Chapter Twenty Three – The Quality Concept

Overburdened with her housework, frustrated Mum sighed, “If Darwin’s evolution
theory is true, how come mother has only two hands?”

Darwin claimed that life’s evolution has lives’ requirement to meet; requirement
that is dictated by Mother Nature.

Quality has a principle that states, “Quality is meeting requirement.”

Did Darwin have found his evolution theory from that principle of Quality?

Mother Nature’s requires Mum to have only two hands for her living and survival.
Having only two hands has met one of Mother Nature’s requirements for man to
live as a human being. Longing for having more than two hands, that is only
Mum’s own requirement.

Farmer ordered his chickens “Every one of you has to lay minimum two eggs every
day for me. Otherwise you would get slaughter.”
Next day, he found all but one had met his requirement. He questioned the One,
“Why you laid only one egg?”
One answered, “I have done my very best. Otherwise I am actually a cock that
could have laid none.”
Farmer, “Your best is not good enough for me. It fails to meet my requirement.”
The cock got slaughter.

Man creates things and performs works. Man as creator must give things and
works its quality; like creator Mother Nature does to give lives quality instincts for
lives to live on. Otherwise, lives, things and works created would be deemed
useless for not having the required quality.
Quality is meeting requirement. To achieve quality, it needs to have known the
requirement set. Meet or do not meet requirements, quality is to be judged and
judgment made is to match against requirement that is set.
‘Quality standard is 100% right’. Meet, must meet 100%. There is no almost meet
or partly meet. 5 plus 5 is equal to 10. If someone says it is equal to 9, it cannot be
taken that he is 90% correct, hence to accept as right too.
Ship built is for use on the sea. The basic necessary quality for ship to have is its
seaworthiness. For purposes and functions that it is built, ship has many other
quality requirements to meet; that are ship’s safety, function ability, durability,
reliability… and etc. Meeting the entire requirement would then endorse ship with
its required quality.

For all man’s interest, it is necessary to rule that only ships with the required
quality are to build or in use. To govern ruling, it prompted the founding of Ship
Classification Society and statutory organizations and had common quality
requirement established. That established had since been institutionalized as the
quality standard for ships, operators, builders, repairers and others to abide to.
Ship Classification organizations were also commissioned to undertake the roles
and tasks as judge, independent party, surveyor, and controller to ensure the
compliance to the rulings.

Shipyard undertakes contract from ship-owner has contractual requirement to

meet for works to perform. Works that involve ship design, construction and
repair would also need to meet and to comply with Classification quality
requirement and standards.
Meeting requirement, quality of work has to be judged and judgment is to make
during work in progress and upon work completion. Activities such as checking,
inspecting, measuring and testing are conducted to substantiate judgment that is
making. The practice of Quality Control is formalized.
Quality control screens work that is done to detect for non compliances. Found
work that has failed to meet 100% quality requirement would be rejected.
Rejected work would be treated as waste.
Quality Control to practice is a double edged sword. While ensuring only quality
work done is acknowledged and accepted, it has put the otherwise into waste.

Quality Control-QC does only to capture mistake and wrong. It does nothing to
prevent wrong and mistake from happening. Things to do for prevention must be
carried out before the starting of work. In a work process that has different
stages, prevention to do must be conducted before the starting of each new stage
of work. Prevention alone is not good enough. It needs more to do for assurance
before going ahead with doing. To assure is to make one sure or certain of
something, something would have attributes needed for the achievement of
quality for work that is going to do. Quality Assurance- QA is hence formalized. QA
is required to make certain, ‘Do the right thing right the first time and every time’.

Man put in effort to transform the work inputs into output. Output bears the
quality of the input. Quality of work done has depended much of the input related
quality attributes that input has brought in. QA has tasks to make sure that input
quality and related attributes are right.
Inputs for shipyard work can be covered under the category code 3M2E. 3 M
refers to Man, Material, Methodology and 2 E means Equipment and
Environment. To assure works would be done right, it needs to make sure that
material, equipment, man; methodology and environment for work input are
right.

In the pursuit of quality achievement, it is norm for management to put in place

Quality Control practices, Quality Assurance measures, Quality System
procedures, and Quality Management and Improvement programs. It forges a
belief that quality achievement is a journey to cover that has no end to reach. One
just has to keep walking, even not knowing where one is.

Japanese has made a legend in their pursuit of quality achievement. They chose
not to walk the quality journey like other did. They have undertaken the journey
as an evolution that can parallel with Darwin’s evolution theory. Japanese has the
theory reframed, ‘Quality work performance’s evolution has quality requirement
to meet and excellence to achieve’. QCC- Quality Control Circle is established to
undergo the evolution. Japanese has put work, men, quality, QC and QA together
in the circle and found the functional code PDCA to spring the evolution. .
The Japanese made evolution of quality work performance had led to the creation
and establishment of a quality culture. Quality work performance has become a
work practice, a way of live, a work habit and a performance discipline.
Man made quality performance evolution would have quality miracle made that
Mother Nature’s evolution has failed to achieve: Frustrated Mum would have
more than two hands grown.