University B.D.

T College of Engineering DAVANGERE

Topic
MODULE 4:
Continuous Process Improvement
Statistical Process Control
Dr. S.B. MALLUR
Professor
Department of Studies in Mechanical Engineering
University B.D.T College of Engineering DAVANGERE – 577 004
(A Constituent College of V.T.U, Belgaum)
Cell No: 9448069380
E-Mail- sbmallur@rediffmail.com, sbmallur@gmail.com
 UNIT - 4
Continuous process improvement
statistical process control
Module - 4
Continuous Process Improvement: process, the Juran
trilogy, improvement strategies, types of problems,
the PDSA Cycle, problem-solving methods, Kaizen,
reengineering, six sigma, case studies.
Statistical Process Control : Pareto diagram, process
flow diagram, cause and effect diagram, check sheets,
histograms, statistical fundamentals, Control charts,
state of control, out of control process, control charts
for variables, control charts for attributes, scatter
diagrams, case studies
 Introduction
• Quality-based organizations should strive to
achieve perfection by continuously improving the
business and production processes.
• Of course perfection is impossible because the
race is never over; however, we must continually
for its attainment.
• Improvement is made by
Viewing all work as a process, whether it is
associated with production or business
activities.
Making all processes effective, efficient, and
adaptable.
Anticipation changing customer needs.
Controlling in-process performance using
measures such as scrap reduction, cycle time,
control charts, and so forth.
• Improvement is made by
Maintaining constructive dissatisfaction with the
present level of performance.
Eliminating waste and rework wherever it occurs.
Investigating activities that do not add value to the
product or service, with the aim of eliminating
those activities.
Eliminating nonconformities in all phases of
everyone's work, even if the increment of
improvement of improvement is small.
• Improvement is made by
Using benchmarking to improve competitive
advantage.
Innovating to achieve breakthroughs.
Incorporating lessons learned into future activities.
Using technical tools such as statistical process
control (SPC), experimental design, benchmarking,
quality function deployment (QFD), and so forth.
• Continuous process improvement is designed to
utilize the resources of the organization to achieve a
quality-driven culture.
• Individuals must think, act, and speak quality.
• An organization attempts to reach a single-minded
link between quality and work execution by
educating its constituents to “continuously”
analyse and improve their own work, the processes,
and their work group.
• PROCESS
• Process refers to business and production
activities of an organization.
• Business processes such as purchasing,
engineering, accounting, and marketing are
areas where non conformance can represent
an opportunity for substantial improvement.
Figure 5-1 shows a process model.
Figure 4-1 Input/output Process
Model
• Inputs may be materials, money, information, data,
etc. Outputs may be information, data, products,
service, etc.
• The output of one process also can be the input to
another process.
• Outputs usually require performance measures.
They are designed to achieve certain desirable
outcomes such as customer satisfaction.
• Feedback is provided in order to improve the
process.
• The process is the interaction of some
combination of people, materials, equipment,
method, measurement, and the environment
to produce an Outcome such as a product, a
service, or an input to another process.
• In addition to having measurable input and
out-put, a process must have value-added
activities and repeatability.
.
• It must be effective, efficient, under control,
and adaptable. In addition, it must adhere to
certain conditions imposed by policies and
constraints or regulations.
• Examples of such conditions may include
constraints related to union-based job
descriptions of employees, state and federal
regulations related to storage of
environmental waste, or bio-ethical policies
related to patient care.
• It must be effective, efficient, under control,
and adaptable. In addition, it must adhere to
certain conditions imposed by policies and
constraints or regulations.
• Examples of such conditions may include
constraints related to union-based job
descriptions of employees, state and federal
regulations related to storage of
environmental waste, or bio-ethical policies
related to patient care.
• Process definition begins with defining the
internal and/or external customers.
• The customer defines the purpose of the
organization and every process within it.
• Because the organization exists to serve the
customer, process improvements must be
defined in terms of increased customer
satisfaction as a result of higher quality
products and services.
• All processes have at least one owner. In some
cases, the owner is obvious, because here is
only one person performing the activity.
• However, frequently the process will cross
multiple organizational boundaries, and
supporting sub-processes will be owned by
individuals within each of the organizations.
• Thus, ownership should be part of the
process improvement initiatives.
