Next, we will analyze the concepts related to the subject of quality control, its importance, in short, everything that this extensive, but important subject that is vital for our training as industrial engineers covers. We will rely on the knowledge and theories of the greatest and most important quality authors who are: Dr. Walter Shewhart, W. Edwards Deming, Dr. Joseph M. Juran, Dr. Armand Feigenbaum, Dr. Philip Crosby, Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa and Dr. Genichi Taguchi.
Let's start by analyzing the concept of quality issued by Dr. Walter Shewhart, who understood quality as “a variation problem, which can be controlled and prevented by eliminating the causes that cause it in time”.
This means that we as engineers cannot allow things to happen, we must prevent, not to regret; For example, if we observe that the packaging of a machine is wearing out, then, we should not wait for it to finish wearing down to change it, but rather do it before, since the damage of this packaging would imply stopping the process and that in addition to It incurs costs for the company, it also affects the quality of the products, since the last products to be processed before breaking it, come out with defects, caused by variations due to packaging wear.
Continuing with W. Edwards Deming, who in his book Quality, productivity and Competitive Position presents the fourteen points of senior management, of which we can highlight “Establish the purpose of constantly improving the product and the service, with the goal of being competitive and continue in the market ”, this refers to continuous improvement, which can be achieved by working on a day-to-day basis, making progress so that the quality of the products offered is better and better, providing the best satisfaction to the clients.
Dr. Joseph M. Juran, basically tells us that in order to improve the quality of our products we must train all levels of our organization, with regard to its administration. Juran's approach to quality management is based on what is called the Juran trilogy, which is fundamentally about determining customer needs, translating them into the language of the company and transforming them into products that meet their needs. requirements and expectations.
Armand Feigenbaum establece que “Para que el control de calidad sea efectivo, debe iniciarse con el diseño del producto y terminar sólo cuando se encuentre en manos de un consumidor satisfecho”. Uno de los puntos que más me llama la atención es el que dice que la calidad debe estar siempre orientada a la excelencia, y no basándose en el enfoque tradicional de la falla. Ésta es una manera de ver el concepto de calidad muy interesante, ya que rompe con todos los esquemas anteriores, que hablaban de prevención de fallas. También dice algo muy importante de analizar y es lo siguiente: “La automatización no es la solución a los problemas de calidad. Las actividades humanas son fundamentales en cualquier programa de calidad total”. Aquí claramente expone la superioridad en nivel de importancia que tenemos los humanos sobre las máquinas.
Dr. Philip Crosby defines quality in 4 absolute principles, coinciding with the concept of quality issued by Shewhart, on establishing a preventive quality system, he also proposes a program of 14 steps for quality improvement in which he agrees with previous authors as Juran, with regard to staff education.
Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa seems to me to be very radical in his concepts since he is very demanding when it comes to talking about quality, such as: “Quality control that does not show results is not control”. It is very strict, which I think is great, since the quality control process must be carried out with these types of parameters, if we want to obtain the results that meet the needs of our clients, that is, if we want to obtain results from quality.
It says that quality control is the responsibility of all workers and divisions of the company. He also tells us about the importance of statistical methods in quality control, which are a fundamental part of it.
Dr. Genichi Taguchi is based on 2 fundamental concepts, which tell us that we must offer products that are attractive to our customers, highlighting that they must be better than those of the competition.
As a company, when we enter into competition with other companies, we must set ourselves the task of thinking like our adversaries, in order to take measures that help us look for other ways and alternatives to beat the competition, quality alternatives, although not forgetting alternative costs, that is, trying to reduce them as much as possible, without affecting its quality, looking for a way to be competitive.
In conclusion I would like to highlight the importance of quality control in organizations, we must understand that it is essential for our products to have acceptance and success. We must take into account the concepts issued by these authors, which provide us with the basis for the construction of our quality systems.
