Quality Glossary

ACKOFF
A guru who extended the definition of TQM to include 'Stakeholders'. These include employees, customers, suppliers, bankers & fund providers, etc etc. Therefore Ackoff sees 'Total' in a broader environment.

AFFINITY DIAGRAM
The outputs of any idea generation session are written on individual cards. These are placed on a table and sorted into similar 'groups'. Names capturing the spirit for each of the groups are devised. The groups are entered on to a diagram called an affinity diagram.

AGREE
Advisory Group on the Reliability of Electronic Equipment
Formed in 1952 by the US Defense Department, to investigate failures and reliability of valves, transistors etc etc.

APPROACHES TO QUALITY
Pfeffer and Coote identify five types.

The Traditional Approach. (Quality equals grade, therefore a 5 star hotel has better quality than a B&B).
Traditional Quality Costs are...
Prevention
Appraisal
Internal Failure
External Failure
The Scientific or Expert Approach. (Conformance to specification).
The Managerial or 'Excellence' Approach. (Customer satisfaction, or shop front advertising impressing excellence upon the customer).
The Consumeristic Approach. (Customer satisfaction via free give away's if something doesn't please).
The Democratic Approach. (Morally doing things right. For example, spending a disproportionate amount of money on a sick patient).

ARROW DIAGRAMS
An event (such as poor sales) has lots of arrows pointing at it, from other events such as high cost etc. These in turn have arrows pointing at them from other events such as in-efficient production. None of the events are in bubbles or boxes. Also see Multiple Cause Diagrams

ASQC
American Society of Quality Control

AUDITS
See Quality Audits.

BENCHMARKING
A five stage procedure.

Select the area to be benchmarked.
Decide who to benchmark against. Other product lines, competitors, parallel industries etc.
Identify sources of information. Published material, customer feedback, direct exchange with competitors.
Analyse the Information.
Use the information.
BPB
Best Practice Benchmarking, also simply known as 'Benchmarking'.

BQF
British Quality Foundation.

BRAINSTORMING
A popular method with quite tight rules.

Work in small groups, 5-6, in private and away from interruption.
Create and atmosphere safe, supportive, fun, energetic, enthusiastic, permissive, stimulating and risk-taking.
Divide time into periods of relaxed privacy and excited rapid fire.
Write up all ideas as they occur and where people can read them.
Treat everyone as equal, although a compere may be appointed to jolly things along.
Continue while excitement lasts, stop when it gets stale.
When a good stock of ideas has been generated, switch mode to how can we develop these into useable options?

BRAINWRITING
Similar to the above, without verbal communication. Five typical methods are...

Pool Method. Each participant writes four ideas on blank sheets of paper. Then another four on another sheet - and so on. When no more ideas pop up, the participant takes someone else's sheet and expounds & develops upon those ideas.
Card Circulating Technique. Piles of blank cards are placed between members of the group. Each person takes a blank card from the left, writes an idea upon it and passes it to the right. When anyone dries up, they take a card that has been written on and try to develop it.
635 Method. Six people write down three ideas in 5 minutes. The forms are passed around five times (to each other) and after each pass the idea is further developed by each participant.
Collective Notebook. Eight to ten people are asked to record one idea per day in a notebook. At the end of a week, the notebooks are distributed and each participant tries to build upon the ideas written in the notebook in front of them.
Electronic Method. Using networks and conferencing the card circulating technique is employed.
BS-EN-ISO9000
The harmonised quality standard that replaced BS5750. This essentially looks for non-compliance and confirms that specified procedures are being followed.

CATTERICK
Another guru. He suggests the following questioning procedure to get the information required to compile a QA manual.

What is done?
How is it done?
Why is it done this way?
Who is responsible for ensuring that it is done?
To what specification must it be 'done'?
How does this meet the needs of the next person in the supply chain? (The immediate customer).
He also states the following requirements for a Statement of Quality Policy.

