DRIVE- FALL 2013

PROGRAM/SEMESTER- MBADS – (SEM 3/SEM 5) / MBAN2 / MBAFLEX – (SEM 3) PGDTQMN – (SEM 1)

SUBJECT CODE & NAME- QM0013- QUALITY MANAGEMENT TOOLS

Q1. Explain the following:

a) Flow diagram

b) Value Stream Mapping (VSM)

c) Causal Loop Diagram (CLD)

(Explanation of Flow diagram-4 marks, Explanation of VSM-3 marks, Explanation of CLD-3 marks) 10 marks

Answer.

A flow diagram is one of the basic tools used for improvement of any project. It gives a visual picture of a process being
studied. The flow diagram is also called as flow chart. It is a graphic representation of a series of activities that define a
process. There are several types of flow diagram that can be useful in an improvement effort. Some of them are:
 Top-down flow diagram
 Matrix or group (also known as „swim-lane‟ flow diagram)
 Complexity diagram (separating basic process functions from activities
 due to waste, work flow, or poor quality)
 Value system mapping

The flow diagram is used with the model for improvement in a number of ways. The flow diagrams are user for:
 Defining the scope of an improvement effort (What are we trying to accomplish?)
 Serving as a data collection form (How will we know that a change is an improvement?)
 Identifying obvious changes that can be made (What changes can we make that will result in improvement?)
 Understanding the context in which a change will be made
 Furnishing a tool for logical thinking about the current process
 Defining the vision of a new process

For example, Figure presents a general idea of the requirements required to translate the Voice of the Customer (VOC)
into working Critical to Quality (CTQ).

Figure: Flowchart of VOC to CTQs

Value Stream Mapping (VSM)

It is a specific type of flow diagram recommend for lean improvement projects. The VSM approach shows not only
process flows but also information flow that signals and controls the material flow. This visual representation identifies
the value-adding steps in a process and assists in finding the non-value-adding steps or waste. A timeline is displayed at
the bottom of the process map, showing the processing time for each operation and the transfer delays between
operations. The timeline is used to identify the value-adding steps, as well as wasted time. The Figure 2.2 shows an
example of VSM of a mail delivery process. From this figure we can understand that the total lead time is 61 to 64 days.
Figure: Basic Value Stream Map

Causal Loop Diagram

A Causal Loop Diagram (CLD) is a type of flow diagram that focuses on identifying, reinforcing, and balancing processes in
a system. These diagrams consist of arrows connecting variables (things that change over time) in a way that shows how
one variable affects another. A causal loop diagram is a tool for communicating our understanding of the dynamic aspects
of a process or system. Multiple causal loops can be linked together to develop a diagram of a particular issue in a
complex system. It helps us to understand complex connections and actions of the systems.
CLD has four basic parts:
 Nodes (usually ellipses or circle) that consists values that can vary.
 Lines with an arrow show direction.
 Inversion indicator.
 Time delay indicator.
These basic elements of CLD are shown in Figure.

Figure: Basic Elements of CLD

Q2. To find success in competition, a business needs to give importance to value creation. Explain value creation
through Brand development, Creative Design and Lean Manufacturing.

(Value Creation through Brand Development-4 marks, Value Creation through Creative Design-3 marks, Value Creation
through Lean Manufacturing-3 marks) 10 marks

Answer.

Value Creation through Brand Development

Famous brand names make a big difference in the marketplace. For example, clothes made of the same fabric, in the
same style, and with the same workmanship are sold at vastly different retail prices because they have different brand
names. Davis defines a brand as ‘an intangible but critical component of what a company stands for,’ and, as ‘a set of
promises, it implies trust, consistency; and a defined set of expectations. The strongest brands in the world own a place in
the consumer’s mind, and when they are mentioned almost everyone thinks of the same things.’ Mercedes-Benz stands
for prestige and the ultimate driving experience while Ralph Lauren stands for classic looks, high status, and pride.

