1. Quality Circles A tool for Total Quality Management

2. Total Quality Management Total – “Made up of whole” Management – ‘An art of planning, organizing, directing and controlling the assigned activities that takes place to accomplish objectives.’According to F.W. Taylor (Father of scientific Management), ‘Knowing exactly what you want men to do and seeing that they do it in the best and cheapest way.’ Quality - “Quality is an attribute of a product or service that fulfills or exceeds the human expectations. These expectations are based on the intended use and selling / service price. “According to definition of ISO 8402, “ Totality of characteristics of an entity that bears on its ability to satisfy stated and implied needs.”

3. Quality Gurus Speak On Quality

4. Techniques Employed for TQM

5. WHY Quality Circles Quality Circle is one of the employee participation methods. It creates conditions and environment of work that stimulates commitment towards excellence. Quality Circles utilize the potential of people for improvement in quality.

6. Genesis of Quality Circles Before the World War II, quality control pioneers existed in Japanese companies such as Toshiba. In 1949, after the war the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) was established to educate people about Quality Circle. On July 10, 1950, W.Edwards Deming started an eight day seminar on the theory of statistical Quality Control. Deming discussed how to make control charts and how to sample and inspect products. From this solid foundations, the Japanese established quality control departments in their companies. They found that some aspects had to be altered to fit the Japanese workplace. One of these alterations resulted in the formation of “QUALITY CIRCLE”. Pioneers like, K. Ishikawa, Juran were the basis for creating quality circles. They used such statistical quality control techniques as Pareto charts, cause and effect diagrams. The spirit of quality circle embodied in the efforts of all those pioneers who recognized the need for improvement.

7. Philosophy Quality Circles are a people – building philosophy It represents a philosophy of managing people specially those at the grass root level as well as a clearly defined mechanism and methodology for translating this philosophy into practice and a required structure to make it a way of life. It is bound to succeed where people are respected and are involved in decisions, concerning their work life, and in environments where people’s capabilities are looked upon as assets to solve work-area problems. The Quality Circle philosophy calls for a progressive attitude on the part of the management

9. Voluntarily meeting together

10. Meeting regularly for about an hour per week

11. In paid time

12. Under the leadership of their own supervisor

13. To identify, analyze and solve problems in their work

14. Presenting solutions to management

19. Total involvement of people at all levels

21. Roles and Responsibilities The Success of the quality circle depends solely on the attitude of the topmanagement and plays an important role to ensure the success of implementation of quality circles in the organization.

22. Roles and Responsibilities Steering committee called middle management consists of chief executive heads of different divisions or a coordinator plays a positive role in quality circle’s activities for the success of the efforts. The meetings are conveyed at least once in one or two months interval.

23. Roles and Responsibilities Coordinator, who also acts as a facilitator, is an individual responsible for coordinating and directing the quality circles activities within an organization and carries out such functions as would make the operations of quality circles smooth, effective and self-sustainable.

24. Roles and Responsibilities Facilitator acts as a catalyst, innovator, promoter and teacher and is nominated by the management. His Roles are as follows: Communicating with all levels of management and obtaining their support; Facilitating the training of QC leaders and members; Maintaining an open and supportive environment; Ensureobjectivity in the activities of QC; As a mediator in problem solving; As a resourceperson to the circle; Evaluating the cost and benefits of the QC program and reporting it to the management

25. Roles and Responsibilities The leader is chosen by the members amongst themselves and is rotated on a regular basis. His role is mainly as follows: Training members on problem solving techniques with the assistance of the facilitator as and when required; Fostering the spirit of cooperation amongst the members; Assisting the circle members in recordkeeping and in the preparation of management presentations; Conductingmeeting in an orderly and effective manner; Encouragingotherpeople to become members; Enforcing team discipline and channelizing the efforts effectively

26. Roles and Responsibilities Members of the quality circles are a small group of people from the same work area or doing similar type of work whereas non-members are those who are not the members of the QC but providesuggestions. Members are expected to; Attendmeetings regularly; Direct their efforts towards solving work-related problems; Identifyingproblems, contributing ideas, undertaking research and investigating (where necessary) and assisting the QC in problem solving; Participating in management presentations

27. Launching of Quality Circle The steps involved are: Expose middle level executives to concept. Explain concept to the employees and invite them to volunteer as members of Quality Circle. Nominate senior officials as facilitators. Form a steering committee. Arrange training of coordinators, facilitators and members. Fix meetings for Quality Circles to meet. Formally inaugurate the Quality Circle. Arrange necessary facilities for Quality circle meetings and its operations.

29. Appropriate training needs to be imparted for the optimum performance by the Quality Circle. Training comprises of:

30. Brief orientation program for top management

31. Program for middle level executives.

32. Training for facilitators.

34. Action and Implementation Assess Recommend Quality Circle Clean Report Analyse

36. identify the number of problem

37. Problem Analysis

38. clarified and analysed

39. Generate alternative solutions

41. Identify & generate causes

42. Generate possible alternative solutions

43. Prepare plan for action

44. convert solutions to reality

45. Present solution to management

46. Fore approval

47. Implement of solution

49. Free to brainstrom

50. List & analyzed each problem

51. Analyzing

52. Focus on one problem

53. Create an appropriate solution

54. Involves opinion from member & researcher

55. Results of Analysis

56. Prepare to solve the problem

57. Explain in- how it works, what solution result should be

60. Personal characteristics of facilitators are critical

61. Scope of project needs to be small enough to be capably addressed by the team

63. Brainstorming Brainstorming is a group participative technique. It unlocks and discloses the untapped creative talents and resources in people. It is a technique for gathering the greatest number of ideas, which in turn, spark enthusiasm and originality amongst the member of the QC. Brainstorming is used when the Circle want to: 1.Identifly a problem 2.Investigate the cause 3.Find a solution

64. Tools Control Chart Scatter Diagram Histogram Cause & Effect diagram Flowchart Check-sheet Pareto Diagram

65. Pareto Chart Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) Italian economist 20% of the population has 80% of the wealth Juran used the term “vital few, trivial many”. He noted that 20% of the quality problems caused 80% of the dollar loss.

