The present work aims to: analyze from a theoretical and practical point of view the principles of quality management, diagnose and understand problems using basic or management tools, as well as employing techniques that allow us to weigh the causes that affect the quality in the Tannery Company "Mártires de Ñancahuazú", meeting in the Industrial Zone, of Versailles in the city of Matanzas; which will allow to identify the Quality System in its two initial phases: diagnosis and planning.
INTRODUCTION.
This work addresses the issue of the Quality System, taking into account its diagnosis and planning, which aims to: analyze the principles of quality management, diagnose and understand problems using basic or management tools, as well as, employing techniques that allow us to weigh the causes that affect quality, taking as an example the Tannery Company "Mártires de Ñancahuazú", meeting in the Industrial Zone, Versalles, Matanzas.
Among the tools to be used are: the experts' method, the brainstorming, the cause-effect diagram and a survey is designed.
It is vitally important to know the main deficiencies of a company, carry out a diagnosis and then plan, control and improve the final product or service to obtain a high level of competitiveness and satisfied customers.
Chapter I: Theoretical Foundation.
Definitions of Quality.
- AV Feigenbaum (1971). Composite features that meet consumer expectations. Quality is built from the start of product design. Joseph. M. Juran (1993). Quality is defined as fitness or suitability for use, which implies all those characteristics of a product that the user recognizes that they benefit and will always be determined by the customer, and not by the producer, seller or person who repairs the product. Edward Deming. Quality is nothing more than "A series of questions towards continuous improvement". Philip Crosby (1996). Compliance with requirements. ISO 9000/2000.Quality: ability of a set of inherent characteristics of a product, system or process to satisfy the requirements of customers and other interested parties. A: Galgano(1995): This definition expresses that all areas of the company must participate in achieving quality, that is, product quality is the result of the work of all departments; each of them must carry out their functions and carry them out with quality. Furthermore, quality is projected above all towards the interior of the company, but there is also an operational meaning that is projected towards the exterior and which represents one of the fundamental pillars of the entire Total Quality Management (GCT) building, a meaning of positive or negative quality, and finally that of latent quality, which indicates the direction towards where the fundamental activity of the company can have: the development of new products. The dynamic nature of the quality category must be taken into account.
Principles of Quality Management.
Principle 1 - Customer focus.
Organizations depend on their customers and therefore should understand current and future customer needs, meet customer requirements, and strive to exceed customer expectations.
Principle 2 - Leadership.
Leaders establish unity of purpose and direction of the organization. They should create and maintain an internal environment, in which staff can become fully involved in achieving the organization's objectives.
Principle 3 - Staff participation.
Staff, at all levels, is the essence of an organization and their full commitment enables their skills to be used for the benefit of the organization.
Principle 4 - Process based approach.
A desired result is achieved more efficiently when activities and related resources are managed as a process.
Principle 5 - System approach to management.
Identifying, understanding and managing interrelated processes as a system contributes to the effectiveness and efficiency of an organization in achieving its objectives.
Principle 6 - Continuous improvement.
Continual improvement of the overall performance of the organization should be a permanent objective of the organization.
Principle 7 - Factual approach to decision making.
Effective decisions are based on analysis of data and information.
Principle 8 - Mutually beneficial relationships with the provider.
An organization and its suppliers are interdependent, and a mutually beneficial relationship increases the ability of both to create value.
Diagnosis.
According to Valdez Riviera, (1998). The diagnostic concept is part of a preventive and strategic management process. It is constituted as a means of analysis that allows the change of a company, from a state of uncertainty to another of knowledge for its proper management, on the other hand it is a process of permanent evaluation of the company through indicators that allow to measure the signs vital.
Diagnose: (Diagnostic). tr. Collect and analyze data to evaluate problems of various kinds. - 2. Med. Determine the character of a disease by examining its signs. (Encarta® 2005)
Diagnostic classifications.
The diagnosis can be:
- General or Partial. Preliminary or Technical. General, strategic or operational. National, departmental, sectorial, industrial, district or business according to its scope or geography. By discipline. By branch. By cause-effect.
Basic Techniques to make a diagnosis.
Basic tools:
- Flow diagram Cause-effect diagram Pareto diagram Control chart Histogram Scatter diagram Stratification
Management tools:
- Affinity Diagram Relationship Diagram Matrix Diagram Tree Diagram Decision Process Diagram Arrow Diagram Brainstorm
The seven quantitative tools of Quality Control:
- Tarjado diagrams. Gather information Analyze shape, trend and dispersion Pareto diagram Determine the priority (20 x 80). Cause-Effect Diagram. Cause analysis Dispersion diagram. Evaluate the effectiveness of the measures Stratification. Subdivide the information for better analysis. Control Charts. Analysis of the variability of the processes.
Tools to determine quality characteristics.
- Kendall or expert method.
It consists of the compilation or collection of weighted information from a group of experts on the causes that affect quality.
The Method unifies the criteria of various specialists with knowledge of the subject, so that each member of the panel (You must work with at least 7 experts) has weighted according to the order of importance, which each understands at their own discretion.
