation is done in comparison to the latestproduct specification or design. This means thatsequentially product development process is doneby iteration.Identified differences start the process of changes,as well as control of them. Actually, that isconfiguration management.

It is the process that usually actively starts after validation.Corrective actions remove weaknesses, which areoften found out during verification.

Failures missed during the validation would bereflected later on customer satisfaction. These

failures sometimes are hard to remove andsometimes too expensive. Hence the good qualityplanning is the best way to avoid later efforts,expenses and missed attempts. Most important,good quality planning results in satisfied customer.

5. Recent organizational techniques inthe development process

Instead of sequentially performed developmentphases, new organizational technique calledConcurrent Engineering (CE), or SimultaneousEngineering proposes simultaneously performedprocesses by the development team. CE is thepractice of using a multidisciplinary team to conductconceptual thinking, product design, and productionplanning all at one time. Differently of traditionalsequential design, CE provides for immediatefeedback that prevents problems with quality andproductivity.CE is observed as part of TQM techniques indevelopment proccess 8. In this systemcommunication flows better, different aspects arebetter understood by the team. The project is hardlyever sent back. As it may be seen in the figure 4,design phase lasts longer, and the whole

development is shortened.

References:1. ISO 9004:2000 Quality Management System -

Guidelines for performance improvement2. dr Branislav Mari, "Upravljanje projektima",

Univerzitet Braa Kari, Novi Sad 2000.3. J. M. Juran, "Juran on Quality by Desgin", Grme,

Beograd 1997.4. ivko Mitrovi, "Osnove integralnog upravljanja

kvalitetom proizvoda", Jupiq, Beograd 1996.5. Dale H. Besterfield and the group of co-authors,

"Total Qulaity Management", Prentice Hall, NY 1995.

No

Yes

user needs +regulations

specifications

Verification

Validation

CorrectiveAction

ConfigurationManagement

Ok

Ok

No

Figure 3: Design Changes Process


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6. Ronald D. Moen, "Some comments on Japan's seventools for new product planning", Total QualityManagement, No 2, Belgrade 1998.

7. Diane Ritter, Michael Brassard, The Creativity ToolsMemory Jogger, GOAL/QPC USA 1998.

8. Rick Hower, Software Quality Assurance,www.ics.uci.edu

9. Prof. dr Vidosav D. Majstorivi, "Model menadmenta

totalnim kvalitetom, Poslovna Politika, Beograd 200010. Mili M. Radovi, "Proizvodni sistemi", Kultura,Beograd 1998.

11. ore Maleevi, "Skripte sa predavanja iy predmetaIstraivanje i razvoj", FON, Belgrade 1996.


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Quality Planning Drives to a Product Quality