• At this point it is important to define an
improvement. There are five basic ways to improve:
1.reduce resources,
2.reduce errors,
3.meet or exceed expectations of downstream
customers,
4.make the process safer, and
5.make the process more satisfying to the person
doing it.
• First, a process that uses more resources than necessary is
wasteful. Reports that are distributed to more people than
necessary wastes copying and distribution time, material,
users and read time, and, eventually, file space.
• Second, for the most part, errors are a sign of poor
workmanship and require rework. Typing errors that are
detected after the computer printout require opening the
file, making the correction, and printing the revised
document.
• Third, by meeting or exceeding expectations of
downstream customers, the process is improved. For
example, the better the weld, the less grinding required,
making the appearance of finish paint more pleasing.
• The fourth way to improve a process is to increase the
satisfaction of the individual performing the process.
Sometimes, a little change, such as an ergonomically
correct chair, can make a substantial change in a person’s
attitude toward their work.
THE JURAN TRIOLOGY
• About : Joseph M. Juran
1. Born December 24, 1904
2. Graduated from Minneapolis South High School (1920)
3. Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the
University of Minnesota (1924)
4. Contribution in the field of management, particularly
quality management
• Founder of the consulting firm of Juran Institute, Inc.
• Quality
1. “Quality” means those features of products which
meet customer needs and thereby provide
customer satisfaction
2.“Quality” means freedom from deficiencies—
freedom from errors that require doing work over
again (rework) or that result in field failures,
customer dissatisfaction, customer claims, and so
on
3. In this sense, the meaning of quality is oriented to
costs, and higher quality usually “costs less
• J.M. Juran’s Trilogy
1.Developed the idea of trilogy
• Quality Planning
• Quality Improvement
• Quality Control
2. Trilogy shows how an organization can improve every
aspect by better understanding of the relationship between
processes that plan, control and improve quality as well as
business results
3. In 1951, the first edition of Juran’s quality control
handbook was published
• How To Manage For Quality: The Juran Trilogy
1. To attain quality, it is well to begin by establishing the
“vision” for the organization, along with policies and goals
2. Managing for quality makes extensive use of three such
managerial processes:
• Quality Planning
• Quality Control
• Quality Improvement
These processes are now known as the “Juran trilogy”
Process improvement involves
planning. One of the best
approaches is the one
developed by Dr. Joseph Juran.
It has three components:
planning, control, and
improvement, and is referred
to as the Juran Trilogy. It is
based loosely on financial
processes such as budgeting
(planning), expense
measurement (control), and
cost reduction (improvement).
• 4.3.1. PLANNING
• The planning component begins with external customers.
Once quality gods are established, marketing determines
the external customers, and all organizational personnel
(managers, members of multifunctional teams, or work
groups) determine the internal customers.
• External customers may be quite numerous, as is the case
of a bank supply organization, where they include tellers,
financial planners, loan officers, auditors, managers, and
the bank's customers.
• Where there are numerous customers, a Pareto diagram
might be useful to determine the vital few.
• 4.3.1. PLANNING
• Once the customers are determined, their needs are
discovered. This activity requires the customers to state
needs in their own words and from their own viewpoint;
however, real needs may differ from stated needs.
• For example, a stated need may be an automobile,
whereas the real need is transportation or a status symbol.
In addition, internal customers may not wish to voice real
needs out of fear of the consequences.
• One might discover these needs by
• (1) Being a user of the product or service,
• (2) Communicating with customers through product or
service satisfaction and dissatisfaction information, or
• (3) Simulation in the laboratory. Because customer needs
are stated from their viewpoint, they should be translated
to requirements that are understandable to the
organization and its suppliers.
• Quality Planning
1. Establish quality goals
2. Identify who the customers are
3. Determine the needs of the customers
4. Develop product features that respond to customer’s needs
5. Develop processes able to produce the product features
6. Establish process controls; transfer the plans to the
operating forces
• 4.3.2. CONTROL
• Control is used by operating forces to help meet the
product, process, and service requirements. It uses the
feedback loop and consists of the following steps:
1. Determine items/subjects to be controlled and their units
of measure.
2. Set goals for the controls and determine what sensors need
to be put in place to measure the product, process, or
service.