The selection of the expert will take into account the experience, the level of information that can be provided and the technical level that it has. This method has a mathematical and statistical procedure that enables the reliability of the experts' criteria to be validated using the Kendall (W) coefficient.
Steps:
- Bring to the table the result of the vote of each Sum of all values per row. Calculation of the coefficient (T). Control of the characteristics whose value is less than the coefficient (T) is performed.
- Calculation of D is done per row. Calculation of D2 is the sum at the end of the column. Subsequently is the Kendall coefficient (W).
® If it is met, there is agreement and the study is valid.
K ® Number of characteristics.
m ® Number of experts.
If W <0.5 repeats the study, if there are a number of experts greater than 7, the ones who introduce the most variation in the study should be eliminated, always respecting m ≥ 7.
The client.
Customer: It is everyone who is impacted by our product.
They are classified into:
Processor Potentials
- External Client Marketer Objectives
Lost Consumer
- Direct Internal Client
Support for
The client's needs.
Explicit Needs: They are expressed by the client, in the form of attributes. It is related to the Expected Quality and the expected level of the product.
Implicit needs.
- Implicit Conscious: They are not declared, they are taken for granted. Implicit Latent: Unreported exist in the mind of the clients but in an unconscious way.
Client's profile.
- Normally you do not express your wishes, except when you are not satisfied.
- The client is not loyal and always goes to the highest bidder.
- The client does not always know what he wants, but he acquires what he likes.
- The client is demanding and is willing to change at minimum failure.
- The client is considered unique and wants to be treated differently from others.
- When you are not satisfied, you proclaim it and harm the company.
Surveys.
For the collection of information, a tool to use is the survey to find out the customer's opinion.
Surveys are one of the most widely used quantitative tools for obtaining primary information, but this does not mean that it is always appropriate to use them. Before doing a survey, you must make sure that this survey is really necessary, you must also check that the secondary information on the subject to be studied is completely exhausted.
Also, it must be verified or demonstrated that the information that is needed cannot be obtained through qualitative techniques, since these are cheaper than quantitative ones. It will also be necessary to study or analyze the cost of the survey and the resources available to carry it out. It will also have to be demonstrated that the subject is of interest to the company and that there is certainly information available, accessible. Once we see that the survey is necessary, the second step is to design the survey plan, that is, develop the survey.
Stages:
- Define the population to study or universe of study. Determine the sampling unit that can be individuals, families, companies, etc. Delimit or specify the sampling frame, that is, the census or list should be chosen from the available sample units, people who are going to be part of the study population or universe, and determine the geographical scope of the study and the time or temporal term to which the analyzed behavior or opinions refer. Select the sampling method or procedure, being able to use probabilistic methods and non-probabilistic Determine representative sample size. It is conditioned to the sampling procedure that we have chosen. Design and prepare the questionnaire. In this phase, the content and format of the questionnaire will have to be determined.Decide the type of survey we are going to carry out. There are three types of surveys:
- Polls by mail.
- Telephone surveys.
- Personal surveys.
Variables.
- Nominal: Their values can only be classified into classes (or categories), they cannot be ordered from small to large or from less to more. Examples: sex, marital status, profession, occupation. Ordinal: Its values can be classified into categories and can be ordered in hierarchies with respect to the characteristic being evaluated. Examples: socioeconomic level, score, social class, place in the class. Interval: Their values have a natural order, it is possible to quantify the difference between two interval values. They generally have a unit of measure. An interval variable is discrete when it can only take an integer value (for example: number of children, times the health facility was consulted); or it is continuousif you can take any value in an interval (for example: weight, height, body mass index, etc.) Proportion: Zero represents the absence of the characteristic being evaluated. Examples: cost per care, weight (age) adequacy. From paired comparisons: When the researcher is interested in knowing how an element is valued with respect to the others. Verbal protocols: It is where the individual must select the phrase that best represents his position before the proposed stimulus. Constant sum: It is about measuring the relative importance that a series of attributes or variables have for the individual.
Scale Types.
Non-Comparative Scales:
They are used to make personal evaluations.
- Continuous classification
- Likert scale
- Semantic Differential
Comparative Scales:
- From paired comparisons
- From classification
- From constant sum
- From verbal protocols
Standardized Scales :
Serperf: Focused on measuring the perceived quality of services through satisfaction.
Servqual: Developed to measure the quality of both expected and perceived services.
Scale Evaluation: Establish a scale that is useful to you and that provides a level of information that is as accurate as possible.
- Reliability
- Validity
- Regression coefficient
Reliability.
- It tries to ensure that the measurement process of a certain object or element in which the scale is used is free of random error.The degree of reliability required for the study to be considered reliable is through Cronbach's α
α> 0.8
- For exploratory studies α> 0.6
Validity.
- Try to ensure that what is being measured is truly what it is intended to measure
Regression coefficient.
- It is the measure of validity. It is determined through the regression coefficient
R ^ 2> 0.7
Quality Planning.
