Quality Control

Quality control is a process used to ensure that a high quality standard is present in products or goods. Quality control may involve actions and processes as seen fit by the business in verifying and monitoring certain characteristics in a service or product.

A product or service has to be examined by the quality control officers for defects with the aim of detecting those that fail to meet the company’s standards. In the event a defect is found, the quality control officer or team may have to stop production in a bid to trace the source of the error. Quality control officers or teams are not served with the responsibility of solving issues with product or service quality. Technical personnel or consultants are charged with solving quality issues.

Quality control is not limited to products and services in a company. It also analyzes the level of competence in employees. When an employee is inadequately trained to handle the responsibility he is charged with, quality or work will be low and affect output. Quality control should not be confused with Quality assurance, although the two are similar. Quality control is product based, while Quality assurance is Process oriented.

When it comes to controlling the Quality of goods and services in a company, various tools are employed. There are seven basic tools used in quality control. These tools are graphical techniques used to evaluate and analyze statistical data and measure variance. The basic Quality Control tools are;

The cause and effect diagram or the Ishikawa or Fish bone chart- identifies the cause of a quality issue and attempts to find a solution by categorizing causes with the aim of discovering variation.

The Check Sheet is a straightforward document utilized in the range of data in real time at the location the data is being produced. The document is a bare form used to record either qualitative or quantitative data.

Control Charts, Shewhart or process – behaviour charts are statistical tools used to determine variance using graphs. Histograms are common graphs that are easy to understand, they show frequency distribution.

The Scatter Diagram displays pairs of numerical data, one variable on each axis in order to create a relationship.

The Pareto Chart exhibits the key elements on a bar chart.

Stratification is a tool that separates data collected from different sources and shows them as patterns.

For any company to be successful, the customer has to be satisfied with the quality of service that is rendered. Quality control measures and teams have to be set in place by the company’s management. When a company has a poor quality control record on a contract, the chance of renewing that contract is slim and clients will be hesitant in working with the company on future projects.

There are several steps to the six sigma program. From yellow belt to Six sigma black belt you’ll find all you need to understand by logging onto sixsigmaonline.org.