Quality & Process Improvement: Tools, Techniques, and Costing

This report provides an analysis of quality and process improvement techniques, focusing on Mechanical Movements Ltd, a company providing mechanical and electrical plant motility services. It examines the effective use of quality control tools such as stratification, histograms, control charts, and cause-and-effect diagrams, and how these tools can be applied to improve business performance. The report also delves into costing techniques used in the industry, including job costing, standard costing, and direct costing, highlighting their importance in decision-making and cost control. The analysis concludes that quality management and control are crucial for meeting high-quality standards efficiently and cost-effectively, contributing to business growth and efficiency. Desklib offers more solved assignments for students.

Quality & Process
Improvement

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................1
P3. Analyse the effective use of quality control tools and techniques ........................................1
M2. Determine with justifications the quality tools and techniques that can be use to improve
business performance...................................................................................................................3
D2. Develop a process for application of an extensive range of quality control tools and
techniques with emphasis on costing...........................................................................................3
P4. Analyse costing techniques used in industry.........................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Quality and process improvement is the concept of evaluating activities and structures of
every process to determine if it needs any improvement for better results. It involves both
functional and operational areas of an organisation. Quality improvement process consists of
identifying, examining, controlling and improving obstacles that are creating issues in
maintaining quality. For this report, chosen organisation is Mechanical Movements Ltd. which
provides mechanical and electrical plant motility to companies in London since 1988
(Mechanical Movements Ltd, 2022). Company's operations includes construction, haulage,
mechanical, delivering plant movement, contract lifts, steel fabrication, chiller drainage, etc.
This report will cover the quality costing techniques used by engineering industry and
their implementation as well as effectiveness. It also highlights quality control tools and
techniques that can help companies improve their performances.
TASK 2
P3. Analyse the effective use of quality control tools and techniques
Quality control tools and techniques ensures that no errors or faults take place in process
and highlights certain ways to eliminate them from products made. It ensures manufacturing of
quality products which is important to attract as well as retain customers. It controls all aspects
of engineering industry as it is related to consistency and safety by best means possible. Quality
control major aim is to maximise skilfulness of processes as well as products. Techniques and
tools used in quality control standards are part of statistical process control (Antony and Gupta,
2019). By applying these tools in organisation, Mechanical Movements Ltd managers can
evaluate risks involved in production process and plan accordingly to overcome them which
further help in improving quality. Various tools and techniques that assists Mechanical
Movements Ltd to maintain and improve their quality are discussed below:
Stratification- It is a technique of divide and conquer which means splitting information
into sub- categories and separate that on different basis like group, division, class, etc. Separating
data assists businesses to determine various patterns and lope holes which were not visible due to
large amount of unstructured data. This helps in providing significant information to know the
cause of a problem in organisation (Aqlan and Al-Fandi, 2018). Mechanical Movements Ltd
engineers segregate their process of production on basis of sources, labour, requirements, needs,
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raw materials, machines efficiency, etc. to ensure that every aspect is working properly which
will help in maintaining quality of products.
Histogram- This tool helps organisation with evaluating and explaining demeanour of
various groups of data in order to supervise quality. Histogram assists in dispersion of data
distinctly and in summary between different groups to identify fields of improvement in
production process. Business should strive to make histogram in a way that whole organisation
can easily utilize and understand it. Engineers of Mechanical Movements Ltd make detailed
histogram chart which shows frequency of every production process failure or success in order to
understand different values in a set of data or faults in operation activities that can be the result
of low quality (Berman, Raval and Goldin, 2018).
Control chart- It is a statistical chart that examines control over industrial process and
helps businesses to meet consumers specified limits. Control chart is important to organisations
as it evaluates whether a certain process is stable and competent to manage quality within
existing conditions. It eases difficulties in findings fluctuations and defects in production
process. It compares current control chart with historical data to understand if process is
controlled and up to the quality mark or not. Engineers at Mechanical Movements Ltd saves
organisation resources and time by forecasting process performance in terms of customers
expectations from end product. Control chart monitors and observes production process in order
to find cause of issues in quality. It helps engineers of Mechanical Movements Ltd to understand
evolution of processes and quality over a period of time by comparing existing data trends to
historical process limits.
Cause and effect- This technique helps companies to identify several variables or causes
that results to an effects which create problems in production process or quality. In cause and
effect diagram, problems related to quality are written on one side and their causes as well as
effects are written on other side in order to fully understand what is the root causes of problems.
Mechanical Movements Ltd engineers uses this tool to determine potential causes of an effect.
Causes identified are solved by brainstorming among the employees who are familiar with the
