Continuous Quality Improvement
The improvement of quality has been sought by manufacturers for a long time. The path seeking improvement is marked by many thrusts. Some earlier ones started in the 1960s were quality control,quality assurance,and product assurance;then came total quality control and company wide quality control. Today there is total quality management.
Companies in business for any length of time embarked on a series of thrusts to improve quality. Despite these efforts,companies today may spend over one-fourth of their revenue to find and correct quality problems. Because of product failures,customers are getting products not up to par and seeking other sources. The survival of many companies depends on correcting this situation.
Broad concept of continuous improvement:
The concept of continuous improvement is the strategy that companies must adopt. Knee-jerk reactions to problems are no longer sound.It is an established fact that inspection has little effect on quality. Companies must be involved in an ongoing effort to seek better levels of performance. Once new levels are reached,the effort must continue toward the next level. The journey for continuous improvement is expected by many to last forever.
Improvement efforts must be broad and applied to everything.Continuous improvement is far more than just improving the quality of products.For example, it could relate to improving cash flow through better customer billing methods, or reducing the lead time required to develop a product.
Quality improvement is only part of the broader improvement effort. Continuous improvement mandates that there must be a basic change in the way that we think,learn,govern and operate any organization. Many efforts of the past to improve quality were fruitless because this basic change did not happen.