3. Measure actual performance.
4. Compare actual performance to goals.
5. Act on the difference.
• Statistical process control is the primary technique for
achieving control. The basic statistical process control (SPC)
tools are Pareto diagrams, causeand-effect diagrams, check
sheets, histograms, control charts, and sea diagrams. In
addition, process capability information such as CP and CPK
are used to determine if the process is capable and is
cantered.
• Quality Control
Evaluate actual performance
Compare actual performance with quality goals
Act on the difference
• 4.3.3. IMPROVEMENT
• The third part of the trilogy aims to attain levels of
performance that are significantly higher than current
levels.
• Process improvements begin with the establishment of effective
infrastructure such as the quality council. Two of the cut the council
are to identify the improvement projects and establish the project
with a project owner.
• In addition, the quality council needs to provide the team the
resources to determine the causes, create solutions, and establish
controls to the gains. The problem-solving method described in a
later section may be applied to improve the process, while the quality
council is the driver that ensures that improvement is continuous and
never ending. Process improvement can be incremental or
breakthrough.
• Above fig. 4.2. Provides an example of how the three
continuous improvement processes interrelated. In the
figure, Juran provides a distinction between sporadic waste
and chronic waste. The sporadic waste can be identified
and corrected through quality control. The chronic waste
requires an improvement process. As a solution is found
through the improvement process, lessons learned are
brought back o the quality planning process so that new
goals for the organisation may be established.
• Quality Improvement
Prove the need Establish the infrastructure
Identify the improvement projects
Establish project teams
Provide the teams with resources, training, and motivation
to:
Diagnose the causes Stimulate remedies
• Establish controls to hold the gains
• Strength of Juran’s Trilogy
1. The methodology searches a continuous improvement of
quality in every aspects of the organization, because if the
implementation of the methodology does not give the
desire results it is possible to start all over again
2. The methodology allows the use different quality tools to
cover the steps of Juran’s Trilogy. It allows a better
understanding of the relationships of every stage of the
company
3. The methodology is well structured and allows the
companies that implement it, an easy understanding and
application.
• Weakness of Juran’s Trilogy
1. To have quality control it is necessary to have a trained
person with knowledge in statistical processes or train
aspecial person to be in charge of quality
2. The program is focus in the company process and not in
labor force
3. Analyzing the requirements of the program we found that
the companies who apply the program have a complex
level of organization
4. This kind of methodologies show results in a long term; this
represents a risk for the company because the
implementation of the quality program can be a waste of
time, money and resources.
IMPROVEMENT
STRATEGIES
• There are four primary improvements strategic
1.REPAIR
2.REFINEMENT
3.RENOVATION
4.REINVENTION.

Choosing the right situation is critical. It is also true that

proper integration of the strategies will produce never ending
improvement.
 1.Repair
1.This strategy is simple –anything broken must be
fixed so that it functions as design there are two
levels to this strategy. If a customer receives a
damaged product, a quick fix is required.
2.This level is a temporary or short-term measure.
Although short to measures shore tip the problem,
they should not become permanent.
 1.Repair
1.The second level occurs when an individual or team
identities and eliminates the root cause(s) of the
problem and effects a permanent solution.
2.It is important to note that the repair strategy does
not make the process better than the original
design.
 Refinement
This strategy involves activities that continually
improve a process that is not broken.
Improvements to processes, products, and services
are accomplished on an incremental basis.
Refinement improves efficiency and effectiveness.
It should become an integral part of every
employee's job. Both individuals and teams can use
this strategy.
 Refinement
Typically it relies on doing things just a bit quicker,
better, easier, or with less waste.
This is the concept behind Kaizen to be discussed
later in the chapter. The change may so gradual that
there is no appearance of change.
The primary benefit of gradual change is that it produces
little resistance from employees. However, because the
change is so gradual, management may not recognize and
reward the affected employees. Also, minor changes may
not be documented or properly communicated.
 Refinement
Organizational programs-such as process
improvement teams, suggestion systems, and
empowerment-are combinations of repair and
refinement. "They provide the mechanisms for
activities aimed at making these two strategies a
part of the daily work life.
 Renovation
This strategy results in major or breakthrough
improvements.
Although the resulting product, service, process, or
activity might often appear to be different from
original, it is basically the same.
