Automotive Quality Systems Handbook Episode 4 docx

seriously unless they have a particular issue they want to bring to your attention. It is much better to talk face to face with your customer using an interview checklist. Think for a moment how a big customer like Ford or GM would react to thousands of questionnaires from their suppliers. They would either set up a special department just to deal with the questionnaires or set a policy that directs staff not to respond to supplier questionnaires. Economics alone will dictate the course of action customers will take. A customer satisfaction index (CSI) that is derived from data from an independent source would indeed be more objective. Such schemes are in use in North America, Sweden, and Germany. A method developed by a Professor Claes Fornell has been in operation for 12 years in Sweden and is now being used at the National Quality Research Center of the University of Michigan Business School. Called the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) it covers seven sectors, 40 industries, and some 200 companies and government agencies. It is sponsored by the ASQC and the University of Michigan Business School with corporate sponsorship from AT&T, General Motors, and others. Using data obtained from customer interviews, sector reports are published indicating a CSI for each listed organization, thereby providing a quantitative and independent measure of performance useful to economists, investors, and potential customers. A pan-European scheme is being developed through EOQ and is currently on trial. Frequency of measurement Frequency also needs to be adjusted following changes in models and major changes in organization structure, such as mergers, downsizing, and plant closures. Changes in fashion and public opinion should also not be discounted. Repeating the survey after the launch of new technology, new legislation, or changes in world economics affecting the automotive industry may also affect customer perception and hence satisfaction. Trends To determine trends in customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction you will need to make regular surveys and plot the results, preferably by particular attributes or variables. The factors will need to include quality characteristics of the product or service as well as delivery performance and price. The surveys could be linked to your improvement pro- grams so that following a change, and allowing sufficient time for the effect to be observed by the customer, customer feedback data could be secured to indicate the effect of the improvement. Customer dissatisfaction will be noticeable from the number and nature of customer complaints collected and analyzed as part of your corrective action procedures (see Part 2 Chapter 14). This data provides objective documentation or evidence and again can be reduced to indices to indicate trends. Management responsibility 107 auto201.qxd 10/04/00 21:31 Page 107 By targeting the final customer using data provided by intermediate customers, you will be able to secure data from the users but it may not be very reliable. A nil return will not indicate complete satisfaction so you will need to decide whether the feedback is signif- icant enough to warrant attention. Using statistics to make decisions in this case may not be a viable approach since you will not possess all the facts! Considering internal and external customers (4.1.1.3) The note attached to clause 4.1.1.3 needs to be interpreted carefully otherwise you will have every individual setting up systems to monitor their relationship with the people to whom they provide product or information. Everyone needs to be aware of their relationships with others but formal systems are only necessary between organizations. If your organization receives formal orders from other parts of the same company then there may be benefit in treating this as a customer-supplier relationship and monitoring customer satisfaction. It is common when adopting the TQM philosophy to regard all human interfaces as customer-supplier interfaces. When executed wisely this can have a beneficial effect on internal efficiency and effectiveness, but there are pitfalls to avoid. In a customer- supplier chain, the expectations of the external customer can be modified with each transaction, as illustrated in Figure 1.2. 108 Management responsibility External Customer Supplier Customer Supplier Customer Supplier What we think the customer ordered External Customer Supplier Customer Supplier Customer Supplier Exactly what the customer ordered Calibration of requirements Inside the organization Inside the organization Figure 1.2 Internal customer-supplier relationships auto201.qxd 10/07/00 16:37 Page 108 In the upper diagram each supplier individually interprets the customers requirements and either imposes additional requirements or neglects to pass on requirements. The net result at the end of the chain is that the external customer (the one who buys from the organization) does not get satisfaction from the transaction. In the lower diagram, each supplier refers back to the external customers requirements to calibrate the internal customers demands. This ensures that the net result matches exactly what the customer ordered. In reality, such calibration should not be necessary if the internal customers demonstrate traceability to external customer requirements. This can be achieved through process reviews performed in each process before instructions are transmitted to subsequent processes. Continuous improvement (4.1.1.4) The