A good brand name brings extra value to the product and to the company that makes the product. The name recognition
of brands brings tremendous marketplace success and high profitability. Brand development has become one of the key
sources of competitive advantage for companies worldwide. Brands are regarded as the most valuable assets owned by a
company. Some brands are valued so highly that companies have paid huge amounts to acquire the lights to them.
According to marketing expert Philip Kotler, a brand is ‘a name, term, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, which
is intended to signify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of their
competitors.4’ The strongest brands usually stand for superior functions, benefits, and quality, and without them a brand
will not be among the strongest in the world. However, superior functions, benefits, and quality alone will not make a
strong brand. The difference between the top brand and second-tier brands is mostly psychological.

Value Creation through Creative Design

In developing any product or service, creative design combined with the right customer value position usually brings huge
success in the marketplace. Creative design can make a product the ‘first of its kind’ in the marketplace, and it makes the
product difficult for competitors to copy. A company with a good reputation in creativity can often build a strong brand
image, and the brand’s power further enhances the customer value of the company's products. For example, Apple
Computer Inc. launched products like iPod and iPhone that are innovative and creative in design and features. The
effective methodology that can help companies and product development people improve their creativity is Theory of
Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) .This helps to shortcut the creative process, and to effectively reuse the knowledge base
developed in similar inventions. In order to avoid reinvention. TRIZ is an indispensable tool for any customer value-centric
company

Value Creation through Lean Manufacturing

Understanding market needs and meeting customer expectations are critical concepts to succeed in this world of
competitive business. As product cycles have shortened, customer expectations for perfect products and ‘best’ pricing
have increased. The lean process is a way of creating value for your customer. When unnecessary steps that add cost but
no value to a product are eliminated, it leads to cutting costs. These cost savings can be shared with the customer, and in
this way the organization gains competitive advantage. VOC helps identify what are the features of a product or service
that have no-value.

Q3. FMEA (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis) is a means of identifying or investigating potential failure modes and
related causes. Describe the different types of FMEA. What are the advantages and disadvantages of FMEA?

(Meaning of FMEA-2 marks, Types of FMEA-3 marks, Advantages of FMEA-2.5 marks, Disadvantages of FMEA-2.5
marks)10 marks

Answer.

Meaning of FMEA
FMEA is a product problem prevention methodology that can effectively interface with many engineering and reliability
methods. Along with the Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), it has become one of the most useful problem prevention tools in the
product development process.
FMEA Types
There are four types of FMEA and they are system level, design level, process level and functional level. Let us discuss in
detail about each type.2
 System Level FMEA: This is the highest level FMEA that can be performed. It is used to identify and prevent
failures that are related to systems or sub-systems in the early design concept stages. The system level FMEA
is performed to validate that the system level specification minimizes the risk of functional failure during
operation.
 Design Level FMEA: This is used to help identify and prevent product failures that are related to the product
design. Design level FMEA can be performed on a system level, sub-system level or a component level design
proposal and is intended to validate the design parameters selected for a given functional performance
requirement.
 Process Level FMEA: This is used to identify and prevent failures that are related to manufacturing or
assembly or for a family of components or assemblies
 Functional Level FMEA: This focuses on the planned function or use of a component or subsystem. For
example, consider a functional FMEA on a capacitor that is intended to regulate voltage. Rather than
 considering what happens if the capacitor is shorted, analyze the effect of the capacitor not regulating the
voltage. .
Advantages and Disadvantages
Using FMEA technique has improved the overall reliability of products offered by organizations. The following are the
advantages of failure mode and effects analysis:
 Improves the quality, reliability and safety of a product or a process.
 Improves company image and competitiveness.
 Increases user satisfaction.
 Reduces system development timing and cost.
 Helps to collect information to reduce future failures and capture engineering knowledge.
 Reduces the potential for warranty concerns.
 Identifies and eliminates early potential failure modes.
 Emphasizes problem prevention.
 Minimizes late changes and associated cost.
 Medium for teamwork and idea exchange between functions.
 Reduces the possibility of same kind of failure in the future.
Limitations
The following are the limitations:
 FMEA is effectively reliant on the members of the board which examine product failures. Hence, it is limited by
their experience of previous failures.
 External help is needed from consultants when a failure mode cannot be identified. These consultants are the
ones who are aware of the different types of product failure.
 If FMEA is used as a ‘top-down’ tool, it may only recognize major failure modes in a system. Fault Tree Analysis is
better suited as a top-down tool while FMEA is more commonly used as a ‘bottom-up’ tool.
 It is not able to determine complex failure modes involving multiple failures within a subsystem. It is also not able
to report expected failure intervals of particular failure modes up to the upper level subsystem or system. The
multiplication of the severity, occurrence and detection rating may result in rank reversals, wherein a less serious
failure mode receives a higher Risk Priority Number than a more serious failure mode.