Innovation and technological advancements are key
in this approach.
 Renovation
For example, the process of drilling a hole was
originally done by with a cranking mechanism;
however, with the advent of the electric motor, the
drill was born.
The electric drill has been continually refined by
improved bits, and materials. More recently,
another renovation occurred that was brought
about development of rechargeable batteries.
 Renovation
The rechargeable electric drill is basic same as the
old hand drill.
Renovation is more costly than the previous
strategy usually undertaken by teams rather than
individuals.
 REINVENTION
Reinvention is the most demanding improvement
strategy.
It is preceded by the feeling that the current
approach will never satisfy customer requirements.
A new product ser- vice, process, or activity is
developed using teams based on a complete
understanding of the customer's requirements and
expectations.
 REINVENTION
Reinvention of reengineering begins by imagining
that the previous condition does not exist---in other
words, a clean sheet of paper. Then the team uses
in-depth knowledge of the customer's requirements
and expectations and invents a new product,
service, process, or activity.
For example, the process of drilling holes using
lasers or water jets was a reinvention. Reinvention
might also be desirable to maintain organization
vitality or competitive advantage.
 REINVENTION
An organization should use this strategy sparingly
because of resistance to change and the fact that
any new product, service, process, or activity will
probably need to have the "bugs" removed by
repair, refinement, and renovation.
• Additional Comments
• The repair and refinement strategies require that all
employees have the freedom to solve problems and make
incremental improvements in their jobs.
• Repair and refinement improvements are almost
immediate with very little cost.
• As previously stated, renovation and reinvention are
effective in making break-through improvements; however,
they usually are more costly, take longer to accomplish, and
have a greater risk of failure.
 TYPES
PROBLEMS
• There are five types of problems:
• COMPLIANCE,
• UNSTRUCTURED,
• EFFICIENCY,
• PROCESS DESIGN,
• PRODUCT DESIGN.
• The first three are performance problems where an existing
system is not performing satisfactorily, and the last two are
design problems that require a new or improved design.
 Compliance
• Compliance problems occur when a structured
system having standardized inputs, processes, and
outputs is performing unacceptably from the user's
viewpoint.
• These problems are identified by comparing with
standards or by feedback from the internal or
external customer.
 Compliance
The major challenge is to determine the root cause
of the nonconformity and then take corrective
action.
Diagnosis can be difficult, because products and
processes are quite complex. Standards cannot
address all of the potential problems due to the
interaction of individually-acceptable
characteristics.
 Unstructured
Unstructured problems resemble compliance
problems except that they are not specified by
standards.
The absence of standards may be due to system
immaturity or to the need for flexibility in system
performance.
For example, an expert woodworker adjusts her
activities to the grain and moisture content of the
wood, and customer service workers adapt their
behavior to individual customers.
 Unstructured
Identification of unstructured problems is usually
brought about by negative customer feedback.
The major challenges are to determine customer
needs and to diagnose the causes of poor
performance.
Because of customer variability, it is difficult to determine
why a product or service was unacceptable.
Organizations need to treat each customer as an individual
and maintain a database on acceptable and unacceptable
behavior.
 Efficiency
1.Efficiency problems occur when the system is
performing unacceptably from the viewpoint of its
owners or operators.
2.In other words, the end user is satisfied; however,
the process is more costly than desired or working
conditions are not acceptable.
3.Problem solving is directed towards reducing cost
and providing safe working conditions.
4.Identification of such problems occurs from
benchmarking and operator suggestions.
 Process Design
1.Process-design problems involve the development
of new processes and revision of existing processes.
2.Many business and production processes have not
been well designed, or have become obsolete with
advances in technology.
3. Identification of problems is prompted by poor
performance, the knowledge chat we can do better
(benchmarking), or the introduction of new products.
4. It requires that User needs and relevant constraints be
identified.
•
 Product Design
1.Product-design problems involve the development
of new product, and the improvement of existing
products.
2.A major focus is to prevent process and end user
problems by relying on customer needs.
3.Although design work can be initiated as a result of
poor product performance, problem solving usually
occurs as a natural part of a competitive
environment.
 Product Design
1.A major challenge is translating, in a timely manner,
user needs and constraints into product attributes
and specifications, usually using quality function
deployment (QFD).