standard requires that continuous improvement in quality, service, cost, and technology be provided for in the quality policy. The standard also requires opportunities for quality and productivity improvement to be identified and appropriate improvement projects implemented . Ambiguity in the requirement It has become fashionable to use the term continuous improvement rather than continual improvement . Continuous means without breaks or interruption  such as continuous stationery. Continual means repeated regularly and frequently  a term that fits the concept of improvement rather better and will be used in ISO 9000:2000. The first two statements in clause 4.1.1.4 create an ambiguity when read together. The first calls for improvements in quality, service, cost, and technology (but not productivity) to be provided for in the quality policy but not implemented and the second calls for improvement in quality and productivity to be identified and implemented with no mention of cost, service, or technology. Quality, service, cost, and technology are not mutually exclusive. One cant distinguish between a quality improvement and a service or technology improvement. It was necessary only to mention quality and cost , as an improvement in service must be an improvement in either the quality or cost of the service  all other factors come within the definition of quality. Improvements in technology are also improvements in quality or cost. Such improvements may improve the quality of design, quality of conformance, or quality of use (see Part 1 Chapter 1 under Quality parameters ) or may cause a reduc- tion in cost while not providing any change in product or service characteristics. Management responsibility 109 auto201.qxd 10/04/00 21:31 Page 109 Productivity is a measure of productive efficiency calculated as the ratio of what is pro- duced to what is required to produce it. Productivity can therefore be considered as a characteristic of a process, and therefore a measure of the quality of a process. Consider two process each producing the same product but one delivers the result using less resources and hence as a consequence has a higher productivity. The process with the higher productivity could thus be regarded as being of better quality. However, measuring resource consumption alone would not be a valid means of comparison as inputs could be vastly different. Hence productivity is a quality characteristic. ¢¢ If you are not maintaining or improving quality, delivery, or cost, the action you are taking adds no value. Improvements in product quality Improvement in business performance is essential for growth and profit, but the ISO/TS 16949 requirements are not concerned with your growth and profits; they are concerned with product quality, and one definition of product quality that signals improvement potential is freedom from defects. Achieving quality become a quest to eliminate defects and in so doing reduces variation in the operational processes, but even when there are no defectives, there will still be variation. One might well question the need to reduce variation when there are no defectives but by reducing variation you will have fewer breakdowns, fewer errors, less space allocated to inventory, less waste, etc.: in fact fewer problems and increased profit as a result. The starting point in building this system of values is self analysis . It is of little use to declare a policy of continual improvement if the will to implement it does not exist. Many organizations are content to meet the specification every time and, once achieved, believe they have made all the improvement to which resources should be committed. There are four questions that each manager should be able to answer: l Can we make it OK? l Are we making it OK? l Have we made it OK? l Could we make it better? Meeting the specification every time means that you have obtained satisfactory answers to the first three questions  but why stop there? Could you make it better? Often the answer is yes but it will cost a lot of money and after all, why should we want to make 110 Management responsibility auto201.qxd 10/04/00 21:31 Page 110 it better? Some reasons for pursuing improvement beyond achievement to specification are given in Part 1 Chapter 1 on the subject of Quality goals . Improvement on cost The price charged for products is a function of cost, profit, and what the market will pay. Sometimes price is much higher than cost and in other cases only slightly higher. ¢¢ Control change and you control cost. In your particular business, it may be profitable to sell some products below cost as an enticement to capture further business where you can make more profit. This will create a force to drive down costs. Remember that if you control change you control cost, so the more stable your processes the less they cost. If you find that you cannot absorb increases in labor and raw material costs, then you may have to look for alternative approved sources, alternative materials, alternative methods or consider alternative designs. By including price in the improvement formu- la, it will act as a driving force. Improvements in productivity Your general aim should be to improve product quality, increase productivity, and reduce the cost of development and manufacture. However, productivity is not easy to measure with multiple products on multiple lines, each at a different stage of maturity. This makes comparisons to detect changes in productivity difficult, if not impossible. However there may be factors common to all product lines, such