INTRODUCTION
The global competitiveness in today's world cannot be over emphasized thus customers anticipate a lot due to completion. Quality is one of the persistent problems faced by many organisations.
Quality has been around for decades however, quality has been described as the "single most important force leading to the economic growth of companies in international markets". ( Feigenbaum, 1982).
The process of manufacturing has become so advanced that many organisations are facing a lot of competition due to technological changes.
According to Luo (2010), acquiring new customers is more difficult than keeping existing customers. If an organisation cannot keep old customers acquiring new one will be very difficult. He also emphasize that It is very important to ensure good quality and to reduce failures.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Quality plays a vital role in such of an organisation be it in a service or manufacturing organisation however a lot of them are still faced with the problem. Quality is seen and defined in different context however there has been different theories over the years to define quality. From a customer point of view, Crosby (1979) also stated that the customer's point of view, quality is defined as the extent at which the customer perceived a product and the expectation of the customer however from the manufacturer's point of view, quality is defined as producing new products and ensuring the products or services conforms to requirements and are free from errors (Berry and Parasuraman 1991).
Five different approaches were created by Garvin to define quality: the transcendent approach of philosophy, the product based approach for economics, the user based approach marketing and operations management, the manufacturing based approach and the value based approach. The manufacturers based approach relates more to the Toyota case study.
QUALITY PLANNING, CONTROL AND IMPROVEMENT
The process of quality planning, control and improvement requires a continuous interaction between the customers, operations and other parts of the organization
The quality trilogy was originated by joseph juran. The planning stage requires organizations to identify the major business goals, customers and products required. In this stage customers are identified and their product needs are developed.
The control stage is the process where of meeting quality goals during operations. It involves five different steps: deciding what should be controlled, deciding on the units of measure, developing performance standards, measuring performance and taking necessary actions based on the analysis of the gap between actual and standard performance.
The improvement stage encompasses the activities directed towards achieving higher levels of performance. In addition to meeting specifications operations should ensure to minimize the variance of its processes and products over time.
According to Chun (2009), inspection is one the best way or approach to ensuring quality. For inspection to be effective, the process must ensure that the most of the problems with the product must be found in the product. On the other hand, during the inspection process, errors are unavoidable and the effectiveness of inspections can vary from one inspector to another and various inspection methods. In other to ensure quality different inspectors should inspect products at different times. As a result of this total quality management was developed as a process for improvement and innovation.
TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT
Total quality management is considered to be one of the most known and applied management all over the world (chase Jacobs aquilano) defined TQM as ensuring the entire departments of an organisation achieves excellence in all aspects of products as well as services to satisfy customers. They also noted total quality has become a key symbol industries struggles to revitalise and reform itself to meet global competition; such revitalisation requires fundamental change and TQM promises to achieve such changes. TQM lays emphasis on
the careful design of products and services
the consistency of producing the same design
Ensuring customer needs and expectations are met.
Operation is emphasized through proper training, supervision, operator inspections and machine maintenance however to ensure continuous improvements, operations should strive to reduce the variance of its process and products over time. Diagram on page 141 of Schroeder. According to Goodman et al 1994, the major reasons for failure of total quality management is that it lacks customer service, employee morale management leadership.
THE ISIKAWA MODEL OF TQM
The ishikawa diagram also known as the fishbone was created by Kaoru Ishikawa to graphically represent the relationship between problems and its potential causes. The ishikawa model helps an organisation scrutinize the causes of quality and determines the relationship amongst them. For the model to be successfully implemented, the workers in an organisation need to participate in total quality management through quality circles and causes-and-effect diagrams.
Figure 1- the ishikawa fish bone structure
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishikawa_diagram
The figure 1 above represents a diagram of the model. The cause side of the diagram shows the possible causes of the problem in an organisation. The effect side shows the problems the organisation is facing.
CAUSE OF QUALITY PROBLEM
Difference in quality specification and actual quality: this occurs when the quality of a product is different from when the actual product is produced.
Difference in manufacturer's specification and customer's specification: quality difference can occur when a customer's expectation of a product is different from what the company produces.
Difference in actual quality and communicated image: this arises when the product from an organization differs from the information communicated to the customer.
Disparity in concept and specification: the difference in concept and specification could also cause quality problems i.e. the original idea by the designer of the product might be different from the actual design produced.
COMPANY'S BACKGROUND
Toyota Motor Corporation is one of the world's leading producers of automobiles ranging from mini vehicles to large trucks. It was incorporated in 1937. It conducts its business worldwide with 51 overseas manufacturing companies in 26 countries and region. As of 2004, Toyota's employee's base was about 320,590 worldwide (on a consolidated basis), and markets vehicles in more than 170 countries. Its main competitors are GM motors, Ford motors and currently Hyundai. In June 2009, Toyota withdrew from the formula one world championship and also ended production orders to the new united motor manufacturing, Inc.(NUMMI),the joint venture company established with General Motors .(www. Toyota.com)
Currently Toyota is facing quality issues which s based on total quality management point listed below.
The current issues faced by Toyota's management are:
The company is taking cars off the road
The company is making a habit of advertising the defects to the public
COST OF QUALITY
The cost of quality is a measurement used for assessing the waste or losses from a defined process. It can be used as a benchmark for comparison of two or more different processes.