Q4. What are the features of Taguchi’s Contributions? Explain Quality Loss Function method and Robust Design.

(Features of Taguchi’s Contributions-3 marks, Explanation of Quality Loss Function and examples-4 marks, Explanation
of Robust Design-3 marks)

Answer.

Features of Taguchi’s Contributions

Taguchi was renowned for developing various processes, to enhance quality of developed products and to decrease
prices. This method was known as ‘’Taguchi’s method‟, which was used as a process for assessing and enhancing
improvements in the required features of products. Taguchi’s methods include the methodologies of both Statistical
Process Control (SPC), as well as the statistical features of the method, procedure, strength, and the quality enhancement
processes.
Taguchi believed in “Robust Design” techniques. Taguchi states that it is not only adequate to take out faults in product,
but also to develop quality. He suggested that one must look at the design stage itself, from where the quality begins.
With the concept of “Design of Experiments” which directly affects performance of the product, Taguchi described, what
the product requirement means and how it can lead to product manufacturing, which is economical. His approach
consists of industrial, as well as statistical techniques that are helpful to develop quality, to minimize costs during design
optimization, and to assess the rate of quality accurately.
The Quality Loss Function: [Cost Oriented]
Taguchi gives a definition of quality in terms of the Loss function: The Quality Loss Function provides a financial value for
clients‟ increasing displeasure, as the quality of the product goes lesser than the required target performance. Similarly,
it provides a financial value for increasing prices, as the quality of the product goes greater than the desired target
performance. Establishing the target performance is a knowledgeable guess, it is frequently performed based on clients‟
review and their response.
The quality loss function permits financial decisions to be taken at the design phase, with regards to the price of attaining
the target performance. Taguchi declares that, the key performance feature of a product affects the quality of a product.
The target price for these performance features are approved by the developers. It is demonstrated that, a superior
quality product whose performance is close to the target standards all through its life cycle, goes on satisfying the clients
with particular operating circumstances.
Japanese organizations are making use of loss function to validate quality development. Loss function gives a technique
to measure the benefits attained by minimizing inconsistency about the target price. Here the quality means low price as
well as consistency about target price.
Examples
1. What is loss to society? See the concept with this example:
Farmers use recording sheets to protect crops from wind/ storms. The industrial standard specifies the limits of the
product. A manufacturer of recording sheet worked to; reduce the variations in the production process, resulting in a
very narrow distribution. The manufacturer has then cantered that distribution at the lower end of the specification limit,
thus reducing cost. The above example has resulted in three types of losses. First, the product tore because it could not
withstand the wind/ storming, the recording sheet itself was the first loss. Second, farmers suffered loss as a result of
crop damage. Third, the reduction in the supply of crops caused prices to rise, resulting in loss to society. The result is
that, the loss to the society is greater than the manufacturer’s gain.