as labor costs. Merely outsourcing manufacture to developing countries may not improve your productivity. The labor costs may reduce but rework and warranty claims increase. Productivity is only improved if product quality has been maintained. Certain processes may also be common to more than one product line and hence improving productivity of common processes can have wide-ranging impact. Time is also a resource and therefore reducing cycle time impacts productivity. Often the administration and design processes are a source rich in cycle time improvements, such as the time taken to change a document, a design, a policy, etc. or the time taken to place an order, arrange a training course, authorize budgets and expenditure, etc. Reaction time is also important as in servicing, maintenance, customer support, etc. How long does it take to get management to react to a situation that requires their atten- Management responsibility 111 auto201.qxd 10/04/00 21:31 Page 111 tion? There are priorities of course, but question these priorities if you believe they hin- der continuous improvement! A need for productivity improvement may arise because your standards were made difficult to achieve although possible to attain. As a result this has the effect of encouraging initiative and resourcefulness and using the capabilities of your personnel. Many improvement opportunities will be identified by those who are eager to seek easier ways of doing things. Opportunities for improvement can be identified through: l Process and product measurement systems l System audits l Customer and supplier surveys l Suggestion schemes l Research l Experiments l Benchmarking You need an improvement system that causes improvement opportunities to be identified. Relying on chance encounters will not create the conditions needed for continuous improvement. The data that needs to be analyzed will be generated by a particular process and this process governed by particular documented procedures. By having already placed instructions in these procedures for certain data to be transmitted to your data analysts, you can cause opportunities to be identified. Other opportunities that are less dependent on product or process data may arise from the audit process and particular projects such as benchmarking, customer and supplier surveys. Use of appropriate improvement methodologies (4.1.1.4) The standard requires the use of appropriate continuous improvement measures and methodologies . A list showing examples of possible continuous improvement techniques is included in the standard. These techniques and many more are defined in Appendix A and a bibli- ography is provided in Appendix C. 112 Management responsibility auto201.qxd 10/04/00 21:31 Page 112 In demonstrating knowledge of these techniques an auditor would be looking for evidence that: l Staff have received adequate training in continuous improvement methodologies. l Information is available to enable staff to select and use the appropriate techniques. l The technique to be used for identifying improvement opportunities is specified for each quality objective. Just because a technique exists does not imply that you have to use it, but you should understand the advantages and disadvantages of using a particular technique. Responsibility and authority (4.1.2.1) The requirements on responsibility and authority are in two parts: one general and the other relating to people with particular roles. Each is treated separately. Identifying work that affects quality (4.1.2.1.1) The standard requires that the responsibility, authority, and interrelation of personnel who manage, perform, and verify work affecting quality be defined and documented. The key to this requirement is determining what work affects quality; i.e. if you can identify any work that does not affect quality, you are not obliged to define in your quality system the responsibilities and authority of those who manage, perform, or verify it. In principle, everyones work affects the quality of the products and services supplied by the organization, some directly, others indirectly. Work can be divided into result- producing, support, and housekeeping activities. All are essential to the business but only the result-producing and support activities affect the quality of the products and services supplied. The result-producing activities are those which directly bring in rev- enue and which contribute to results, such as sales, marketing, development, manufacture, and maintenance. The support activities are usually those which set standards, create vision, produce information needed by the result-producers, provide teaching, training, and advice, such as research, computer services, quality assurance, training, and personnel. Housekeeping activities are those which do not contribute to results but their malfunction could harm the business, such as health and safety, securi- ty, catering, travel, medical, general maintenance, etc. Management responsibility 113 auto201.qxd 10/04/00 21:31 Page 113 Apart from result-producing activities, there are several other activities that could affect quality: l A failure to observe government health and safety regulations could close a factory for a period and hence result in late delivery to customers. l Health and safety hazards could result in injury or illness, place key personnel out of action for a period, and hence result in work not being done or being done by personnel who are not competent. l A failure to take adequate personnel safety precautions may put product at risk. l A failure to