Philip Crosby's Quality Principles

Philip Crosby's Quality Principles

   Philip Crosby has developed 14 steps for an organization to follow in building an effective quality program.

They are as follows:

1.      Management commitment:

 Clarify where management stands on quality. It is necessary to consistently produce conforming products and services at the optimum price. The device to accomplish this is the use of defect prevention techniques in the operating departments: engineering, manufacturing, quality control, purchasing, sales, and others. The management must ensure that no one is exempted.

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2.      The quality improvement team:

They run a quality improvement program. As every function of operation contributes to defect levels, every function must participate in the quality improvement effort. The degree of participation is best determined by the particular situation that exists. However, everyone has the opportunity to improve.

3.      Quality measurement:

Communicate current and potential non-conformance problems in a manner that permits objective evaluation and corrective action. Basic quality measurement data are obtained from inspection and test reports, which are broken down by operating areas of the plant. By comparing the rejection data with the input data, it is

possible to know the rejection rates. As most companies have such systems, it is necessary to go into them in detail. It should be mentioned that unless these data are reported properly, they are useless. After all, their only purpose is to warn the management of serious situations. They should be used to identify specific problems needing corrective action, and the quality department should report them.

4. The cost of quality:

   Defines the ingredients of the cost of quality (COQ) and explains its use as a Management Tool. The COQ is the money spent beyond what it would cost to build a product right, the first time. As this situation does not occur, there are costs associated with getting a defect-free product produced. There are three COQ

categories:

(a) Prevention: Money required to prevent errors and to do the job right the first time is considered prevention

cost. The category includes money spent on establishing methods and procedures, training workers, and planning for quality. Prevention money is all spent before the product is actually built.

 (b) Appraisal: Appraisal cost covers the money spent to review the completed products against the

requirements. The appraisal includes the cost of inspections, testing, and reviews This money is spent after the product or subcomponents are built, but before it is shipped to the user

(c) Failure: Failure costs are all costs associated with defective products. Some failure costs involve repairing products to make them meet requirements. Others are costs generated by failures, such as the cost of operating faulty products, damage incurred by using them, and the cost incurred because the product is not available. The

user or the customer of the organization may experience failure costs.

4.      Quality awareness:

Provide a method of raising the personal concern raised by all personnel in the company toward

the conformance of the product or service and the quality reputation of the company. By the time a company is ready for quality awareness step, they should have a good idea about the types and expense of the problems being faced. The quality management and COQ steps will have revealed them.

5.      Corrective action:

Provide a systematic method of permanently resolving the problems that are identified through previous action steps. Problems that are identified during the acceptance operation, or by some other means, must be documented and then resolved formally.

6.      Zero defect(ZD) planning:

 Examine the various activities that must be conducted in preparation for formally launching the ZD program. The quality improvement task team should list all the individual action steps that build up to ZD day in order to make the most meaningful presentation of the concept and action plan to personnel of the company. These steps, placed on a schedule and assigned to members of the team for execution, will provide a clean energy flow into an organization-wide ZD commitment. Since it is a natural step, it is not difficult, but because of

the significance of it, the management must make sure that it is conducted properly.

8. Supervisor training:

Define the type of training the supervisors need in order to actively carry out their part of the quality improvement program. The supervisor, from the board chairman down, is the key to achieving improvement goals. The supervisor gives the individual employees their attitudes and work standards, whether in engineering, sales, computer programming, or wherever. Therefore, the supervisor must be given

primary consideration when laying out the program. The departmental representatives on the task team will be able to communicate much of the planning and concepts to the supervisors, but individual classes are essential to make sure that they properly understand and can implement the program.

9. ZD day:

Create an event that will let all employees realize through personal experience that there has been a change. ZD is a revolution to all involved that they are embarking a new way of corporate life. Working under discipline requires personal commitments and understanding. Therefore, it is necessary that all members of the company participate in an experience that will make them aware of this change.

10 Goal setting:

Turn pledges and commitments into action by encouraging individuals to establish improvement goals for

themselves and their groups. About a week after ZD day, individual supervisors should ask their people what kind of goals they should set for themselves. Try to get two goals from each area. These goals should be specific and measurable.

11. Error-cause removal (ECR):

Give the individual employee a method of communicating with the management the situations that make it difficult for the employee to fulfill the pledge to improve. One of the most difficult problems that the employees face is their inability to communicate their problems with the management. Sometimes they are

just put up with the problems because they do not consider them important enough to bother the supervisor. Sometimes the supervisor does not listen anyway. Suggestion programs are some help, but in a suggestion program, the worker is required to know the problem and also propose a solution. ECR is set up on the basis that the worker needs to only recognize the problem. When the worker has stated the problem, the proper department in the plant can look into it. Studies of ECR programs show that over 90% of the items submitted are acted upon, and 75% of the problems can be acted upon at the first level of supervision. The number of ECRs that save money is extremely high since the worker generates savings every time the job is done better

or quicker.

 12. Recognition:

Appreciate those who participate-people really do not work for money. They vo to work for it, but once the salary has been established their concern is their appreciation. Recognize their contribution publicly and noisily, but do not demean them by applying a price tag to everything.

13. Quality councils:

Bring together the professional quality people for planned communication on a regular basis. It is vital for the professional quality people of an organization to meet regularly just to share their problems, feelings, and experiences with each other. Isolated even in the midst of many fellow workers, these people are primarily concerned with measurement and reporting, and it is easy for them to become influenced by the urgency of activity in their work areas. Consistency of attitude and purpose is the essential personal characteristics of one who evaluates another's work. This is not only because of the importance of the work itself but also because those who submit their work unconsciously draw a great deal of their performance standard from the performance evaluator.

14.  De it over again:

 Emphasize that the quality improvement program never ends. There is brays a great sigh of relief when the goals are reached. If care is not taken, the entire program will end at that moment. It is necessary to construct a new quality improvement team, and let them begin again and create their own communications.