Quality Management Strategies for Engineering Tooling Case Study

This case study examines the quality management strategies of the Engineering Tooling company, a manufacturing firm facing challenges due to industry changes and increased competition. The report delves into the importance of quality management for organizational excellence, covering essential aspects such as quality policies, planning, improvement, control, and assurance. It analyzes various quality improvement strategies, including Total Quality Management (TQM), Quality Assurance, and Quality Control, to help the company enhance its product quality, reduce costs, and expand into new markets. The analysis includes the principles of TQM, the PDCA cycle for Quality Assurance, and different types of Quality Control strategies. The study emphasizes how these strategies can foster a sustainable quality culture within the organization, providing recommendations for implementation and improvement.

ENGINEERING TOOLING - CASE
STUDY / QUALITY MANAGEMENT
FOR ORGANISATIONAL
EXCELLENCE

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY ANALYSIS..............................................................................................................1
Quality improvement strategies...................................................................................................1
Sustainability of the culture of the quality...................................................................................7
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS............................................................................7
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................7
Recommendation.........................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Quality management is an important process that each and every organization as this
process helps in maintaining the quality of tasks and activities in order to obtain the level of
excellence within an organization. In quality management quality policies, quality planning
creation and implementation, quality improvement, control and assurance is covered (Tricco and
et.al., 2019). in order to bring improvement within an organization's quality it is important for the
company to adopt quality improvement strategies which will help in improving their overall
product or service quality. There are various kinds of quality improvement strategies or
techniques which can help in improving the overall quality of the product and process like Total
quality management, quality assurance, quality control.
This report is based upon the case study of Engineering tooling company. It is an
manufacturing company that manufactures engineering tools such as calipers, scriber,
micrometers etc. Due to decline of engineering in North-East of England and increased
competition they need to bring changes within their radical strategies for their business to survive
all the changes. They also need to expand their business into new market so that their products
can receive recognition world wide. This report will lay emphasis on various quality
improvement strategies and will describe total quality management, quality assurance and quality
control in detail. This report will also explain the ways these strategies can help the engineering
tooling company to obtain sustainability culture of the quality within their organization by
implementing these quality improvement strategies within their business.
MAIN BODY ANALYSIS
Quality improvement strategies
Quality improvement is one of the most essential practice that is needed by every
organization in order to improve their overall efficiency, outcomes etc. There are various kinds
of quality improvement strategies that helps in improving the overall quality of the company and
bring organizational excellence. It is important to consider quality improvement as it helps the
company to reduce material waste, reduces overall manufacturing cost, improves the quality of
their product etc. Few of the concepts, strategies etc. are:
Total Quality management
Total quality management is an extensive strategy that helps the organization to focus on
quality improvement of services and products. It is a kind of strategy that can be used by any
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organization. The main objective of this strategy is to do right thing at right time (Ross, 2017).
This helps the companies to save both time and cost which can be used to correct failed or poor
work. It consist of various principles that helps in maintaining and improving quality of an
organization which are as follows:
Focus on customer: it is important for organizations to know that customers are one of
the most important aspect of an organization and they are the ones who determine the level of
quality that is required by an organization (Aquilani and et.al., 2017). Only customers are the one
who determine whether the efforts made by the organization on their employees, processes etc.
had been successful or not, and based on their evaluation improvement in quality of products and
services are made. Engineering tooling company also need to identify and focus on their
customers so that as per their evaluation, requirements they can bring changes within their
products and the service that they provide to their customers.
Employee involvement: Employees are the main internal customers of the company.
Engagement of an employee within the development of the product and services largely
determine products quality. Organizations like Engineering tooling company need to create and
build an environment where employees feel free to involve themselves within the company and
their services as well as product developments.
Process centred: process handing and thinking are also one of the main fundamentals of
total quality management. These processes of an organization works as guidelines which helps
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Illus
tration 1: Total quality management
(Source: Total quality management, 2018)

all the individuals involved in an organization and supports them and their work on the basis of
their linkage with vision, mission and strategy of the business.