Establish an organisation for quality
Identify the customer needs and perception of needs.
Assess the ability to meet those needs.
Ensure that materials and sub-contractors meet the performance requirements and effectiveness.
Concentrate on prevention rather than detection of errors.
Educate and train every employee to understand and be committed to quality.
Review the management systems to maintain progress and continual improvement.

CATWOE
A procedure to check that all the root elements have been addressed before constructing a conceptual model. This is of particular use with Soft Systems Approaches.

C Customers. These are the clients, beneficiaries or even victims of a system.
A Actors. These are the people that conduct the activities of the system.
T Transformation. The specified elements that will be changed by the system
W World View. What is the global thinking which justifies the changes brought about by the system. Find common ground.
O Owners. Who can stop (control) this activity or demolish the system
E Environment. What constraints (physical rather than environmental) will hinder the activities of the system.


CAUSE & EFFECT DIAGRAM
See Ishikawa.

CHARACTERISTICS OF AN AUDITOR
There is a code of conduct issued by the IRCA, the characteristics are shown in a wagon-wheel type diagram.

Specification. Clear documented objectives.
Preparation. Standards & criteria being used to benchmark the scope of the audit, operation and maturity of the system.
Professionalism. Punctual, fair, true etc.
Directness. Audit is an intrusion. Don't beat around the bush, ask direct questions.
Astuteness. Be sympathetic and businesslike. Over-zealousness may create hostility.
Immunity. Audits may be used to politicise something.
Clarity. A clear communication of objectives, findings and conclusions conveys the result of the audit.

CHARTER MARK
Spawned from an idea of John Major with his 'Citizen's Charter'. This is now an award to organisations that provide an excellent service to the public.

CHECKLAND
Another guru. He outlined Soft Systems Methodology and concluded that a 'system that serves another system, cannot be defined until a definition of the system being served has been made available'.

CONTI
Another guru, of the opinion that TQM has entered the third stage of the Product Life Cycle. His definition of life cycle differs from Jones, and considers the third stage to be Decline. (So much for consistency).

CROSBY
Another guru, with the knack of coining a good phrase. For example.. Quality is free, Right first time, Zero defects.

He produced a 'quality management maturity grid' designed to show organisations where they stood along the trail towards TQM. The five stages are...

Uncertainty
Awakening.
Enlightenment.
Wisdom.
Certainty.

DEFECT
Typically these fall under three classes, as per MOD Standards.

Critical defect. Hazardous, unsafe.
Major defect. Not hazardous but will result in failure, or will materially reduce usability.
Minor defect. Does not materially reduce something's usability.

DEMING
The original guru. He compiled a 14-point action plan with specific aims, but these aims do not provide clear tools or even overall methods for meeting these aims. Therefore we conclude that within the context of TQM, Deming considered 'Total' as the plan, for others to provide the implementation tools. Unless contradictory information arises, it appears that Deming never actually coined the phrase Total Quality Management, despite his guru status. A summary of the Deming action plan is..

Create constancy of purpose.
Adopt the new philosophy.
Cease dependence on mass inspection.
Improve quality of incoming materials.
Find the problems.
Institute modern methods of training.
Institute modern methods of supervision.
Drive out fear, a barrier to improvement.
Break down barriers between departments.
Eliminate posters (etc) directed at the workforce. (Work Hard etc)
Eliminate quotas and numerical goals.
Remove barriers that rob hourly paid workers.
Institute vigorous programmes for self improvement.
Top management must be committed towards ongoing improvement.

DYNAMIC AUDITS
See Static Vs Dynamic audits.

EMERGENT PROPERTY
An interconnected system may give rise to emergent properties that cannot be attributed to a particular component within the system. The whole provides more than the sum of the parts.

EQA
European Quality Award (Model for self-assessment)

The criteria are split into two groups. Enablers and Results. There are nine weighted groups for self-assessment.