safely dispose of hazardous materials and observe fire precautions could put plant at risk. If there are personnel involved with the identification, interpretation, promulgation, and verification of such regulations then their responsibilities and authority will need to be defined in the quality system. What is responsibility and authority? Defining the responsibility and authority of personnel can be achieved in several ways but first lets look at what we mean by responsibility and authority . Responsibility is in simple terms an area in which one is entitled to act on ones own accord. It is the obligation of staff to their managers for performing the duties of their jobs. It is thus the obligation of a person to achieve the desired conditions for which they are accountable to their managers. If you caused something to happen, you must be responsible for the result just as you would if you caused an accident  so to determine a persons responsibility, ask What can you cause to happen? Authority is in simple terms the right to take actions and make decisions. In the management context it constitutes a form of influence and a right to take action, to direct and coordinate the actions of others, and to use discretion in the position occupied by an individual, rather than in the individual themselves. The delegation of authority per- mits decisions to be made more rapidly by those who are in more direct contact with the problem. It is necessary for management to define who should do what in order that the desig- nated work is assigned to someone to carry out. It is not cost effective to have duplicate responsibilities or gaps in responsibility as this leads to conflict or tasks being overlooked. 114 Management responsibility auto201.qxd 10/04/00 21:31 Page 114 A persons job can be divided into two components: actions and decisions. Responsibilities and authority should therefore be described in terms of the actions assigned to an individual to perform and discretion delegated to an individual: that is, the decisions they are permitted to take along with the freedom they are permitted to exercise. Each job should therefore have core responsibilities, which provide a degree of predictability, and innovative responsibilities, which in turn provide the individual with scope for development. In defining responsibilities and authority there are some simple rules that you should fol- low: l Through the process of delegation, authority is passed downward within the organization and divided among subordinate personnel, whereas responsibility passes upwards. l A manager may assign responsibilities to a subordinate and delegate authority; however, they remain responsible for the subordinates use of that authority. l When managers delegate responsibility for something, they remain responsible for it. When managers delegate authority they lose the right to make the decisions they have delegated but remain responsible and accountable for the way such authority is used. Accountability is ones control over the authority one has delegated to ones staff. l It is considered unreasonable to hold a person responsible for events caused by factors that they are powerless to control. l Before a person can be in a state of control they must be provided with three things: i) Knowledge of what they are supposed to do: i.e. the requirements of the job, the objectives they are required to achieve. ii) Knowledge of what they are doing, provided either from their own senses or from an instrument or another person authorized to provide such data. iii) Means of regulating what they are doing in the event of failing to meet the pre- scribed objectives. These means must always include the authority to regulate and the ability to regulate both by varying the persons own conduct and by varying the process under the persons authority. It is in this area that freedom of action and decision should be provided. Management responsibility 115 auto201.qxd 10/04/00 21:31 Page 115 l The person given responsibility for achieving certain results must have the right (i.e. the authority) to decide how those results will be achieved; otherwise, the responsibility for the results rests with those who stipulate the course of action. l Individuals can rightfully exercise only that authority which is delegated to them and that authority should be equal to that persons responsibility (not more or less than it). If people have authority for action without responsibility, it enables them to walk by problems without doing anything about them. Authority is not power itself. It is quite possible to have one without the other! A person can exert influence without the right to exert it. l In the absence of the delegation of authority and assignment of responsibilities, individuals assume duties that may duplicate those duties assumed by others. Thus jobs that are necessary but unattractive will be left undone. It also encourages decisions to be made only by top management, resulting in an increasing management work- load and engendering a feeling of mistrust in the workforce. Defining responsibilities and authority (4.1.2.1.1) ISO 9001 requires responsibilities and authority to be documented in addition to being defined, as one can define such things in dialog with ones staff without documenting them. This is indeed a common way for staff to discover their responsibilities. Sometimes you may not be aware of the limits of your authority until you overstep the mark. By documenting the responsibility and authority of staff, managers should be able to avoid such surprises. There are four principal ways in which responsibilities and authority can be documented: l In an organization structure diagram, or organigram l In job descriptions l In terms of reference l In procedures The standard does not stipulate which method should be used. In very small companies a lack of such documents defining responsibility and authority may not prove detri- mental to quality provided people are made aware of their responsibilities and adequately trained. However, if you are going to rely on training, there has to be some written material which is used so that training is carried out to consistent standards. 