Integrated system: In order to make an organization process centred it is important for
them to integrate their system as per ISO guidelines or according to the company quality system
so that services and products quality in an organization can be handled.
Strategic and systematic approach: Strategic plan made by the organization should be
developed and integrated in a systematic approach so that quality development and
organizational development can be improved (Jiménez-Jiménez and et.al., 2015).
Decision-making based on facts: An organization's decision making should only be based
upon facts not on others opinions. All the facts, figures, numbers or any relevant data should
support the decision making process of the business.
Communication: The overall communication strategy of an organization should be
designed in such a way that all the internal and external stakeholders of the company can remain
connected to each other. Not only this, this overall communication strategy should be according
to the mission, vision and objectives of an organization.
Continuous improvement: Continuous improvement proposals should be brought and
implemented within an organization using creative thinking, bringing innovation and using
correct measuring tools. This can help business to bring higher level of improvement of quality
within a company.
These principles help the organization in improve the total quality management within an
organization. These principles should be incorporated within an organization foe a successful
quality management within a company and its culture. Quality manager of Engineering tooling
company should focus on each and every principle of total quality management technique as it
will help them in implementing company wide quality improvement strategy. Quality manager
should prioritize all the principles as per the improvement requirements of the company.
Quality Assurance
Quality assurance is also an essential management process which helps the company to
ensure whether all the services and products that are being delivered to the customers are up to a
required quality level or not (Lipsitz and et.al., 2017). This quality assurance helps the
organization to improve the quality that is being delivered to their customers so that all the basic
requirements of the customers for the product can be fulfilled. It mainly focusses on improving
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the overall process of delivering quality service and products to the customers. It also focuses on
improving efficiency and effectiveness of the quality standards that are defined for the product or
service development (Skeeba and et.al., 2016).
Quality assurance has a defined cycle which helps in completing the overall quality
assurance process. This cycle is called PCDA Cycle i.e. Plan, do, check, action cycle.
Plan: Here, organization plan a process which helps in establishing process that is required to
deliver products and services of high quality.
Do: Here, testing and development of the process is done and based on the testing all the
required changes are done.
Check: process is checked, monitored and modified in order to check whether it meets all the
predetermined objectives and requires or not.
Action: All the required changes are implemented within the process which helps in achieving
improved precess of assuring quality of product to be delivered.
Within this PDCA cycle there are various quality assurance techniques that can be used
by Engineering Tooling company to improve their quality assurance process (Robinson, 2017).
Techniques such as: quality management methodology like Six Sigma, benchmarking, cost of
quality, cost benefit analysis, inspection, scatter diagram, run chart, pareto chart, histogram,
cause and effect diagram, flow charting, statistical sampling, design of experiments, control
charts etc. These quality assurance techniques form basic quality assurance principles. These
principles and PDCA cycle helps the organization in improving their high standards, quality of
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Illu
stration 2: PCDA Cycle
(Source: Quality Assurance,
2019 )

products or services that are delivered to their customers. Other than this an organization needs
to follow four main techniques which are:
Process checklist: It is one of the most basic quality assurance technique that helps the
organization in improving all the critical steps involved in the overall manufacturing process. As
one by one each step is completed check list made by the quality manager is checked. This
process helps in avoiding negligence of important procedures in order to complete the quality
assurance procedure.
project audits: It is another important technique of quality assurance in which all the
processes are reviewed by reviewing all the deliverable parts or the products involved in that
process. Sometimes special quality auditors are asked to conduct an audit to ensure whether all
the quality standards are met or not. It helps the organization to fill all the gaps within the
process.
Hiring processes: Another quality assurance technique is hiring processes. It only works
when all the persons involved in that process understands and performers their roles and
responsibilities in a better way. In this technique a thorough out job analysis is done so that all
the individuals involved within a process can be trained and can understand their work in a better
way.
Process reviews: In this technique process review is done of all the processes that are
involved in quality assurance of a product. This helps in bringing all the required changes within
the process so that high quality standards of delivering the product can be maintained. Quality
manager of Engineering tooling company can use all of these principles and techniques which
will help them in improving their quality company wide.
