What is quality control?
Quality control (QC) is a process by which a company seeks to ensure that product quality is maintained or improved. Quality control requires the company to create an environment in which both management and employees strive for perfection. This is done by training staff, creating benchmarks for product quality, and testing products for statistically significant variations.
An important aspect of quality control is the establishment of well-defined controls. These controls help standardize both production and reactions to quality problems. Limiting the margin of error by specifying which production activities need to be completed and which personnel reduces the chance that employees will engage in tasks for which they are not adequately trained.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Quality control (QC) is a process by which a company seeks to ensure that product quality is maintained or improved.
- Quality control involves testing the units and determining if they are within the specifications of the final product.
- The quality control used in a business is highly dependent on the product or industry, and there are several techniques to measure quality.
- The food industry uses quality control methods to ensure that customers do not get sick from their products.
- Quality control creates safe measures that can be implemented to ensure that poor or damaged products do not end up with customers.
Understanding quality control
Quality control involves testing the units and determining if they are within the specifications of the final product. The purpose of testing is to determine the needs for corrective action in the manufacturing process. Good quality control helps companies meet consumer demands for better products.
Quality testing involves every step of the manufacturing process. Employees often start with raw material testing, draw samples from the manufacturing line, and test the finished product. Testing at various stages of manufacturing helps to identify where a production problem is occurring and the corrective steps it takes to prevent it in the future.
The quality control used in a company is highly dependent on the product or the industry. In food and drug manufacturing, quality control includes ensuring that the product does not make the consumer sick, so the company performs chemical and microbiological tests on the samples from the production line. Because the appearance of prepared foods affects consumer perception, manufacturers can prepare the product according to its packaging instructions for visual inspection.
In automotive manufacturing, quality control focuses on how parts fit together and interact and ensure that engines run smoothly and efficiently. In electronics, testing may involve the use of meters that measure the flow of electricity.
Quality control methods
There are several methods for measuring quality control performance. A quality control chart is a graph that shows whether the sampled products or processes meet the intended specifications and, if not, the degree to which they vary from those specifications. When each chart looks at a specific attribute of the product, it is called a univariate chart. When a chart measures variations in multiple product attributes, it is called a multivariate chart.
X bar chart
Randomly selected products are tested for the given attribute (s) that the chart is tracking. A common form of a quality control chart is the X-bar chart, where the y-axis on the chart tracks the degree to which the variance of the tested attribute is acceptable. The x-axis tracks the tested samples. Analysis of the pattern of variance represented by a quality control chart can help determine whether defects occur randomly or consistently.
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Taguchi method
The Taguchi Method of quality control is another approach that emphasizes the roles of research and development, product design, and product development to reduce the occurrence of product defects and failures. The Taguchi Method considers design to be more important than the manufacturing process in quality control and tries to eliminate variations in production before they can occur.2
100% inspection method
This 100% inspection method is a quality control process that involves examining and evaluating all parts of a product. This type of quality control is carried out to rule out defects in the products.