What are the Quality Management Challenges in a Manufacturing Industry?

Quality of a product can be ensured if there is an active participation of senior management of a company in the development of the product.If they are not showing any interest in the process and is not giving any suggestions for the improvement of the product then the tendancy develops among the actual product developers to take things for granted and compromise with the quality of the product.

I think that Risk-based analysis is very important to manufacture product of the highest quality.Before manufacturing a product if the risk analysis of the product is done as in what are the problems that are likely to surface during its manufacturing and how they can rectify those problems then its more likely that the product will come up of desired quality.

I feel, organization start the quality system with enthusiasm and to achieve the long term goals in short span. They maintain the pace, stabilize the procedure and processes, and implement well, but after achieving the goals, whole system becomes diluted and focus diverted to some other places.

Another reason is that, organization wants to start various quality certification simultaneously and never adhere on the basics requirements. Defocusing on the primitive as well as modern issues.

Time to time we need technology up-gradation and setting up the process parameters looking into the primary product requirement. R&D, is the namesake only.

Carrying the previous mindset to derive the new solution is also a reason. New approach is not evident to sort out the quality issues.

Quality management needs regular review mechanism, problem identification and solution, updates in product specification sheet, etc.

As far as Technical Competence and resources are considered that is never a constraint for Indian Industries. Only problem has become cost of Quality i.e at what cost we are getting those ultra high- Tech Quality Product. This is because of Scattered availability of resources. In india we have made different Industrial Development Area in different states but at the same time we are giving liberty to set up any Industries at any possible location. This must be restricted. If we allow industries to settle in Industrial development Area only then concentration of Skilled workers, availability of other means of Production will automatially route to that area which will eventually make the cost of Production less.This is the only lack of vision of our great government.

A major problem is the inefficient and decentralized reporting that organisations sometimes have which create ambuiguity among the employees to whom to report to.There should be a clear chain of command where every employee knows their immediate superior so that regular reporting and feedback is done to ensure that the process is moving and whatever the problems occuring are being addressed immediately.

I agree with the three ideas above.

If you want your company to be autonomous, you must take in account that a model is not enough. Exceptions must be part of your functioning. Otherwise, they will became more important than your model. This is why biotechnology, stress tests or ''vintage'' working are becoming so important nowadays. People don't like to be treat as machine, as so their salary.

Pretend your company has a ''real'' life functioning is the best way, my opinion, to make everyone find their own interest (or life) in the company. This way, it won't turn into a new totalitarism in the work field. As proof of it, showing seniors still working (so living...) is a good image of the ''nature working'' of your company.

It is not true that Top Level Management is not involved with Quality mangement, it is exactly opposite. In fact, in india only Top level People are involved with Quality Management System but only problem is that they are not able to motivate the down level to use their own Idea for Quality management rather Down Level Management is only concerned Quality Assurance management.Only when all level of Employees are taken into confidence and they are generated with the feeling that they are equally responsible for Quality Management , the Scenario will be entirely different.

Guys

We need to keep in mind following points, as it is very important which will determine the criteria:

According the industryweek survey, the top 5 reasons are:

http://www.industryweek.com/articles/top_5_supplier_quality_challenges_17018.aspx

well i fink the main quality management challenges in any manufacturing industry may go like follows:-

more and more people demand gud quality rather dan gud quantity

raw materials are decreasing day by day and getting expensive

lack of proper work force

lack of supervising power on workers

lack of proper management in worker's criteria

lack of safety related precautions for workers

no proper pay to workers

lack of recent knowledge of workers

lack of ambience in d manufacturing area

workers want to produce required quantity or mostly more no. of products before deadline rather dan paying attention towards the quality

Is it possible to have team without a formal leader? Can the team function effectively and cosntructively? What will happen if such a team is formed and a common task is assigned to it? Will it come out with good result or fail due to lack of dirction? Anyone is willing to try this?

V.Kadal Amutham

I feel that the biggest challenge is driving change acceptance and quality culture.

Quality has to be at the grassroot level and that cannot happen unless it becomes a part of the culture in the organization. To make quality a culture, the first challenge is Change acceptance.

People are naturally resistant to accept and implement anything that looks threatening to their jobs. THe automatic view of line level people is that any improvement will lead to people getting laid off. SO, the quality culture needs to be driven in such a way that it is accepted as a way to improve everyone's lives and also the chances for growth for everyone. When this message gets across, people will and generally do start looking for ways to improve.

GE, Toyota and Motorola are good examples of how an orgaization with quality at its core can far outperform its competitors and improve its bottom line at the same time.

To add to my point above, I think that is is important to focus primarily on the efficiency and quality of the manufacturing systems and process as most oftne failures in the process is what leads to failures in the product. It might not be a flaw in the product itself, but in all the process leading to the creation of the product that need to be looked at. Significant improvements can be seen by having a LEAN workflow and also using six Sigma and JIT to improve processes.

For example, most companies identify and fix defective pieces of any product being manufactured as a part of their quality control proces. THis approach is highly inefficient. Instead, if focus is on finding out root causes for the defective parts, and eliminating the root causes, then we cana ensure that the defect never occurs again in the future. THe short term costs are higher but the long term benefits are unbeatable. Especially in a economic downturn, repairing defective parts or scrapping defective parts can be very expensive.

Also, QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IS NOT LIMITED TO MANUFACTURING LINES. Traditionally, more than 50% of a product MRP is admin, support, distribution and transportation costs. The customer really does not want to pay for all of these. They only want to pay for the actual product. So, any reduction in these can lead to a major competitive edge.

the people are self compromising, this problem not affect the product

In India, In all industries - be it small Scale, mediuma Scale or large Scale- people really performing to convert Raw material through process into Product are associated with One of the Contrcting Agencies hired by companies. In such situation, Contractor is only bothered to generate maximum possible Output which coul just satisfy all the Acceptance Norms including all permissible tolerances and deviations.So where is the question of Quality management , it then becomes a matter of Quality Requirement Parity Mangenment.