Quality Control
Most of the times quality control and quality assurance are mistaken to be same strategies
of quality improvement but however both of them are completely different. One of the most
basic different between them is that quality assurance is performed during the manufacturing or
production time to make sure whether the product is produced or manufactured as per the quality
standards. Quality control is performed after the product has been manufactured to check
whether they meet all the requirements of the quality (Chua, Wong, C.H. and Yeong, 2017). It is
also an essential part of an organization which helps in ensuring whether quality of the product is
maintained or not and also helps in reducing the number of errors so that quality can be
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controlled and improved. Quality control helps in creating an environment within an
organization where perfection and improved quality of products are focused on. Quality control
mainly helps in defining controls. It also helps in standardizing quality issues in production.
Quality control strategies are important to be considered because quality is one of the most
important factor that is desired by customers regarding the products. There are various strategies
that helps in controlling and improving quality of the product. Type of strategy that is to be
chosen by the business completely depends upon the nature of the business and their employees.
Four main types of strategies are:
Continuous improvement: One of the most important element that can help in continuous
improvement is common sense. In this strategy continuous analysis is done in order to identify
where changes are required (Kim, Lin and Tseng, 2018). In this all the facts and elements of
production are analysed in order to identify scope of improvement in the overall process. In this
continuous improvement process continuous feedbacks from employees are taken this feedbacks
from employees helps in bringing all the required changes within the process for the
improvement.
Employee monitoring: Employee monitoring is also an essential strategy of quality
control. For this required essential training should be provided to the workforce of the
organizations that they can enhance and improve their skills, increase their knowledge regarding
the same. This will help in improving the quality of the product as trained employees will
improve their products quality as per the quality standards.
Mistake proofing: It is one of the most effective and efficient strategy especially for
bigger organizations. More bigger the organization is, more prone it is for human errors. With
the help of mistake proofing strategy high volume output products quality can be controlled as
well as improved. It will also help the organization to maintain the quality of the product.
Customer Feedback: it is one of the best and essential quality control strategy that can be
used by an organization to control the quality of the product (Price, 2017). As customers
requirements, their point of view are one of the most important part which can help a company to
bring changes and improve their quality.
Quality manager of Engineering tooling company can use mistake proofing and customer
feedback as quality control strategy to improve their overall quality. All the above discussed
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strategies will the company to improve their overall quality and expand their business in new
market as well.
Sustainability of the culture of the quality
It is important for an organization to focus on creating a quality focused culture as it
leads the business to create a healthy working environment and achieve sustainability in
business. Sustainability in business helps the organization to reduce financial, social and
environmental risk within an organization. For this it is important for an organization to
implement all the best practises within their organization. For achieving sustainability in quality
culture of an organization can be achieved by applying different quality improvement strategies
within an organization. These improvement strategies can help the organization in various ways
to sustain culture of quality in an organizations. By providing time to time training to the
employees of an organization which will help them to enhance their skills and increase their
knowledge. This will help in bringing sustainability of the quality culture within an organization.
Gathering continuous feedbacks from the customers also helps in identifying all the areas where
improvement or changes are required to be done. Customer feedbacks gives a clear view of
where changes are required to be brought for improved quality culture. In simple words all the
above quality improvement strategies will help Engineering tooling company in bringing
sustainability of culture of quality within an organization.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Conclusion
From the above report it can be concluded that quality improvement strategies are
important for organizations to improve their quality as well as bring excellence within their
organization. This helps them to reduce their waste material, reduce their overall cost and time
which they can utilize in improving their poor or failed processes. There are various techniques,
concepts, strategies etc. that can help the organization in improving their quality at different
phases. It has been analysed that total quality management is an effective strategy that improve
the overall quality of services and products of the company. Different principles of total quality
management strategy not only help in improving the quality of the organization but however it
also helps them to effectively use the time and cost of the company. It has also been observed
that there are various principles of total quality management such as: focus on customers,
employment improvement, process centred etc. can improve an organization's processes.
