To-date Selective Training

TQM

To-date Selective Training

In India training in the quality sciences has been largely confined to members of the specialized quality departments: quality managers, quality engineers, reliability engineers, inspection supervisors, and quality auditors. Such categories constitute only about 5% of the managerial and specialist forces in the companies. In contrast, the Japanese have trained close to 100% of their managers and specialists in the quality sciences. With such an imbalance in training there is no possibility for us to overtake the Japanese.

Variation in Training needs:

The major commonalities include

-The universal sequence of events for improving quality and reducing quality-related costs. (Creation of beneficial change)

-The universal feedback loop of control (Prevention of adverse change)

-Fundamentals of data collection and analysis

Other training needs vary widely. Here are some examples relative to specific functional departments:

Production design: Design review, reliability analysis, maintainability analysis, safety analysis, failure mode and effect analysis, fault tree analysis, design of experiments and analysis of variance, and life cycle costing.

Purchasing: Vendor survey, vendor qualification, audit of decisions and vendor rating.

Process Engineering: Process capability analysis, quality cost analysis, process control, concepts of operator self-control and self-inspection, measurement error, design of experiments and analysis of variance.

Production: Quality cost analysis, process capability analysis, concepts of operator self-control and self-inspection, process control, equipment maintenance, audit of decisions and trouble shooting.

Massive training requires thorough planning:

The need for such planning becomes evident when we realize that:

The massive program will take years-even a decade to work its way through the hierarchy.

The special needs of each functional department and job category should be identified and provided for.

The costs are substantial.

It is recommended that:

Establish a special task force to do the planning on a company-wide basis. The task force should consist of selected line managers plus a training manger and a quality manager. The mission of the task forces is to:

Identify the subject matter of the training needed by each job category

Identify possible sources for training materials and for leaders to do the training

Estimate the investment required in money, facilities and personnel.

Recommend a program including training media, locations, leaders and a time schedule.

A major limitation in setting up these training programs is a shortage of adequate training materials. We need badly an extensive array of training materials which cover management of quality for all functions and at all levels. Moreover, these materials should be designed to facilitate in-house training or at least, training by local leaders. Otherwise, companies will face the heavy burden of sending managers to distant cities, at high cost an with associated interruptions in work schedules.