International Journal for Quality Research

6

Authors: P.R. Ramesh, Rajesh Jain

ISO certification was a great hope for many stakeholders in India for making the country strong in terms of quality practices. It was a blessing in disguise when in early nineties; buyers were imposing conditions that you should be ISO compliant to do business with them. ISO was a great system to bring in improvements in the way an organization functions. But unfortunately some have adopted a short cut approach in getting the certification done. It is only just before the audit team comes for re-inspection that firms start removing dust from the quality manual files so that they can pretend that that they follow those systems. But a real commitment to adhering to these systems is missing. The paper describes such scenario existing in some quarters in India and warns against such practices for the overall good of the system.

10

Authors: Nikola Stefanovic, Nemanja Stansic, Zivadin Stefanovic

Private equity funds invest money into companies and, in return, receive stakes in the companies' equity, thus becoming the partners who share the business risk. Because of that, private equity funds increase the value of their portfolio companies, by, among other things, improving their internal processes and strengthening their market positions. While doing that, private equity funds place a special emphasis on the implementation of the total quality. In order to do that, they focus on the three key elements for the successful implementation of the total quality: strategy-based organization, focus on consumers, and obsession with quality.

10

Authors: Nandkumar Gilke, Shankar Mantha, Gopakumaran Thampi

Successful implementation of Mass Customization can result in a challenging manufacturing environment with both high volume production and high product mix, where the customers expect individualized products at the same price they are paying for mass-produced items. Meeting this challenge requires changes in the manufacturing strategies, increase in the flexibility of the production equipments and the most importantly are the adaptable computer systems which make this possible in the manufacturing enterprise. The major requirement is to develop a system which can adapt quickly in order to start new production or to react quickly in failure scenario. Thus the system should have the ability of self improving, self-adaptable and self healing. Thus there is a need for technical migration from a well established flexible manufacturing system (FMS) to intelligent and reconfigurable manufacturing system. This paper describes the major enabling and converging technologies facilitating mass customization manufacturing systems in automobile industries in Indian setting and also discusses the proposed architecture for Mass Customization Manufacturing System.

12

Authors: Marija Zahar Djordjevic, Hrvoje Puskaric

Food safety in all food industries gains increasing importance. Except health risks, diseases caused by spoiled food can significantly increase the economic costs, including medical treatment, absence from work, insurance payments and legal compensation. This paper considers the problem of determining the safety of production processes, and thus the products, in food chains using an expert system which is based on fuzzy logic. All the uncertainties and imprecisions that exist in a model properly are described using the theory of fuzzy sets. The quality goal values and the optimal management strategy are determined by proposed fuzzy expert system.

14

Authors: Ripon Kumar Chakrabortty, Tarun Kumar Biswas, Iraj Ahmed

Now-a-day's many leading manufacturing industry have started to practice Six Sigma and Lean manufacturing concepts to boost up their productivity as well as quality of products. In this paper, the Six Sigma approach has been used to reduce process variability of a food processing industry in Bangladesh. DMAIC (Define,Measure, Analyze, Improve, & Control) model has been used to implement the Six Sigma Philosophy. Five phases of the model have been structured step by step respectively. Different tools of Total Quality Management, Statistical Quality Control and Lean Manufacturing concepts likely Quality function deployment, P Control chart, Fish-bone diagram, Analytical Hierarchy Process, Pareto analysis have been used in different phases of the DMAIC model. The process variability have been tried to reduce by identify the root cause of defects and reducing it. The ultimate goal of this study is to make the process lean and increase the level of sigma.

20

Authors: Yonatan Mengesha Awaj, Ajit Pal Singh, Wassihun Yimer Amedie

In order to survive in a competitive market, improving quality and productivity of product or process is a must for any company. This study is about to apply the statistical process control (SPC) tools in the production processing line and on final product in order to reduce defects by identifying where the highest waste is occur at and to give suggestion for improvement. The approach used in this study is direct observation, thorough examination of production process lines, brain storming session, fishbone diagram, and information has been collected from potential customers and company's workers through interview and questionnaire, Pareto chart/analysis and control chart (p-chart) was constructed. It has been found that the company has many problems; specifically there is high rejection or waste in the production processing line. The highest waste occurs in melting process line which causes loss due to trickle and in the forming process line which causes loss due to defective product rejection. The vital few problems were identified, it was found that the blisters, double seam, stone, pressure failure and overweight are the vital few problems. The principal aim of the study is to create awareness to quality team how to use SPC tools in the problem analysis, especially to train quality team on how to held an effective brainstorming session, and exploit these data in cause-and-effect diagram construction, Pareto analysis and control chart construction. The major causes of non-conformities and root causes of the quality problems were specified, and possible remedies were proposed. Although the company has many constraints to implement all suggestion for improvement within short period of time, the company recognized that the suggestion will provide significant productivity improvement in the long run.