MS in TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT ME 251 (NEW) B. TECH. 6th Sem.

JUN/2k5

Max Marks 60
Note: Section A is compulsory. Attempt any four questions each carrying 5 marks from section B and
any two each carrying 10 marks from section
Section A (10 x 2 = 20)

1.
a) Discuss the concept of TQM.
TQM, a word coined by Dr W E Deming, is the practice of management of all the activities in the
organization with customer satisfaction as the objective and where in all activities are included for
continuous improvement with employee involvement.

b) What are the objectives of TQM?

Customer delight
Stakeholder value
Employee involvement
Process improvement

c) Discuss salient features of TQC,

Quality Planning
Quality Control
Quality improvement
Supplier Development.
Listening to Customer voice
Continuous improvement in all processes.

d) Distinguish between TQM and ISO 9000.

ISO 9000 is focused on customer requirements where as TQM is about customer delight.
ISO 9000 is a standard released by International organization for standardization but TQM is a
philosophy or a way of working.
There is certification for ISO 9000 but there is no certificate for TQM.

e) What are dimensions of quality?

• Performance
• Features
• Reliability
• Conformance
• Durability
• Serviceability
• Aesthetics
• Perceived Quality

f) What is JIT?
Just In Time meaning that the purchase/production activities are carried out only when the internal
customer requires the parts and not before.

g) What do you understand by Kanban?

Kanban is visual control system literally cards which may be placed when the internal customer
requires parts so that the stores picks it up and replenishes the exact amount. This works on PULL
system.

h) What is quality circle?

Quality circle is a voluntary small group of workers which meets every week to discuss ways and
means of solving problems of poor Quality or erratic production. It has a leader and members who are
trained in 7 QC tools. They solve problems and present their finding s to management.
i) What is quality system?
Quality system is the aggregate of all factors like design, Production, maintenance and so on which
contribute to the customer satisfaction and achievement of the organisation’s Quality policy and
objectives.

j) What is Documentation?

Documentation is the physical representation of a company’s Quality system. It has many tiers. The
first tire being the Quality Manual the second tier the process maps and the common procedures and
the third tier being the dept procedures and work instructions. The fourth tier is the data and the
records.

Section B (4 x 5 = 20)

2. How would you convince your CEO for implementing ISO 9000 in our company?

I will state the benefits as follows:

1. Our company will get recognition for the systems we follow.

2. Our customers will get the confidence about us.
3. There will be less dependence on person and things will start working systematically.
4. Process approach will help us working for customer irrespective of which dept is responsible.
5. We can train new comers easily.

3. Define benchmarking. What are different types of benchmarking?

benchmarking is the methodology of one company learning the best practices from another company
after an agreement for mutually sharing the information for the mutual benefit and for societal
learning.
Different types benchmarking are

1. product benchmarking
2. process benchmarking
3. Best practices benchmarking.

4. Discuss the benefits of TQM.

1. The organization is in a position to translate customer requirements in the product.

2. Cost of Poor Quality comes down and the Quality is built in and not inspected in.
3. Employees get involved as the team work improves relationships.
4. Processes get improved continuously due to PDCA cycle.
5. Good cooperation is obtained from other stakeholders like suppliers due to partnership.
6. Long term sustainability is endured for the company.
7. Good recognition in the form of awards in the national and international arena.
8. New products get developed ensuring market leadership.

5. How does JIT help the manufacturing system to improve productivity? Explain.

The traditional manufacturing system has several drawbacks the most important being that of the
unevenness in the line. Machines and processes are sub optimized which result in individual sections
running as per their optimum levels. Thus, it is common to see the press shop turning out 300 parts
per hour whereas the subsequent welding section can only process 30 per hour. Huge inventories are
kept in the racks.
The answer to this situation is following Just in Time or JIT. In JIT, the parts are produced as per the
requirements of the next process. So the press shop should ideally run for an hour and give the parts
to welding rather than turning out parts.

In 1970, Taiichi Ohno implemented JIT in Toyota. JIT has three parts 1. Kanban 2 Heijunko and Lean
Manufacturing. In traditional manufacturing the productivity is constrained by the other facilities and
machines. In JIT, the machines and layouts are changed to cater to the next process and the end
customer. The unwanted operations are removed. At the same time techniques like Single Minute
exchange of dies help to turn the idle time into preparation activities for the next batch.
Due to the entire line catering to the next process in time, there is no buffer available what ever is
produces should be of right quality. The rework and rejection are reduced considerably. Due to these
productivity goes up.

6. What is empowerment? What effort can be made to empower individual employee and their
groups in an organisation?

Empowerment is the state when the people at a particular role in an organisation are able to take
decisions without having to wait for their superiors to instruct them.
This is achieved when the goals are derived from the customer requirements and are made clear to
all the employees.
The empowered employees should have the competences required to take the decisions.
The process should be simplified to suit the new environment.
The departments should be preferably co located.
Communication should be strong and if need be with built in redundancy.

Section C (2 x 10 = 20)

7. Compare and contrast JIT and MRP. Which is more suited to Indian companies?

Material Requirements Planning pr MRP is the methodology by which we translate the product tion
schedule for an end product considering a set of requirements for all the sub assemblies and parts
required to make the item.
JIT is Just in time is where want to make the right amount of product at the right time.
MRP is the classic push system and it computes production schedules of all items based on the sales
forecasts of end products. Once they are produced, the items are pushed to next level whether they
are required or not.
JIT is the classic pull system. The basic mechanism is that the production at one level happens only
when the request at the next higher level is initiated. That is the units are pulled through the system
by requests generated in real time.
These methods offer two completely different approaches to basic production planning in a
manufacturing environment. Each has advantages over the other, but neither seems to be sufficient
on its own. Both have advantages and disadvantages, suggesting that both methods could be useful
in the same organization.