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Incorporation of these strategies can help Engineering tooling company's quality manager to
introduce company wide improvement strategies.
It has also been analysed that quality assurance and quality control can also help the
organization to develop and apply good practices which can help the company in improving
companies quality of product that is to be delivered to the customers. Quality assurance helps in
maintaining the required quality of the product that is to be delivered to the customers. As it
focusses on improving the delivery quality of product it is done in a cycle called PDCA cycle.
This cycle helps in assuring the overall quality of the process through which product is
manufactured and is delivered to the customers. In this cycle there are various techniques like
process checklist,project audit, hiring processes, process review etc. helps in maintaining high
standards of the product. These techniques can also help the company to bring a culture of
quality within their business which will eventually help the organization to expand their business
within a new market. It has also been observed that there is much difference between quality
assurance and control as quality assurance is done during the manufacturing whereas quality
control is done after the product has been manufactured. Quality control also creates an
environment within an organization that helps in improving the quality of products.
Implementation of all these strategies and concepts within the Engineering tooling company can
help in bringing sustainability of culture of quality within an organization.
Recommendation
As per the discussion done in the report here are few recommendation that can help in
bringing improvements within the Engineering tooling company to sustain the Culture of Quality
within their organization and also help them to expand their business in new market. These
recommendation can help the company to improve their quality culture in order to expand their
business. Engineering tooling company can organize various kinds of training for their
employees as per their area of improvements. Such as if workers require training in
manufacturing of the product then they should be provided with such kinds of training this will
indirectly improve the manufacturing process as per the quality standards. They can also improve
the overall communication and the strategy that they use for communication as it will help in
improving the connectivity among all the stakeholders of the company. This communication also
helps in communication any kind of changes, improvements that are required to improve the
quality. Company can also conduct weekly audits within their organization which will help them
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to review all the deliverable parts within the complete process. These audits will also help in
checking all the gaps within the process and scope of improvement within the process.
Engineering tooling company can also do employee monitoring and check customers feedback
on monthly basis. With the help of this employee monitoring they can review performance and
improvement scope within all the of their employee so that they can focus on bringing required
changes within them. Customer feedbacks can also give the company a brief overview of where
the changes and improvements are required to be brought. All these improvement will help the
company to sustain quality of culture within their organization.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Aquilani, B., and et.al., 2017. A systematic literature review on total quality management critical
success factors and the identification of new avenues of research. The TQM
Journal. 29(1). pp.184-213.
Chua, C.K., Wong, C.H. and Yeong, W.Y., 2017. Standards, quality control, and measurement
sciences in 3D printing and additive manufacturing. Academic Press.
Jiménez-Jiménez, D., and et.al., 2015. Total quality management performance in multinational
companies: A learning perspective. The TQM Journal. 27(3). pp.328-340.
Kim, H., Lin, Y. and Tseng, T.L.B., 2018. A review on quality control in additive
manufacturing. Rapid Prototyping Journal. 24(3). pp.645-669.
Lipsitz, Y.Y., and et.al., 2017. Achieving efficient manufacturing and quality assurance through
synthetic cell therapy design. Cell Stem Cell. 20(1). pp.13-17.
Price, F., 2017. Right first time: using quality control for profit. Routledge.
Robinson, S., 2017. Automated inspection and quality assurance. Routledge.
Ross, J.E., 2017. Total quality management: Text, cases, and readings. Routledge.
Skeeba, V.Y., and et.al., 2016, April. Integrated processing: quality assurance procedure of the
surface layer of machine parts during the manufacturing step" Diamond Smoothing".
In IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering (Vol. 125, No. 1, p.
012031). IOP Publishing.
Tricco, A.C., and et.al., 2019. Quality improvement strategies to prevent falls in older adults: a
systematic review and network meta-analysis. Age and ageing.
Online
Quality Assurance. 2019. [Online]. Available through : <https://www.guru99.com/all-about-
quality-assurance.html>.
Total quality management. 2018. [Online]. Available through :
<https://www.toolshero.com/quality-management/total-quality-management-tqm/>.
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