Quality Control Implementation in Manufacturing Companies: Motivating Factors and Challenges

Abstract

The pressure from globalisation has made manufacturing organisations moving towards three major competitive arenas: quality, cost, and responsiveness. Quality is a universal value and has became a global issue. In order to survive and be able to provide customers with good products, manufacturing organisations are required to ensure that their processes are continuously monitored and product quality are improved. Manufacturing organisation applies various quality control techniques to improve the quality of the process by reducing its variability. A range of techniques are available to control product or process quality. These include seven statistical process control (SPC) tools, acceptance sampling, quality function deployment (QFD), failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), six sigma, and design of experiments (DoE). The purpose of this chapter is to present the implementation of quality control in four manufacturing companies and identify the factors that influence the selection of quality control techniques in these companies. The paper discusses the reasons for applying quality control techniques, the techniques used, and problems faced by them during the implementation. The paper begins with an overview of quality control and its implementation in organisations. This is followed by the description of four selected companies in this study including their products and company backgrounds. The application of quality control in each company is then presented. The motivating factors for the companies to apply quality control and challenges faced by companies in implementing quality control are discussed.