Main Advantage of MRP over JIT: MRP takes forecasts for end product demand into account. In
an environment in which substantial variation of sales are anticipated (and can be forecasted
accurately), MRP has a substantial advantage.

Main Advantage of JIT over MRP: JIT reduces inventories to a minimum. In addition to saving
direct inventory carrying costs, there are substantial side benefits, such as improvement in quality
and plant efficiency.

The disadvantages of MRP are

Uncertainty. MRP ignores demand uncertainty, supply uncertainty, and internal uncertainties that
arise in the manufacturing process.
Capacity Planning. Basic MRP does not take capacity constraints into account.
Rolling Horizons. MRP is treated as a static system with a fixed horizon of n periods. The choice
of n is arbitrary and can affect the results.
Lead Times Dependent on Lot Sizes. In MRP lead times are assumed fixed, but they clearly
depend on the size of the lot required.
Quality Problems. Defective items can destroy the linking of the levels in an MRP system.
Data Integrity. Real MRP systems are big (perhaps more than 20 levels deep) and the integrity of
the data can be a serious problem.
 n Order Pegging. A single component may be used in multiple end items, and each lot must
then be pegged to the appropriate item.

Distinguishing features of JIT systems:

Small Work-in-Process Inventories.

Advantages:
1. Decreases Inventory Costs
2. Improves Efficiency
3. Reveals quality problems

Disadvantages:
1. May result in increased worker idle time
2. May result in decreased throughput rate

8. Discuss the factors affecting process management.

Process management is the methodology of managing all activities and factors related to customer
satisfaction or any other outcome determined by the organization as important.

So, one thing becomes clear that Process management is a means to achieve an outcome and not an
end by itself.

Second, a process is indigenous to an organization. Process management starts looking at it critically

with a view to improve the flow of activities and the value derived from each action.

Third, the process is truly cross functional as none of the functions can single handedly achieve the
outcome.

The factors affecting the process management are

1. The scope of the process: the process is understood differently by different people in the
organization and so the outcome is achieved with variation. (Should I inspect after
unloading?)
2. The sequence in which the process is carried out is very vital and the variation in this can
make the process look erratic. (In one branch, the applications are scanned before approvals
and in another they are scanned after approvals).
3. People manning the processes and their competence levels affect the process because the
decisions taken by them will differ. Thought eh activity is same, the service quality will differ,
for example, in two clinics depending on the experience of the nurse.
4. The Quality of inputs and the timeliness in which they are received will affect the process,
5. The process management traces through many activities which have interrelationship but the
activities call under different managers for administrative purposes. They issue instructions
which are sometimes conflicting. This affects the process and the outcome.
6. Feedback from the customer either external or internal is important for the improvement of the
process and the absence of feedback or delay in feedback affects the process.
7. the measures and targets are vital for review. In case the process has no in-process measure
and has been managed more by conformance to certain procedures, the process becomes
bureaucratic and slow.

9. Write notes on the following:

(a) Quality Assurance System
Quality assurance system is a company wide integrated set of actions and processes followed for the
benefit of the customer. The significant characteristics of the Quality assurance system are as follows;
1. The system is not departmental but interdepartmental.
2. Cross functional working like marketing with design and design with manufacturing is the
feature of the system.
3. Plan-DO-Check-Act cycle is followed.
4. The system is directed from the requirements of the customer.
5. System consists of measurements which are based on Quality, cost and delivery.
6. The system is backed up by information system and evaluation system.

Typical flow of activities in a QA system is as follows;

No Activity Design Purchase Manufacturing
1 Review of enquiry from Do the review from
customer design aspects
2 Check material
availability and cost
3 Check delivery
required

(b) Taguchi methods.

Taguchi methods are statistical methods developed by Genichi Taguchi to improve quality of
manufactured goods. The methods are centered on three points.

1. Loss function
2. Offline Quality control
3. Modifications in Design of experiments.
Unlike agriculture, industrial production evolves around producing a product on target eg a hole has to
be 19 mm in all cylinders.

Taguchi argued that quality cannot be number of items outside the specification because this is short
term. He said that any item produced away from the target will have a long term effect on cost either
to the manufacturer or to he customer or to the society. These are ignored because the manufacturers
are interested in their costs and not in society’s costs. This was revolutionary to the traditional quality
management.

Taguchi realized that the best way to eliminate variation is in the design of the product and in the
design of the process.
Consequently, he developed a strategy for Quality Engineering that can be used in both the contexts.
The process has three stages.

1. system design
2. parameter design
3. tolerance design

System design involves creativity and innovation.

Parameter design involves “robustification’ whereby Taguchi asked the values to be under specified
as compared to the performance of machine say 19 plus or minus 0.5 whereas the machine is
capable of plus or minus 0.1. This allowed the process to vary but did not affect the end customer.

Genichi Taguchi contributed to Quality management just like Dr Deming. His emphasis on loss to
society along with the system parameter and tolerance design has benefited the quality engineering. It
is remarkable that he mostly worked outside professional statistics.