Quality Management System

A QMS enables an organisation to achieve the goals and objectives set out in its policy and strategy. It provides consistency and satisfaction in terms of methods, materials, equipment, etc, and interacts with all activities of the organisation, beginning with the identification of customer requirements and ending with their satisfaction, at every transaction interface

Management systems are needed in all areas of activity, whether large or small businesses, manufacturing, service or public sector. A good QMS will: • Set direction and meet customers’ expectations • Improve process control • Reduce wastage • Lower costs • Increase market share • Facilitate training • Involve staff • Raise morale

Failure testing[edit]

A valuable process to perform on a whole consumer product is failure testing or stress testing. In mechanical terms this is the operation of a product until it fails, often under stresses such as increasing vibration, temperature, and humidity. This exposes many unanticipated weaknesses in a product, and the data is used to drive engineering and manufacturing process improvements. Often quite simple changes can dramatically improve product service, such as changing to mold-resistant paint or adding lock-washer placement to the training for new assembly personnel.

Statistical control[edit]

Statistical control is based on analyses of objective and subjective data.[6] Many organizations use statistical process control as a tool in any quality improvement effort [7] to track quality data. Any product can be statistically charted as long as they have a common cause variance or special cause variance to track.[8]

Walter Shewart of Bell Telephone Laboratories recognized that when a product is made, data can be taken from scrutinized areas of a sample lot of the part and statistical variances are then analyzed and charted. Control can then be implemented on the part in the form of rework or scrap, or control can be implemented on the process that made...