issues and knows methods to mitigate them (Chión, Charles and Morales, 2019). It also helps the
company to explore areas of opportunity through optimum utilisation of available resources.
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M2. Determine with justifications the quality tools and techniques that can be use to improve
business performance
In order to maintain and improve performances of business, Mechanical Movements Ltd
can adopt various tools as well as techniques such as flow charts, pareto chart, histograms, check
sheets, scatter diagrams, etc. Quality engineers of Mechanical Movements Ltd can adopt cause
and effect tools as it clearly demonstrate results of each action and activity in production process.
By assessing causes, the company can make strategies to avoid root causes of problems and
transform them into opportunities. Any factors leading to reduction in quality can be identified
through this tool which further helps firm to improve their performances. It is beneficial for
Mechanical Movements Ltd as it gives a structured path to solve issues and to maximise quality.
Cause and effect is a easiest tool to understand that is both highly effective as well as easy to
implement (Matthies, 2019).
D2. Develop a process for application of an extensive range of quality control tools and
techniques with emphasis on costing
The process of adopting various tools of quality control can be very different from one
another in terms of time, complexity and cost. Quality engineers of Mechanical Movements Ltd
collects all the information regarding every aspect of production process in order to understand
problems which is reducing quality of end products. After identifying, engineers makes a chart of
causes and its effects to makes changes accordingly. Charts made by quality engineers are also
useful if similar issues arise in future and in strategic decision making. This is the best technique
which is not time consuming and also cost effective as it require minor changes in production
process.
P4. Analyse costing techniques used in industry
Techniques used for determining decision making and cost control are known as costing
techniques. It is helpful in measuring expenses to maintain quality in manufacturing process and
also evaluates expenses that adds no value to quality. It assists quality engineers of Mechanical
Movements Ltd to interpret worth of inputs and outputs to get to exact cost per unit of
production (Nandakumar, Saleeshya and Harikumar, 2020). It provides opportunity to engineers
to evaluate profitability of organisation by setting prices economically. Major costing techniques
in terms with Mechanical Movements Ltd are explained below:
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Job Costing- It consist of taking into account several labour, material as well as overhead
costs and compile them to make production expenses. Purchase of inventory, employment of
labour, assignment of manufacturing are some of transactions of job costings. Quality engineers
of Mechanical Movements Ltd uses this technique by determining cost for every work separately
on basis of their specification and scope. The importance of job costing is that it gives
opportunity to manufactures to follow up actual costs to produce one or more unit of product.
Standard costing- It is a technique through which manufacturers decide standard rates of
labour and materials that are going to be used in production process. Costs are determined in
advance on certain measures of operating situations in order to avoid fluctuations in costs due to
dynamic nature of business environment. Quality engineers of Mechanical Movements Ltd
adopts standard costing in their operations by demonstrating expected costs needed for labour
and materials to manufacture one unit of product (Oliver, Oliver and Chen, 2019).
Direct costing- It is a technique that focuses on costs which increases or decreases in
proportion with production quantity. It helps businesses to determining which costs are variable
and their impact on pricing decisions in short term. It divides all direct costs into fixed and
variable costs associated with process of production which can create significant change in price
of a product. Quality managers of Mechanical Movements Ltd is able to make pricing decisions
effectively by adopting direct cost technique in business. Elements of this technique helps
manufacturers achieve clarity of profits earn and to determine areas of process improvements of
existing products.
CONCLUSION
As per the above report it has been concluded that quality and process improvement is a
big part of production function for any business. Quality management and control helps
organisation to meet new and high standards of quality efficiently and in cost effective manner.
This is a method to examine performances of process associated with operational and functional
areas of business. Several quality tools and techniques have been adopted by companies to
maximise quality of products. Costing techniques are also beneficial to maintain quality in
economic way possible. Quality improvement helps companies to grow and add efficiency to
business efforts.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Antony, J. and Gupta, S., 2019. Top ten reasons for process improvement project
failures. International Journal of Lean Six Sigma.
Aqlan, F. and Al-Fandi, L., 2018. Prioritizing process improvement initiatives in manufacturing
environments. International Journal of Production Economics. 196. pp.261-268.
Berman, L., Raval, M.V. and Goldin, A., 2018, December. Process improvement strategies:
Designing and implementing quality improvement research. In Seminars in pediatric
surgery (Vol. 27, No. 6, pp. 379-385). WB Saunders.
Chión, S.J., Charles, V. and Morales, J., 2019. The impact of organisational culture,
organisational structure and technological infrastructure on process improvement through
knowledge sharing. Business Process Management Journal.
Matthies, C., 2019, May. Agile process improvement in retrospectives. In 2019 IEEE/ACM 41st
International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceedings (ICSE-
Companion) (pp. 150-152). IEEE.
Nandakumar, N., Saleeshya, P.G. and Harikumar, P., 2020. Bottleneck identification and process
improvement by lean six sigma DMAIC methodology. Materials Today:
Proceedings. 24. pp.1217-1224.
Oliver, J., Oliver, Z. and Chen, C., 2019. Applying lean six sigma to grading process
improvement. International Journal of Lean Six Sigma.
Online:
Mechanical Movements Ltd. 2022. [Online] Available through:
https://mechanicalmovements.co.uk/
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