The cost of quality can be defined into two different types: control cost and failure cost. The control costs are related to activities that remove errors from the production stream. This is done in two ways: the prevention and appraisal cost.
The failure cost are cost incurred either during the production process (internal)or after the products have been shipped to the customer(external).( Schroeder R 2007)
Fig 2 adapted from
http://www.isixsigma.com
Prevention costs are cost incurred when producing to prevent poor quality bring error to a minimum. Examples include quality planning, training for quality, educating the firm's suppliers and designing the production system for quality.
Appraisal costs are cost incurred in ensuring the product is produced to specification. Are costs of determining the current quality of the process? Examples are testing and ensuring equipment are in good condition, reporting on quality, conducting statistical process control programs.
Internal costs are the cost associated to the errors that are found before the product is handed over to the customer. Examples of these costs are scrap, rework costs, re inspection, retesting and downgrading and downtown
External costs are cost related to the errors found after the product has been transferred to the customer. Example of these cost are warranty charges, complaints adjustment, returned materials and allowances. For this purpose of this case study the external failure cost will discussed. The cost of repairing the cars within their warranty period, Costs of investigating and adjusting of justified complaints is attributable to defective product. The amount of money paid back to customers for the defective products (Schroeder R).
Cost of concessions made to customers due to substandard product being accepted by the customer as it does not meet the specifications JURAN
The total cost of quality will be the sum of internal and external cost. Management will have to increase the budget for prevention activities. More employees that are expert in that field will be assigned to identify and pursue specific quality improvements.
These causes mentioned above will have already had a negative impact on the company's sales and its overall quality. Top management are responsible for improving quality however he stressed that all employees should be trained in the use of problem solving tools and especially statistical techniques. Improved quality leads to lower costs and better quality and lower prices lead to increased market share. Higher market share means that the company can stay in business and create more jobs. (Meredith & Shafer 2007).
OPERATIONS IMPROVEMENT
THE PDCA CYCLE
The PDCA cycle also known as Deming or Shewart was formulated to solve problems. This process believes in doing it all over again. It is seen as re-emphasising the responsibility of management to be actively involved in the organisation's quality programme.
The six sigma also known as DMAIC was originally developed by Motorola by Bill Smith in 1986 when the organisation was facing serious quality issues. The six sigma was introduced by Mikel Harry and Richard Shoreder as a strategy to product quality control (Kuei-Mei Cheng, 2010). Six sigma is defined as
"a comprehensive and flexible system for achieving, sustaining and maximizing business success. It is uniquely driven by close understanding of customer needs, disciplined use of facts, data and statistical analysis, and diligent attention to managing, improving, and reinvention business processes" (Meredith & Shafer 2007).
After Motorola's success, many more companies such as Sony, Citibank, and Ford motors. It is designed to improve manufacturing processes and eliminate defects. The acronym DMAIC is made of five stages and is an improvement methodology in the field of Total Quality Management.
Define: this is the stage that defines the problems which focuses on customer and their requirements. This is done by collecting data and evaluating the current performance. The organisation can adopt Benchmarking and Quality function Deployment. Benchmarking is when an organisation compares its process with another to achieve the best practises. Quality function deployment is a tool that helps translate the requirements of a customer into process capability thus ensuring that improved products satisfy market requirements and can be produces by the organisation.
Measure: this stage identifies
Analyse: the analysis stage determines why the error occurred and identifies the key variables that are responsible for process variation. It makes use of tools such as brainstorming, cause and effect diagram and process capability analysis.
Improve: this stage measures the current performance of the process and analysizes how to eliminate the cause of error.
Control: the control phase determines how to maintain the improvement and ensure they are put in place.
(Meredith & Shafer 2007).
Use of Pareto analysis:
Listed below are some of the external failure costs associated to Toyota.
Cost of poor quality
Poor quality
Quality culture in the organization
Standing in the marketplace
Toyota must look for patterns for similarities among the incident. It must consider the type of road level it happened. Is a problem with assembling, mechanical or a combination or it was as a result of fatigue. Then it must go through elimination. It is similar to a doctor diagnosing illness. You identify d symptoms and then start eliminating causes. If it doesn't go away, then you treat your second guess
The current issues facing Toyota
The current issues facing Toyota are reputation, decline in market shares, severe competition, making cars that are desirable as their competitors and product recall.
The major problem that Toyota is facing from a quality management point of view is the quest to become the biggest automaker in terms of volume thereby concentrating on quantity rather than quality. The internal cost of quality is the major problem with Toyota. One of the major problems with Toyota is the obsession to become no 1 between 2001 and 2009 Toyota went from making 5.2 million
Toyota has made product recalls halting production at its North American plants and suspending the sales of some of its selling brands.
Focusing more on its quality management and making inspection of part more stringent.
CONCLUSION
Quality is a positive approach to make vital and necessary improvement in an organisation. Toyota has failed in its aspect of Quality, however to gain their reputation and confidence in customers they will have to ensure they go back to the drawing that is from the top management to the production line. Failure of brakes was one of the major problems with the cars. Adopting the DMAIC
