Types of Quality Control, Quality Control Tools.

 

Types of Quality Control

Your product is your business, so you should make sure that you manufacture and sell the best product. Doing that requires an investment in strategy, time and money, and a commitment to quality. Quality control should be a part of any business. This helps ensure that the product you sell is the best that it can be. It also ensures that each product sold is the same so that performance does not vary.

What Is Quality Control?

Quality control (QC) is a process through which a business seeks to ensure that product quality is improved. Quality control requires the business to create an environment in which both management and employees try for perfection. This is done by training personnel, to examine statistically significant variations, creating benchmarks for product quality and test products.

A key aspect of quality control is the establishment of well-defined controls. These controls help to standardize both production and feedback on quality issues. Limiting room for error by specifying production activities, by which personnel reduce the chance that employees will be involved in tasks for which they do not have sufficient training.

Keys

• Quality control (QC) is a process through which a business seeks to ensure that product quality is maintained or improved.
• Quality control involves testing the units and determining if they are within the specifications for the final product.
• The quality control used in a business is highly dependent on the product or industry, and many techniques exist to measure quality.

Quality Control Tools

• Check list At its most basic, quality control requires you to examine a list of items that are necessary for the manufacture and sale of your product.
• Fishbone diagram. This view is helpful for determining what causes a specific problem, be it materials, machines, methods, or manpower.
• Control chart. It helps you see how historically changes have occurred using controls. The chart helps you find and correct problems as they occur, predict a range of results and analyze variations.
• Stratification. Rather than looking at all the factors together, stratification separates the data so that you can identify patterns and specific problem areas.
• Pareto Chart. This type of bar chart provides a visual analysis of problems and causes so that you can focus on the most important issues.
• Histogram. A general graph that uses bars to identify a frequency distribution that shows how often faults occur.
• scatter diagram. Plotting information with two axes on this graph can help identify relationships between variables.

The quality control inspector uses one or more of the available tools or methods to conduct an in-depth analysis of the product or service to determine where improvements can be made. An inspector usually receives training to know which method to use and how to use properly.

Internal vs. External Quality Control

Depending on the product you manufacture and sell, you can opt for internal or external quality control inspection. If you establish an in-house protocol to test your system, it is called internal quality control. This can range from routine testing of equipment, data analysis of another colleague's employee, or standards and controls to run on regular standards. It is generally for management to decide whether internal quality control measures are reliable and taken as needed.

When products or data are not sent to an external business associated with your company, it is external control. An example of external control is in food production. A food company may routinely analyze the nutritional value or shelf life of foods produced in its own laboratory, but to verify the results, the same food will also be sent to an outside laboratory. This validation by a third party is important for obtaining food and drug administration labeling and for the FDA to prove that the food company's production methods are sound.

How to Develop a Quality Control Plan

A quality control plan provides a method to deliver products, services, or employees to a specific standard. Quality control is usually a final step that occurs before it is sent to the customer and a series of systems and processes to meet the highest standards. Quality control takes place to ensure that the customer is satisfied with the final product and the company's reputation is intact. It also determines the root source of problems and helps to fix them and ensures that improvements are permanent.

Developing a Quality Control Plan

Evaluate how you plan to test quality. Consider factors such as how often you plan to test, where along the assembly process you will test, how long the process will take and any resources required. Major phases or checkpoints of a product’s creation need to be tested before moving forward.

Refer to your company's mission statement, business plan, or overall vision to set your goals for a product. Use these resources to help you decide what testing you need to do to meet quality assurance.

Create a step-by-step process for testing a product. Identify different aspects of the product. If necessary, consider various scenarios for the use of your product and test as much as possible to ensure quality through each.

Experiments with quality control tests. Modify the process as required. If a product requires more testing in one area, add this step to the quality control plan. If a test is noted to be unwanted, remove it and continue refining the process.

Revise and review the quality control plan to continuously indicate problem areas. With every kind of new product, add a new sub-test to the quality control plan.