66. A Pareto Chart

67. A Control Chart is simply a run chart with statistically determined upper (Upper Control Limit) and possible lower (Lower Control Limit) lines drawn on either side of the process average. Control Chart UCL average LCL The UCL is three standard deviations above the average and the LCL is three standard deviations below the average.

68. Scatter Diagram Purpose: When you need to display what happens to one variable when another variable changes in order to test a theory that the two variables are related. It shows possible cause and effect relationships. It cannot prove that one variable 100 80 60 40 20 0 Test Scores 30 60 90 120 150 Study Time Minutes causes the other, but it does make it clear whether a relationship exists and the strength of that relationship. The direction and “tightness” of the cluster give a clue to the strength of the relationship between the two variables. If you find the values being repeated, circle that point as many times as appropriate.

69. Lower limit Upper limit Histogram: When you need to discover and display the distribution of data by bar graphing the number of units in each category. HISTOGRAM A Histogram displays the distribution of measurement data, such as scores, size, time, or temperature. This is critical since we know that all repeated events will produce results that vary over time. A Histogram reveals the amount of variation that any process has within it. Assuming that the perfect arrival time is 8:00 and the goal is to arrive within 5 minutes of the scheduled arrival time, attention needs to be paid to the causes of the later arrival times. 60 data points (10 bus drivers logged their arrival time over 6 day period of time)

70. Major Cause Major Cause Major Cause Major Cause Cause & Effect Diagram (Fishbone Diagram) This diagram representsthe relationship between some “effect” and all the possible “causes.” The major causes might be summarized under categories referred to as People, Methods, Materials, Procedures, Machinery, Environment, and/or Policies. However, a QC may use any major category that emerges or helps people think creatively. From this well-defined list of possible causes, the most likely are identified and selected for further analysis. When examining each cause, look for things that have changed, deviations from the norm or patterns. For each cause, ask, Why does it happen?” and list the responses as branches off the major causes. This way, a QC looks for causes that appear repeatedly, and reach a team consensus. EFFECT SubCauses

71. Machines Measurement Man Out of adjustment Poor supervision Faulty testing equipment Lack of concentration Tooling problems Incorrect specifications Improper methods Old / worn Inadequate training Quality Problem Inaccurate temperature control Poor process design Defective from vendor Ineffective quality management Not to specifications Dust and Dirt Material- handling problems Deficiencies in product design Method Environment Materials

72. Flowchart Flowcharts are a graphical description of how work is done, and are used to describe processes that are to be improved. Flowcharts provide excellent documentation of a program and can be useful for examining how various steps in a process are related to each other. Sometimes it is helpful to draw two flowcharts, one with the actual steps in a process and one with how the process should work. Comparing the two charts will show where there are differences and where problems generally arise. " Draw a flowchart for whatever you do. Until you do, you do not know what you are doing,you just have a job.” -- Dr. W. Edwards Deming.

73. Flowchart Symbols Activity Complex activity Contribution Decision Group meeting Report The End! Multiple reports

74. Checksheet Checksheets form a systematic means of collecting and analysing data.They are special types of data collection forms,and facilitate an organised way of data presentation. Shifts Sample checksheet showing defect type and corresponding shift in which each occurs,and its frequency                 Defect Type          

75. Benefits of Quality Circles Rise Organizational moral Inspire more effective team work Promote Job involvement Create problem solving capabilities by members of QC’s themselves Promote personal and leadership development Improve communication within the organization Promote cost function Increase employee motivation

76. QC Allows benefits from Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) - involvement of the workforce in process improvement. Lean manufacture includes all of the following participative concepts - SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Dies) and set up time reduction 5S/5C or CANDO. Autonomation (JIDOKA) - using single part production methods and the Kanban approach. Root Cause Analysis. PokaYoka (mistake proofing). Quality related Cost reduction. Flexible Work groups. Improved overall performance

77. Limitations and problems of QC Lack of management commitment and support Resistance by middle management Lack of clear objectives Unrealistic expectations for fast results Failure to get solutions implemented Inadequate training

79. Xerox reduced waste production by 65000 tonnes annually-with the help of Quality Circles.

80. United Airlines –one of the largest carriers in the USA

81. Quality circles at UA helped tackle the issue of no-shows and sick leaves.

83. BHEL’s Tiruchirapalli Plant : A large heavy engineering units manufacturing boiler’s and an entire range of equipments required for a thermal power unit.

84. BHEL-pioneer in implementing QC’s in INDIA. Introduced it in 1981. Introduced in 1984 at the Tiruchirapalli Plant.Impact of Quality Circles in BHEL • Cohesive team work and team spirit. • Work itself is more enjoyable. • Improvement in interpersonal and intergroup relations. • Improvement in the quality of workmanship within the work group. • Greater and prompter response to suggestions given. • Attitudinal changes. • A greater sense of belonging to the group and the organization as a whole. • Positive approach. • Mutual trust.

87. Every person is inherently talented and a conducive environment brings the best out

89. QC Philosophy combines the various needs brought out transforms them into actual practice

91. Personal Growth resulting from long-term group educational activities.

92. Greater self-confidence of supervisors

93. Member morale increase

94. Level of self supervision improves

95. Helps develop ability to work in teams and appreciate other’s point of view

96. Better exchange of ideas and improvement in communication

97. The co-operative activities of the circle cement human relations.

98. It facilitates the satisfaction of members self-esteem needs.