Lecture I
History of Quality
During the early days of manufacturing, an operative’s work was inspected and a decision made whether to accept or reject it. As businesses became larger, so too did this role and full time inspection jobs were created.
Accompanying the creation of inspection functions, other problems arose:
• More technical problems occurred, requiring specialized skills, often not possessed by production workers
• The inspectors lacked training
• Inspectors were ordered to accept defective goods, to increase output
• Skilled workers were promoted into other roles, leaving less skilled workers to perform the operational jobs, such as manufacturing.
These problems led to the birth of the separate inspection department with a “chief inspector”, reporting to either the person in charge of manufacturing or the works manager.
With the creation of this new department, there came new services and issues, e.g, standards, training, recording of data and the accuracy of measuring equipment. It became clear that the responsibilities of the “chief inspector” were more than just product acceptance, and a need to address defect prevention emerged.
Hence the quality control department evolved, in charge of which was a “quality control manager”, with responsibility for the inspection services and quality control engineering.
Importance of Quality
The importance of quality in every walk of life cannot be overemphasized in this global economy. Dr. J.M. Juran, an international expert in quality and management put it briefly: “We live behind the dykes of quality”.
During our daily life we presume so many things: milk is not adulterated, vegetables do not have pesticides and herbicides, the transportation is safe and reliable, our money is safe in the banks we trust so much, etc, etc.
But what will happen if something goes wrong?
Thus, we have taken quality as being reliable and safe in whatever activity we are involved. Take