Quality improvement

J. D. Benson and co-workers. Effects of Gasoline Sulfur on Mass Exhaust Emissions—-Autoj Oil Air Quality Improvement Research Program, SAE 912323, Society of Automotive Engineers, Warrendale, Pa., 1991. 

The impact of a knowledge-based application may appear in many ways improved competitive position, quality improvement, improvement in efficiency, cost reduction, and reduction in downtime, to name a few. Some of these benefits may be hard to quantify others may not be quantifiable at all. For example, the actual benefit derived from a diagnostic advisory system may not be apparent if the process behaves normally. To quantify the benefits, a careful post-audit may have to be done, taking into account the number of faults averted, and comparing the frequency of faults before and after implementation. 

Product-quality improvement, as in air cleaning in the production of pharmaceutical products and photographic film... 

O New Rqiiipmenl Equip. Unavailable C ) Yield/Quality Improv. 

Are SPC/SQC charts maintained and used for continuous product quality improvement ... 

Are there specific and measurable quality improvement goals for the organization and is there a defined quality improvement process in place ... 

Management should demonstrate more than arm s length support for quality improvement. They should provide involved leadership and constancy of purpose. There are three key aspects of this leadership. 

The chief executive should formally document the organization s quality policy. This policy should include the relative priority assigned to continuous quality improvement, the acceptable standard for quality, and the system to achieve that standard. 

Management should assign clear responsibility for quality improvement. Those responsible should have the authority, or... 

Management should also install a process for quality improvement. Continuous quality improvement will occur only through a defined, planned, documented and systematic approach that involves eveiy employee. 

The quality improvement process should become a part of the organization s culture. 

All tollers should eventually be assessed regarding their own quality improvement programs as well as meeting requirements. This can be done either formally, such as with an assessment process and form, or informally through normal communications. In either case, the results of the toller assessment should be documented and well understood within the organization. 

Audits should assess whether the actual quality improvement and safety activities comply with planned activities. The effectiveness of the overall quality and safety system should be scrutinized. Fundamental procedures and methods should be investigated to insure they are up-to-date and being followed in actual practice. The focus of the audit should be prevention, that is, finding areas needing improvement before they actually turn into situations that generate iioiicoiiformaiice. 

Teehniques sueh as FMEA, DFA and Quality Funetion Deployment (QFD) ean enhanee the sueeess of a produet, but alone they will not solve all produet development issues (Andersson, 1994 Jenkins et al., 1997a Kilt et al., 1993). They provide useful aids in the proeess of quality improvement, but they do not ensure produet quality (Andersson, 1994). There exists an important need for DFQ teehniques to aid design and support the produet development proeess (Andreasen and Olesen, 1990). In addition, it has been eited that in order to make further reduetions in produet development time requires new progress in these teehniques (Dertouzos et al., 1989). 

Conduet quality improvement programmes as required Create and utilize supplier quality ratings. 

Straker, D. 1995 A Toolbook for Quality Improvement and Problem Solving. London Prentice-Hall. 

Saturation of olefins other than reactive olefins usually is not desired. The added hydrogen is often expensive or useful elsewhere, and it does not provide any real improvement in product quality. Acmally, product quality may be reduced in the case of gasolines. Research octane number losses may be correlated with increasing olefin saturation. So in many cases, hydrodesulfurization conditions are selected with an eye toward minimizing olefin saturation over and above that needed for product quality improvement. There is one exception saturation of certain olefins shows substantial improvements in Motor octane number. This is true for iso- and n-pentenes and to a lesser extent for higher boiling isoolefins. The higher n-olefins show octane losses upon saturation. 

Several methods have evolved to achieve, sustain, and improve quality, they are quality control, quality improvement, and quality assurance, which collectively are known as quality management. This trilogy is illustrated in Figure 2.1. Techniques such as quality planning, quality costs, Just-in-time , and statistical process control are all elements of... 

The transition between where quality improvement stops and quality control begins is where the level has been set and the mechanisms are in place to keep quality on or above the set level. In simple terms, if quality improvement reduces quality costs from 25% of turnover to 10% of turnover, the objective of quality control is to prevent the quality costs rising above 10% of turnover. This is illustrated in Figure 2.4. 

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