SMU MBA ASSIGNMENTS

Answer : The principle behind Quality Audit

 

The principles of Quality Audit, in the sense we mean it here, are based on the style of quality standards used in several formal national and international standards such as the ISO-900x international quality standards. These standards do not in themselves create quality. The logic is as follows.

Every organisation should define comprehensive procedures by which their products or services can be delivered consistently to the desired level of quality. As was discussed in the section on Quality Management, maximum quality is rarely the desired objective since it can cost too much and take too long. The average product or service provides a sensible compromise between quality and cost. There is also a legitimate market for products that are low cost and low quality.

 

Standards authorities do not seek to make that business judgement and enforce it upon businesses, except where certain minimum standards must be met (egg all cars must have seat belts that meet minimum safety standards, but there is no attempt to define how elegant or comfortable they are).

 

The principle is that each organisation should create thorough, controlled procedures for each of its processes. Those procedures should deliver the quality that is sought. The Quality Audit, therefore, only needs to ensure that procedures have been defined, controlled, communicated and used. Processes will be put in place to deal with corrective actions when deviations occur. This principle can be applied to continuous business process operations or recurring project work. It would not be normal to establish a set of quality controlled procedures for a one-off situation since the emphasis is consistency.

 

This principle may be applied whether or not the organisation seeks to establish or maintain an externally recognised quality certification such as ISO-900x. To achieve a certification, the procedures will be subjected to internal and external scrutiny.

 

Preparing for Quality Audit

 

Thorough procedures need to be defined, controlled, communicated and used.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thorough	Procedures should cover all aspects of work where conformity and standards are required to achieved desired quality levels. For example, one might decide to control formal program testing, but leave the preliminary testing of a prototype to the programmer’s discretion.
Procedures	Any recurring aspect of work could merit regulation. The style and depth of the description will vary according to needs and preferences, provided it is sufficiently clear to be followed.
Defined	A major tenet is that the defined procedures are good and will lead to the desired levels of quality. Considerable thought, consultation and trailing should be applied in order to define appropriate procedures. Procedures will often also require defined forms or software tools.
Controlled	As with any good quality management, the procedures should be properly controlled in terms of accessibility, version control, update authorities etc.
Communicated	All participants need to know about the defined procedures – that they exist, where to find them, what they cover. Quality reviewers are likely to check that team members understand about the procedures.
Used	The defined procedures should be followed. Checks will be made to ensure this is the case. A corrective action procedure will be applied to deal with shortcomings. Typically the corrective action would either be to learn the lesson for next time, or to re-work the item if it is sufficiently important.

 

There is no reason why these Quality Audit techniques should conflict with the project’s Quality Management processes. Where project work is recurring, the aim should be for the Quality Methods and other procedures to be defined once for both purposes.

 

Problems may occur where the current project has significant differences from earlier ones. Quality standards may have been set in stone as part of a quality certification. In extreme situations this can lead to wholly inappropriate procedures being forced upon the team, for example, using traditional structured analysis and design in a waterfall style approach for what would be handled best using iterative prototyping. The Project Manager may need to re-negotiate quality standards with the organisation’s Quality Manager.

 

 

 

Operating Quality Audit

 

A Quality Audit approach affects the entire work lifecycle:

 

• Pre-defined standards will impact the way the project is planned
• Quality requirements for specific work packages and deliverables will be identified in advance
• Specific procedures will be followed at all stages
• Quality Methods must be defined and followed
• Completed work and deliverables should be reviewed for compliance.

This should be seen as an underlying framework and set of rules to apply in the project’s Quality Management processes.

 

 

 

Quality Audit reviews

 

Although the impact of Quality Audit will be across all parts of the lifecycle, specific Quality Audit activities tend to be applied as retrospective reviews that the Project Team correctly followed its defined procedures. Such reviews are most likely to be applied at phase end and project completion. Of course, the major drawback of such a review is that it is normally too late to affect the outcome of the work. The emphasis is often on learning lessons and fixing administrative items. In many ways, the purpose of the review is to encourage conformity by the threat of a subsequent bad experience with the quality police.

b. List the five key drivers for developing quality culture

 

Q2. What is quality function deployment? List the four phases that are involved in Quality Functional Development

Q3. Classify the three main criterion of self-control in manufacturing and service sectors

 

 

Q4. Describe the various types of benchmarking

 

Q6. Expla