It is one of the three basic processes used to manage quality. This establishes the objectives (goals, mission) and develops the means (systems, plans, processes
or programs) to achieve them. This activity is responsible for developing the products and processes necessary to meet customer needs and includes the following activities:
- Determine who the clients are. Determine the needs of the clients (Market Research). Develop the characteristics of the product that respond to the needs of the client. Develop processes capable of producing those characteristics. Transfer to the process
To develop this process, it is necessary to carry out the fundamental activities established by the quality function. Which are framed, fundamentally, in the Pre Prod or Sale (Design) stage, although this process covers the three stages of the product quality life cycle.
Chapter II: Practical foundation.
2.1 Brief characterization of the entity.
The mission of the tannery company “Mártires de Ñancahuazú” located in the Industrial Zone, Versalles, Matanzas is to produce leather to obtain compliant products in order to satisfy customer demands, the vision being to offer a quality service to guarantee customer satisfaction. It is subordinated to the Ministry of Light Industry (MINIL) and is made up of 160 workers who make up different departments (Economy, Commercial, Productive Technician and Human Resources), governed by the Director of the Company.
Its suppliers are the salting places of the country, the meat mixes of Matanzas, Nueva Paz, hides from the fields, Rayonitro, Cromogenia SA (Spain), Panleathers (Mexico) and its clients are the footwear companies, the Fund of Cultural Goods (BFC), CUBA-RDA (Orthopedic footwear). They also export Wet Blue Leather, pickled butts and salted leathers to Spain, Syria and Italy.
2.2 Analysis of the results.
In the company there are quality problems, as complaints from external customers have been expressed, so a brainstorm was held with the experts to find out the main problems that contribute to the insufficient quality of the finished product, where 16 problems were determined and it was explained to them that it was necessary to organize each of the problems in the order of most important to least important. The sheets were then collected and the information tabulated to determine the experts' coefficient of agreement. (Look at annex 1).
There is agreement between the experts.
Representation of problems using the Cause-Effect Diagram.
To carry out the first major expansion, negative () deviations (9 problems) were taken according to the results obtained when applying the experts' method, and similar ones were combined, resulting in three main causes that cause the insufficient quality of the skins. To determine the second expansion, the problems determined when making the first brainstorm were taken and a second brainstorm was carried out among the experts to determine other subcauses. (See Annex # 2)
Preparation of the survey for internal clients.
To carry out the second expansion in the cause of fluctuation in the workforce, it was revealed that the internal customer is not satisfied, since there are several causes that were reached by the opinion of experts, so to know the main reasons, proposes a survey and sampling procedure.
Sampling and survey procedure.
- The population to study or universe of study is 160 workers. The sampling unit is individuals. The sampling frame is equal to the population size. The sampling method or procedure is stratified probabilistic. To determine the representative sample size, proceed to calculate the equation for finite population.
Being:
k = 2
p = q = 0.5
e = 0.05%
- Design and preparation of the questionnaire. The type of survey to be carried out is personal.
The Likert scale (Statement to which the interviewee shows his degree of agreement or disagreement) was taken for the survey. (See Annex # 3).
Quality planning.
In the company, objectives (goals and mission) are established, there is a Quality Manual, who the clients are, but the objective and potential clients are not determined, market research is not carried out and therefore the characteristics of the product that respond to customer needs, which together with the lack of technological equipment hinders the quality operation in the company.
CONCLUSIONS.
- The objectives outlined in the work are fulfilled because the mentioned tools were used correctly. It was determined that the working conditions influence directly the fluctuation of the work force and indirectly on the quality of the finished product. The causes that cause insufficient quality of the finished product.
- Workers are unaware of the important role they play in the quality of the product they produce. Managers give little importance to the training of workers, an important element because only the good preparation of work personnel facilitates the development of a product with optimal Quality. Objective and potential clients are not determined in the company and the characteristics of the product that respond to the client's needs are not developed. There is a lack of technological equipment which hinders the operation of the quality of the company.
RECOMMENDATIONS.
- Improve working conditions to reduce the fluctuation of workers. Encourage in workers the criterion of the important role they play in the quality of the product they make. Make a training plan for workers, since the optimal quality of the product depends on it. Elaborated.Develop the characteristics of the product that respond to the needs of the client.Achieve a high technological equipment for the good operation of the quality of the company.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
- Iglesias Sánchez, José Luis. A new approach to Quality management. University of Vigo. Fernández Rico, J. Esteban. The EFQM model. Spain. 2005.Cuatrecasas, Luis. Comprehensive quality management. Editorial Gestión 2000. Barcelona. _______________. Models to implement continuous improvement in Quality Management. PDF.Valls Figueroa, Wilfredo, Ortega Ramírez, Belkis; Yera Vidal, Katia. Total Quality Management, as a way to achieve business excellence. Microsoft Power Point.Valls Figueroa, Wilfredo; Segura Domínguez, Alain; Romero Fernández, Ariel. Quality characteristics, methods to determine them. 2006. Microsoft Power Point.