Leadership (weighted 1). How the executive teams inspire other managers for continuous improvement. Provision of resources, culture, and involvement.
Policy & Strategy (weighted 0.8). How the organisations mission, values & vision reflects TQM. Policy strategy reviews, updates etc.
People Management (weighted 0.9). How the business releases full potential of its people to improve business. People/resource planning.
Resources (weighted 0.9). How effective is the deployment of resources (financial, information etc).
Processes (weighted 1.4). How processes are identified, reviewed, revised etc. to continually improve business/service.
Customer Satisfaction (weighted 2.0). Can the organisation demonstrate that it is satisfying the needs of its external customers.
People Satisfaction (weighted 0.9). Can the organisation demonstrate that it meets the needs and expectations of its people.
Impact on Society (weighted 0.6). Can the organisation demonstrate that it meets the needs and expectations of the community at large.
Business Results (weighted 1.5). It must demonstrate financial success and non-financial success.
EVOP
Evolutionary Operation. Developed by a statistician called G.E.P. Box in the 1950's. An experimental method for continuous improvement.

EXPECTANCY THEORY

Developed by Vroom in the 1960's. The view that an individuals decision to work hard is a function of the following two terms.

Expectancy. An acceptance that expending effort to achieve a target will be followed by certain outcomes. (rewards, bonuses, appreciation, happiness).
Valence. The desirability of these outcomes. (if the bonus is naff all, then its not worth working hard to reach it).
Strength of Motivation The sum of (Expectancy x Valence). If either is zero, then the strength of motivation will be zero.

EXTRINSIC ASSESSMENT
An audit carried out by a third party, such as Lloyds, etc who are UKAS accredited assessing bodies.

FACERAP
A fault analysis procedure.

F Fault. The nature of the defect
A Appearance. What it looks like
C Cause. How the fault arose
E Effect. The result of the fault, and why should it spoil the finished product.
R Responsibility. Where the fault was caused
A Action. What should be done about it.
P Prevention. How to stop it happening again.


FAILURE
Qualified in several ways, such as...

By Degree. This includes partial failure, and complete failure.
By Cause. This includes misuse failure, inherent weakness failure, wear-out failure.
By Suddenness. This includes sudden failure, gradual failure, intermittent failure.
By Dependence. This includes primary failure, secondary failure.

FEIGENBAUM
Another guru, his work is sometimes credited as the beginning of modern TQM. He suggested that all quality activities should be co- ordinated within an engineered operating system framework in which all main-line activities are responsible for their own customer orientated quality efforts. Secondly, TQM places greater emphasis upon reliability in product design and precision in parts manufacture (Statistical Quality Control). 'Total' is therefore limited to these activities. One of his most important contributions to the meaning of TQM was by drawing attention to the fact that it needs to be managed properly, and as such would provide a useful management tool.

FELT RESPONSIBILITY
People are more likely to be committed to a process or program if they feel they are the 'owners'. The limiting factors are the realisation on no-ownership when decisions are made without their involvement, or if they are forced into situations without choice.

FISHBONE DIAGRAM
See Ishikawa

FLOW BLOCK DIAGRAMS
This defines the machines used in a process. A series of boxes with titles inside connected by lines. For example the production of rubber gaskets has the names of materials (not in boxes) connected by lines to boxes with titles inside such as 'mixer'. Lines connect to other boxes containing titles such as 'guillotine'. Materials or other inputs to the diagrams are not in boxes and just connect by lines. Convention uses the following symbols.

Arrows indicate the flow of materials and ideas.
Labels, colours or a key should identify the flow.
Boxes should represent system components and should contain the name of the machine (title).
The output from a box is a transformation of the input.
FLOW PROCESS DIAGRAM
This defines operation of a process and not the machines. Very similar to the above, the boxes would contain descriptions of an action such as 'cut to size'. This would replace the machine title 'guillotine'.

FMEA
Failure mode and effect analysis. A systematic way of assuring that every conceivable potential failure of a design has been considered. This can be accomplished using a table, the title of each column would be as shown below. This FMEA is for a plastic ballpoint pen.

Part Plastic tube
Function. Provides grip and contains components.
Potential Failure Mode Hole in the side gets blocked.
Potential Effects of Failure Vacuum prevents ink flowing.
Severity. 7 (chart to indicate severity).
Potential Cause of Failure Dirt blocks hole.
Occurrence 3 (chart indicates occurrence)
How will the Potential Failure be Detected Check condition of hole
Detection 5 (chart indicates ease of detection)
RPN 105 (Risk Priority Number)
Actions Make hole larger


FOX
Another guru. In 1993 he identified two aspects of design.