2. The loss function is built on a definition that quality as “uniformly built around the target value”. Think of a car door
being assembled. To produce a car with a tight fit and a good appearance, the operator must join together many
individual parts. But, if one part is at the high end of the specification and the adjacent part is at low end of its limit, the
two parts may not fit well together. In such a situation, the operator does the special fitness work to overcome the
problem. This gives rise to loss, due to remake and repair. When all parts are manufactured around the target value, the
above said problem will not arise.

Robust Design [Off-Line Quality Control]

Robust Design method, also called Taguchi Method, significantly improves engineering efficiency by, considering the
noise factors and the cost of failure, to assure customer’s s fulfillment. This technique had an enormous effect on quality
control and experimental design in the 1980s and 1990s. It also improved productivity in engineering. The Robust Design
method helps to ensure customers fulfillment. It considers the noise factors i.e. differences in the environment during the
treatment of products, variation in manufacturing, aging of products, and the cost of failure.
Robust Design concentrates on improving the basic function of the product or method. As a result, it helps in assisting
flexible designs and synchronized engineering. In fact, it is the most influential technique existing to decrease product
rate, develop quality, and at the same time reduce intervals in the developmental stages. The main aspects of robust
design are:
 It concentrates on developing the basic features of the product or process.
 Continuous modifications, in manufacture of equipments to attain reliability in quality. Though this is not
effective, instead, developing products must be strong enough to operate when, allowing certain deviations in
the manufacture procedures.
 Taguchi technique is basically a prototyping method that allows developers to offer a robust design, to maintain
recurring manufacturing with all the features for the customers.
 Various organizations around the globe have accumulated hundreds of millions of dollars by the implementation
of the robust designs, whether it is software, or electronics or telecommunications, or any other industry.

Q5. Explain the purpose of an Affinity diagram and list out its benefits. Write a procedure to create Relations diagram.

(Meaning of an Affinity diagram-2 marks, Purpose-2 marks, Benefits-2 marks, Meaning of Relations diagram-2 marks,
Steps to create Relations diagram-2 marks) 10 marks

Answer.
Meaning of an Affinity diagram

Affinity diagram is a tool used to classify ideas and data. The tool is generally used in project management and allocates
information to be arranged into groups for evaluation and analysis. Generally, an Affinity diagram is used to improve a
brainstorm into the one that makes sense and can be utilized effortlessly.
Benefits of Affinity Diagrams
Affinity diagram is an innovative process, which is used by a group to collect and categories ideas, opinions, issues, etc. It
has many benefits. Few of them are listed below:
 It is an easy and economical method for seeking ideas from a group and getting agreement on how information
should be planned.
 It can be efficiently used by employees who are involved in Manual Project Planning and working on the field
with partial information.
 It aims to motivate resourceful and powerful thoughts. It avoids arguments during the construction of the
diagram. It is the most successful method to work and to have each person to pass the displayed ideas without
conversing.
 It supports alternative thinking, and restricts unwanted clashes. It also helps prevent one person from navigating
the Affinity.
 It is useful with issues that are hard to understand.
 It can assemble huge amounts of information from a group in a small quantity of time.
 It is a valuable method for managing ideas.

Relations Diagram
The Relations diagram is the second QC tool. It is also known as an Interrelationship diagram or network diagram. It
analyses problems when the causes have complex interrelationships. It shows the cause and effect relationships among
various fundamental factors that allow discovering the root cause of problems and methods for fixing them.
The procedure of making a relations diagram facilitates to analyze the usual links between various features of a complex
circumstances. It is a tool used to find out root cause for any issues. Also, it is mostly used to discover logical relationships
in complicated and problematic conditions. So, the relations diagrams are capable of visualizing such logical relationships.

