Chapter Two
Mechanisms for Project Quality Management
Contents
2.1 Planning Project Quality
- Overview of the Project Quality Process
- Inputs to plan Project Quality Process
- Outputs from Project Quality Process
2.2 Tools for Project Process quality Improvement-Quality Assurance
2.3 Tools for Project Products/Service quality improvement-Quality Control
- Pareto Charts
- Control Charts
- Cause and Effect \
-Diagrams and
- Quality Metrics
PROJECT QUALITY MANAGEMENT
Project Quality Management includes the processes required to
ensure that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was
undertaken.
It includes “all activities of the overall management function that
determine the quality policy, , and responsibilities and
implements them by means such as quality planning, quality control,
quality assurance, and quality improvement, within the quality
system”
1. Quality Planning—identifying which quality standards are
relevant to the project and .
2. Quality Assurance—
3. Quality Control—monitoring specific project results to
determine if they comply with relevant quality standards and
identifying ways to eliminate causes of unsatisfactory
performance.
Project quality management must address both the management of
the project and the product of the project.
Failure to meet quality requirements in either dimension can have
serious negative consequences for any or all of the project stake holders.
For example:
Meeting customer requirements by overworking the project team may
produce negative consequences in the form of increased employee
turnover.
Meeting project schedule objectives by rushing planned quality
inspections may produce negative consequences when errors go
undetected.
The project management team should also be aware that modern
quality management
• For example, both disciplines recognize the importance of:
Customer satisfaction—understanding, managing, and influencing
needs so that customer expectations are met or exceeded. This requires
a combination of conformance to specifications (the project must
produce what it said it would produce) and fitness for use (the product
or service produced must satisfy real needs).
Prevention over inspection—the cost of avoiding mistakes is always
much less than the cost of correcting them.
Management responsibility—success requires the participation
of all members of the team, but it remains the responsibility of
management to provide the resources needed to succeed.
Processes within phases—the repeated plan-do-check-act cycle
described by Deming
QUALITY PLANNING
• Quality planning involves identifying which quality standards are relevant to
the project and determining how to satisfy them.
In the quality management field, there are statistical methods for analyzing
numerical data focusing on results.
However, in the world of business, it is also crucial to analyze language
data such as customer requirements and ideas, and thus focus on
processes.
In both fields, the practice of quality management uses tools that help to
reach the desired goals and results that characterize success.
According to the experts, the seven statistical quality control
tools for analyzing and interpreting numerical data include:
(1) data sheet,
(2) cause-and-effect diagram,
(3) scatter diagram,
(4) flowchart,
(5) Pareto chart,
(6) histogram, and
(7) control chart.
When working with ideas, the seven management and
planning tools used are:
(1) affinity diagram,
(2) interrelationship digraph,
(3) tree diagram,
(4) matrix diagram,
(5) prioritization matrices,
(6) process decision program chart, and
(7) activity network diagram.
Statistical Analysis Tools
1. Data Sheet: Data from a table, form, query, view, or stored
procedure displayed in a row-and-column format.
2. Cause-and-Effect Diagram
Kaoru Ishikawa, who pioneered quality management processes
and in the process became one of the founding fathers of modern
management, created the cause-and-effect diagram.
Causes are arranged according to their level of importance or
detail, resulting in a depiction of relationships and hierarchy of
events.
Cause-and-effect diagrams are typically constructed through
brainstorming techniques.
Causes in a cause-and-effect diagram are frequently arranged into the
four most common major categories.
Manpower, methods, materials, and machinery (for manufacturing)
Equipment, policies, procedures, and people (for administration and
planning)
The cause-and-effect diagram (Figure 2.1) is also known as “Ishikawa
diagram” or “fishbone diagram” because it was drawn to resemble the
skeleton of a fish, with the main causal categories drawn as bones
attached to the spine of the fish.
3. Scatter Diagram
Scatter diagrams are graphs that show how two variables are
related to one another.