Form. The aesthetic or artistic end of the spectrum.
Function. The practical or performance end of the spectrum.

FTA
Fault Tree Analysis. The top event is the final result, a bonnet opening whilst driving along, or an explosion on a system etc. The lower events are possible causes, the lower events are causes to those causes. Lots of boxes connected by vertical and horizontal lines. Although most of the boxes are square, convention allows oval boxes for an event that is outside the system (uplift on the bonnet when driving along) and round boxes for a basic event (the bottom row).

GAP ANALYSIS
Berry 1985 (another guru) suggested that to improve service quality we need to.....

Identify primary quality determinants so that they can be focussed.
Manage customer expectations.
Manage evidence. i.e. make sure that tangibles convey clues about quality.
Educate customers so that they make better decisions.
Automate where appropriate.
Follow up to identify opportunities for further improvement.
The gap analysis comes in when we consider the difference between the provider's perceptions of the customer expectations, and the customer's actual expectations.

GENERAL
Most analysis will contain the following perceptions.

Visibility. Can you see what is happening or being proposed.
Involvement. Is anyone interested? Including suppliers and customers.
Consistency. Is it a fluke?
Strategy. Does everyone know where they are going and how they will arrive?
Promotion. How are the ideas conveyed?
Implementation. Are the methods & resources in place?
Resources. Includes both financial and information.
Updates. Continuous improvement, information, technology, strategy, communications, etc.
Tools. Some diagrams, bar charts or other forms of analysis are invariably employed.

HARD SYSTEMS APPROACH
Used when problems and success are easily quantifiable, but the route and steps required are not clear.

Stage 1 System Description.
Stage 2 Identification of Objectives & Constraints.
Stage 3 Formulation of Measures of Performance.
Stage 4 Generation of Routes to Objectives.
Stage 5 Modelling.
Stage 6 Evaluation.
Stage 7 Choice of Route to Objective.
Stage 8 Implementation.

HISTOGRAMS
A frequency diagram comprising of blocks placed side by side. The height of each block represents the frequency.

HOUSE OF QUALITY
A tool often used in Quality Function Deployment. Essentially a rectangular matrix that resembles a house, with customer wants on the left 'What' and production requirements along the top 'How'. The roof is another triangular matrix that connects bits of the 'How' together to define the strength of any relationship that may exist within production requirements.

INPUT - OUTPUT DIAGRAMS
An oval with the name of the system inside, inputs with arrows on the left, outputs with arrows to the right. A quality diagram would have legislation, instrumentation, standards, raw materials etc to the left, specifications, manuals, training programmes

etc to the right.

IRCA
International Register of Certified Auditors. People who professionally audit third parties should be registered as assessors or lead assessors with the IRCA.

ISHIKAWA
Another guru with an approach towards TQM based upon cause & effect. He produced the 'Fishbone Diagram', also called the 'Cause & Effect Diagram'. This diagram is so called because a series of spines connects to a horizontal line. Each spine contains a subject, such as 'Human', 'Process' etc, and then details to what extent the subject is involved. He extends the term 'Total' to include after-sales service and even the human being.

JBS
Juran's Breakthrough Sequence. Quality failure can be divided into two groups. Sporadic and Chronic. Sporadic is the sudden adverse change in Status Quo, requiring remedy by restoring Status Quo. Chronic is a long-standing adverse situation remedied by changing the status quo. The breakthrough sequence is with respect to the Chronic situation.

Convince others of the need for change.
Identify the vital.
Organise for breakthrough in knowledge.
Conduct the analysis
Determine the effect of proposed change to those involved.
Take action to institute changes.
Institute controls to hold the new status quo.
JIT
Just in Time. This relies upon the performance of the system as a whole. It encourages quality and minimises waste because of the clarity that minimum stock provokes.