Creating a Relations Diagram

Creating a Relations diagram is quite a long process. A Relations diagram helps a group evaluate the usual links between
different parts of a complex situation. Below are the steps to create relations diagram:
1. Write a statement explaining the problem. Write it on a card and place it on the top of the work surface.
2. Suggest ideas about the problem and note them on cards. If one more tool has proceeded over this one, adopt ideas
from the tool.
3. Place one idea at each time on the work surface and confirm whether this idea is related to any others.
4. Place ideas that are related in the first. Leave some space between cards for drawing arrows afterwards. Repeat this
again until all cards are on the work surface.
5. For each idea, confirm whether this idea influences any other idea. Draw arrows from each thought to the ones that
influences. Repeat the question for each thought.
6. Evaluate the diagram to count the arrows in and out for each idea. Draw counts at each and every box at the bottom.
The ones mainly with the arrows are the input ideas.

Q6. Process Mapping helps to identify the best performance measures and the major opportunities for improvement.

(Describe the types of Process Mapping. Explain the, major steps in Process Mapping, Meaning of Process Mapping,
Types of Process Mapping, Major steps in Process Mapping)10 marks

Answer.

Process Mapping
Process mapping is an important visual display that represents, ‘who does what’ within an organization. It helps to
identify the best performance measures and the major opportunities for improvement. Process mapping is used by the
Six Sigma, black belt, or green belt. It helps in two important aspects of the Six Sigma method. They are:
1. It helps in the initial stage of the process where, a true analysis of how things are done currently is developed. This is
very important to create an objective case for process improvement.
2. It helps in the improvement stage. This stage is essential to prototype, experiment, communicate, and ultimately
explain how process improvements affect the new methods adopted to do things.
Types of Process Mapping
There are two types of process mapping. They are:
 Centralized Process Mapping
 Distributed Process Mapping
It is very important for the process mapping to be perfect, accurate, fast, and involve a high degree of staff ownership. In
the sporting business, we can look for other situations that have the same three critical success factors. To analyse the
importance of accuracy let us consider an example, in the pit stop required by Formula One cars during a race, accuracy is
definitely mandatory. The incorrect position a wheel or tightened nut could result in the death of the driver. Speed is the
essence in the race; fractions of a second can make the difference between winning and losing the race. Ownership is a
critical factor, each member of the pit stop team must know exactly what is expected of them, and feel the responsibility
for doing a good job.
There are four major steps in process mapping. They are:
1. Process identification: Acquiring a complete knowledge of all the steps in a process.
2. Information gathering: Recognizing the objectives, risks, and key controls in a process.
3. Interviewing and mapping: Designing the actual maps by analyzing the individual’s point of view in the process.
4. Analysis: Analyzing the process using the tools and approaches to make the it run more effectively and efficiently.

Let us now discuss each step in detail.

Process identification: Many companies assume that they know their processes like manufacturing, sales, accounting,
and building services. It is due to this mentality that, the processes are not customer-oriented. The processes must be
based on the definition given by the customer and not based on the definition by the company. Analyzing the customer
needs and their own experiences, is a crucial factor in the success of an organization. The result of the analysis then
forms, the basis for process identification.
Information gathering: A large volume of information must be gathered, before learning the details of a process in depth.
The primary information is to find out the true owner of the process, as they are the ones who can effect change. Their
buy-in and agreement throughout the analysis is very important. Additional information that must be gathered are the
objectives of the process, risks to the process, key controls over those risks, and measures of success for the process.
Interviewing and mapping: Only after the above steps are implemented, the Process Mapping is said to be completed.
This step involves, sitting with each employee and letting them describe what they do. The information given by
employees is recorded in a sticky-tape method. Every step in the process is recorded on a sticky-note and built in front of
the employee completing the work. This provides an opportunity for the employees to analyze if; the final map matches
the analysis of their work. The final process maps are then developed using the flowcharting software.
Analysis: Although analysis is considered as the fourth step, it must occur throughout the review. The analysis can be
done while defining the processes where, the reviewer may identify that, objectives does not correspond with the
processes in place. By performing analysis while gathering information, it may become obvious that, measures of success
do not fall in line with department objectives.