116 Management responsibility auto201.qxd 10/04/00 21:31 Page 116 [...]... (clause 4. 1.3.1) l Quality planning (clause 4. 2.3.1) l Assigning the project manager (clause 4. 2 .4. 1) l Reporting product realization measurements to management (clause 4. 2 .4. 2) l Conducting project reviews (clause 4. 2 .4. 3) l Carrying out FMEA (clause 4. 2 .4. 5) l Performing process studies (clause 4. 2 .4. 5) l Performing process design verification (clause 4. 2 .4. 9 .4) l Developing control plans (clause 4. 2 .4. 10)... requests (clause 4. 2 .4. 11) l Accepting contracts (clause 4. 3.2.1) auto201.qxd 10/ 04/ 00 21:31 Page 119 Management responsibility 119 l Reviewing product designs (clause 4. 4.6) l Performing product design verification and validation (clauses 4. 4.7 and 4. 4.8.1) l Reviewing product design changes (clause 4. 4.9.1) l Reviewing and approving documents and changes thereto (clauses 4. 5.2.1 and 4. 5.3) l Evaluating... approved specifications (clause 4. 13 .4) l Handling customer complaints (clause 4. 14. 2.1) l Investigating the cause of nonconforming product (clause 4. 14. 2.1) l Determining corrective and preventive actions (clauses 4. 14. 2.1 and 4. 14. 3) auto201.qxd 10/ 04/ 00 21:31 Page 120 120 Management responsibility l Receiving product into and dispatching product from storage areas (clause 4. 15.3.1) l Issuing shipment... satisfaction (clause 4. 1.1.3) l Representing the needs of the customer (clause 4. 1.2.1.2) l Stopping production to correct quality problems (clause 4. 1.2.1.3) l Assigning trained personnel (clause 4. 1.2.2.1) l Appointing the management representative (clause 4. 1.2.3) l Reviewing business plans (clause 4. 1 .4) l Promoting quality awareness (clause 4. 1.6) l Promoting safety awareness (clause 4. 1.7.1) l Conducting... 4. 9 .4) l Verifying product (clauses 4. 10.2, 4. 10.3, and 4. 10 .4) l Performing layout inspection (clause 4. 10 .4. 2) l Checking comparative references (clause 4. 11.1.1) l Calibrating inspection, measuring, and test equipment (clause 4. 11.2) l Notifying customers of nonconforming product shipment (clause 4. 13.1.3) l Reviewing and disposing of nonconforming product (clause 4. 13.2) l Obtaining authorization... subcontractors (clause 4. 6.2.1) l Subcontractor assessment (clause 4. 6.2.1) l Reviewing and approving purchasing documents (clause 4. 6.3) l Verifying product at subcontractors premises (clause 4. 6 .4. 1) l Reporting lost or unsuitable customer supplied product to customers (clause 4. 7.1) l Planning production, installation, and servicing processes (clause 4. 9.1.1) l Verifying job set-ups (clause 4. 9 .4) l Verifying... in a quality system is given in the ISO 9000 Quality System Development Handbook by David Hoyle (Butterworth-Heinemann, 1998) auto201.qxd 10/ 04/ 00 21:31 Page 118 118 Management responsibility Within ISO/TS 16 949 there are several requirements for an assignment of responsibility These include the responsibility and authority for: l Defining the quality policy and objectives (clauses 4. 1.1.1 and 4. 1.1.2)... management review in other sections of the standard: preventive action information (clause 4. 14. 3), internal audit results (clause 4. 17.1), and changes to procedures (clause 4. 14. 1.1) are required to be submitted for management review auto201.qxd 10/ 04/ 00 21:31 Page 136 136 Management responsibility Clause 4. 1.3.1 requires the quality system to be reviewed However, there are only two other references in the... the freedom to identify, record, and report problems relating to the product, process, and quality system The requirement does not cross refer to clause 4. 16 on Quality records, clearly indicating that there is no requirement in this clause for problems to be recorded, as other clauses such as 4. 10, 4. 13, and 4. 14 cover this However, these clauses only relate to problems in not meeting the specified... l Identify opportunities for improvement in the quality system (the innovative role) l Cause beneficial changes in quality performance (the leadership role) l Liaise with external bodies on quality matters (the role of ambassador) auto201.qxd 10/ 04/ 00 21:31 Page 133 Management responsibility 133 Organizational interfaces (4. 1.2 .4) The standard requires systems to be in place to ensure management of . studies (clause 4. 2 .4. 5) l Performing process design verification (clause 4. 2 .4. 9 .4) l Developing control plans (clause 4. 2 .4. 10) l Submitting product approval requests (clause 4. 2 .4. 11) l Accepting. manager (clause 4. 2 .4. 1) l Reporting product realization measurements to management (clause 4. 2 .4. 2) l Conducting project reviews (clause 4. 2 .4. 3) l Carrying out FMEA (clause 4. 2 .4. 5) l Performing. (clause 4. 7.1) l Planning production, installation, and servicing processes (clause 4. 9.1.1) l Verifying job set-ups (clause 4. 9 .4) l Verifying product (clauses 4. 10.2, 4. 10.3, and 4. 10 .4) l Performing

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