JOB REDESIGN
Concerned with the amalgamation of different and separate work roles.

Reorganisation of Flow-lines. A horizontal series of monotonous work roles is replaced by shorter chains of multi-varied work roles, or individual work stations. The replacement of a rigid production line.

Flexible Work Groups. A group of people are allocated different types of jobs as and when required.

Vertical Role Integration. Machine set up, operation, inspection and simple maintenance are integrated into one job function.

JONES (CONRAD)
A different guru, involved in product marketing. Attributed with defining product life cycle in 1955. This takes the shape of a 'bell curve' and consists of four sections.

Introduction
Growth
Maturity
Decline.
Although these four sections are the 'definitive' PLC curve, other gurus sometimes leave out or add in new sections, resulting in between three and five possible sections.

JURAN
Another guru, responsible for JBS and the quality trilogy. An American considered extremely influential in the introduction of TQM to Japan during the mid 1950's.

Also see TQM.

JURAN'S QUALITY TRILOGY
A triangle with Quality Planning on the bottom left, Quality Control on the bottom right and Quality Improvement at the top. Quality Assurance links the bottom corners of the triangle.

JUSE
Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers.

KANJI
Another guru. His four main principles are...

Delight the customer
Continuous improvement
Management by fact
People based management.

MASLOW
A psychologist who proposed a theory of motivation in 1943. These formed a pyramid, working from the bottom (most important base need) to the top (least important need) they are....

Physiological needs.
Safety needs.
Social needs.
Self-esteem.
Self actualisation.

MATRIX DIAGRAM
This allows the data from one dimension to be mapped against another. For example, different problems could be on a vertical grid, departments within the organisation on a horizontal grid. This produces a 'crossword' into which circles or triangles can be

entered, to indicate primary or secondary responsibility. (Some bits of the grid will obviously not have anything entered into them). Similar in concept to the main chart embedded in the 'House of Quality'.

MATRIX DIAGRAM (OR DATA) ANALYSIS
This uses the information provided by a Matrix Diagram, mainly for QFD techniques.

McGREGOR
Another guru. He proposed two theories, Theory X and Theory Y.

Theory X. Employees are inherently lazy, require coercion and control. They avoid responsibility and only seek security.
Theory Y. Employees like to work, they do not require coercion or control so long as they are committed to organisation objectives. They seek and accept responsibility and exercise imagination and ingenuity at work

MBNQA A USA
Quality Award introduced in 1987 and called the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

MULTIPLE CAUSE DIAGRAMS
A series of arrows connecting events. Feedback can occur to either reinforce an event or to oppose an event.

Also see Arrow Diagrams.

OAKLAND
Another guru. In 1993 he suggested that the name 'Quality Manual' is wrong. It really should be called a 'Management Manual'.

PAF
Process Appraisal Failure. The PAF model was developed by Feigenbaum, the ASQC provides guidelines and the following checklist to improve quality.

Could additional effort in planning profitably reduce appraisal or failure costs?
Could audits be used instead of 100% or lot-by-lot inspection?
Could improved supplier selection and control programmes reduce total costs?
Could design reviews be profitably used?
Are quality engineering programmes designed to prevent defects from being produced?
Is there a clearly stated well known quality policy?
Are drawing and measuring instrument control programmes in existence and effective?
Are training programmes providing a profitable return. Do costs show that new ones are needed?

PARETO ANALYSIS
A chart where the groups are added together to form a 'hill' with inflections at various points. The top of the 'hill' is the whole sample population, i.e. 100% of the parts. Underneath this 'hill' is a block diagram (histogram) representing the add on part of the 'hill'.

PDCA
Plan - Do - Check - Act. Demings formulation of a systematic approach.

POKA YOKE
Idiot proofing.

PROCESS (COST) MODEL.
A block diagram, the vertical rectangle in the middle is the Manufacturing Process. To the left are boxes showing input connected by arrows to the centre rectangle. These arrows detail the input such as Materials, Staff & Training, Tools & Equipment etc, from the relevant departments (in the boxes). To the right are other arrows detailing output such as Products, Statistics, Defects, Performance Reports etc. These arrows point to boxes containing relevant departments. (QA, Engineering, Transport etc).