How to Write a QA Report

If you want your company to be known for reliability and consistency for your products and services, it is important to conduct regular quality assurance audits and compile your findings into a QA report. The purpose of the report is to describe how the products and services are executed compared to your quality standards, and what recommendations for improvement.

Establish the Goal of the Quality Assurance Report

Start your QA report by specifying your goal. What are the specific elements you set about your product, service or process? For example, you can test the consistent size of brownies for your bakery, or the speed at which a cashier helps a customer at your grocery store.

Specify the Auditing or Testing Methodology Used

Outline what the parameters are for measuring quality. This is what you will compare products, services or processes during your audit or test. The parameters should be quantitative and measurable. For example, do you need to make sure that all sweaters have three blue buttons and three red buttons, or do you need to make sure that each of your employees follows the same step-by-step process of oil. Is the change made?

Note how you conducted a quality assurance audit or test. Did you measure the product using a specific measurement tape, or did you use a special process management tool to note what steps were taken? To ensure that you are getting the proper results, it is important to test each of the products you are reviewing in exactly the same manner. If someone has a problem with your findings, they may choose to resell the products. As a result, they would have to know how the test was initially conducted.

Explain the Findings in Your QA Report

In our quality report, specify what the results of your audit or test were. Depending on the kind of test you conducted, it may be easier to present your findings in a chart or graph form. For example, if you were conducting a QA test on color printing on all the printers at your printing services store, you could create a graph showing how many printers rendered the colors accurately versus how many were distorted.

Provide an Actionable Conclusion

Provide a conclusion that summarizes your goals, conclusion, conclusion, and conclusion. How is the quality of products and services in your small business? In addition to the capabilities of monitoring results, your conclusion should provide some actionable advice. What are the next steps in terms of maintaining and improving quality in your business? For example, do you need to review your manufacturing process to make sure they comply with the standards, to ensure that no errors have occurred, or do you need to conduct additional staff training is?

Conduct Quality Assurance Regularly

Be sure to conduct your quality assurance tests on a regular basis, such as on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis. Develop a quality assurance monthly report template that includes the fields required for your business. You can then fill reports every month to ensure that your business consistently meets your high-quality standards

Tools & Techniques for Measuring Quality

Quality control is an important issue in manufacturing, and using expert tools and techniques to measure quality can ensure that your product is well received by your customers and undergoes any necessary government oversight. Technology can vary depending on your type of business, but the goal of all means is the production of a high quality product.

Inspection

Inspection is an important part of measuring quality, and for small operations, random product testing can be an effective technique. Statistical sampling, a method of using mathematics and the science of probability, is best for producing large quantities, where you have enough samples compared to the whole. Several software programs and other tools are available to perform this type of inspection. The product can also be evaluated to see if it conforms to predetermined criteria, perhaps by visiting a checklist of essential functions and physical characteristics.

Testing

One type of product testing is failure testing where the product is evaluated to its limits and beyond the evaluation where it will stop working. These usually include emphasizing the mechanical properties of the product such as the strength, elasticity and impact resistance of the material. Vibration and temperature tests can also be done. Which tests to use are determined by the product, its usage, and the time and financial constraints of the business.

Process Control and Ownership

Everyone involved in manufacturing the product or providing the service should be encouraged to take ownership of a part of the process. Businesses can take this concept even further and bring the entire company on board with the concept of quality control. Given responsibility, employees will take greater pride in their work and strive for a successful outcome for the job for which they are responsible. Managers, employees and vendors need to provide a firm commitment to meet deliveries and milestones. Process flow can be monitored by a project manager, who will coordinate the parties involved and ensure that the deadline is met, or that the process is running smoothly. 

Control Charts

Charts can be an effective tool for evaluating the quality of your product. The use of two basic types of statistical charts — inseparable and multivariate — will depend on the number of attributes you measure. A unilateral chart represents one feature, and multivariate charts are used to evaluate several features. Other types of charts may also useful include movement charting, Pareto bar charts that allow you to improve quality and a scatter diagram that can show the relationship between the actual product and the standard.