They are particularly useful in detecting the amount of
correlation, or the degree of linear relationship, between two
variables.
For example, increased production speed and number of defects
could be correlated positively; as production speed increases, so
does the number of defects.
4. Flowchart
A flowchart (Figure 2.3) is defined as a graphic representation
employing standard graphic icons, usually a series of blocks with each
block representing one major process, that describes an operation that is
studied or is used to plan stages of a project.
Flowcharts provide an excellent form of documentation for a
process operation, and often are useful when examining how various
steps in an operation work together.
A flowchart is an important project development and
documentation tool; it visually records the steps, decisions, and actions
of any manufacturing or service operation and defines the system, its
key points, activities, and role performances.
Cont’d
In a flowchart, the description of each process is written inside the
blocks.
Any other significant information is usually written outside the blocks.
Each block is connected with an arrow to show where that process
leads. The graphic icons generally used are:
the start/stop icon:
the decision icon:
the result icon:
an icon to represent the flow itself, an arrow:
Quality improvement is a deliberate process that uses objective
measurement and data.
All quality improvement begins with data collection.
The Japanese word kaizen (meaning continual, incremental
improvement) is widely used in quality_x0002_related activities.
Reasons for Quality Improvement
Better processes may result in more efficient use of time, less waste,or fewer
defects.
Quality improvement may reduce costs. Lower costs can increase competitiveness
through lower prices or result in delivery of more product or service for the
existing price.
New technologies and the pace of technology development require change and
enable quality improvement.
We must improve to keep up, and the continual changes allow us to improve
continually and provide better products and services to our customers.
Improvement Methodology
The plan-do-check-act cycle is a proven, disciplined approach
to quality improvement. It was developed by Walter Shewhart
Plan —
This is the starting point. Select a process for improvement.
It may be the process that suggests the greatest payback, or the process
that suggests the greatest opportunity for success, or the process the
boss wants.
Initially, it may be beneficial to select a process that shows the greatest
potential for successful improvement, maybe the “easiest” one.
The team will have less difficulty working through the model the first
time, and both the team and management will be encouraged by
success.
After selecting the right process, analyze it and plan a change that
will have beneficial effect.
Do —
• Apply the change on a small scale, a test case.
• This is a critical step and the hallmark of the approach.
• Do not announce the plan as a mandatory change across the entire
system.
• If the plan does not have the desired effect, or even makes things
worse, the project team and management may lose confidence in the
model and perhaps in those who tried to apply it.
• Both results can be fatal to further quality improvement.
Check —
• Observe the effects of the change.
• This is more than casual observation. It is a careful and
comprehensive study of the results.
• The project team must fully understand the effects of the change,
why they occurred, and how they might affect some other process in
the system.
Act —
• If the results are as expected (if they show the intended beneficial effect),
implement the change system-wide.
• Then, because this is a cycle supporting continual improvement, move on
to the next aspect of the process or another process that might be the basis
for a beneficial change and start the cycle again.
• If the results are not as expected, move forward in the cycle to the plan step
and revisit the process to analyze it again and prepare a new plan. This new
plan will be based on better information, knowledge about what did not
work.
Summary
Quality control is a process that monitors specific project results to
determine if they conform to specifications and identify ways to
eliminate the causes of unsatisfactory results.
Quality control is the sixth step in a seven-step quality journey that
provides a general framework for quality management.
Quality control results provide feedback to quality assurance; results
disclose effectiveness of assurance activities.
In-process inspection plays a key role in quality control. Inspection
activities may include measuring, examining, or testing.
◆ Quality control tools are well defined. They are also applied to
quality improvement.
Quality improvement is the organized creation of beneficial
change.
◆ Quality improvement is the last step in the quality journey.
◆ All quality improvement begins with data collection.
◆ Quality improvement is necessary for many reasons, all
associated with customer satisfaction and competitiveness.
END OF CHAPTER TWO!