PROCESS COST REPORT
The report should contain a full list of costs of conformance and non-conformance. It should also specify...

All inputs, outputs, controls and resources.
The means of calculation for each element of cost.
The source of the cost data.

PROGRAM DECISION PROCESS CHARTS
Also called Process Decision Program Charts show the activities and decisions involved in turning input into output. Mainly used for investigating opportunities of improvement in a process, and the prediction of potential bottlenecks.

QUADRATIC LOSS FUNCTION
Conceived by Taguchi. A parabola on a graph with two vertical lines and one horizontal line. The Y axis represents escalating costs. The left vertical line is product lower specification. The right vertical line is product upper specification. The horizontal line is the tangent to the parabola, and represents minimum costs (lowest loss). The target area is between the two vertical lines.

QUALITY AUDITS
An objective, independent source of information about quality performance. Two different areas of quality audit exist.

Product audits.
System audits.

QUALITY CIRCLES
Groups of people, usually 5-10 who meet voluntarily to improve quality and productivity. Japanese QC's are usually trained in the 7 basic problem solving tools and the leaders are usually (in Japan) foremen.

QUALITY COST MATRIX
Six rows and three columns. .

Supplier/subcontractor In-house Customer.
Prevention.
Appraisal
Internal Failure
External Failure
Warranty
Other.

The intersection of each row/column contains the task or observation. Example. Prevention/supplier may show supplier QA, feedback, training, auditing, vendor training etc.

QUALITY COSTS.
There are two sectors for Producer Operating Costs, these are the 'Costs of quality control' and the 'Costs of failure to control'. These can be split into four segments and is sometimes called the PAF categorisation.

Prevention
Appraisal
Internal Failure
External Failure.
Also see Approaches to Quality

QUALITY DEFINITIONS
Excellence
Value
Conformance to specification
Meeting and/or exceeding the customers expectations
QFD
Quality Function Deployment. A planning tool that take a process through four phases. It also introduces the 'House of Quality' and investigates customer Primary, Secondary and Tertiary requirements.

Product Planning.
Parts Deployment.
Process Planning.
Production Planning.

QUALITY MANAGEMENT SELF ASSESSMENT
The BQF define this as a comprehensive, systematic and regular review of activities and results against a model of excellence. i.e. Its main thrust is quality improvement.

RAD
Role Activity Diagram. A simple block diagram. For example, claiming expenses. The left block is the claimant and approvals. The middle block is the accounts, and systems. The right block is the Chief accountant or Director. The diagram traces the route from claimant, through the process and back to the claimant, illustrating activities such as checking claims, refusing claims and paying claims.

Box squares mean activity. (Check claim)

Triangles mean 'Yes - No' decisions. (Pay or reject)

RELATIONAL DIAGRAM
A series on ovals on a diagram with names inside, such as Design, Production, Marketing etc. These ovals are connected together with straight lines to represent the relationship (if any) with other ovals.

RPN
Risk Priority Number. Severity x Occurrence x Detection. In the FMEA shown earlier this would be 7 x 3 x 5=105.

SALANCIK's THEORY OF MOTIVATION.
People are motivated by one or more of the following...

Explicitness. People are happier when they are aware of what they must do.
Publicity. Only valid if achievements are publicised, motivating those people involved.
Volition. Volunteers, people want to do it.
Revocability. There is a get out clause.

SCATTER DIAGRAMS
Points on a graph, not connected by lines. Looking at the scatter of the points with respect to the XY axis may highlight a variable.

SEVEN NEW TOOLS
Affinity Diagram.
Relational Diagram.
Tree Diagram.
Matrix Diagram.
Program Decision Process Chart.
Arrow Diagram.
Matrix Data Analysis.

SEVEN OLD TOOLS
Pareto Analysis
Cause & Effect Diagrams
Stratification
Tally Cards
Histograms
Scatter Diagrams
Shewhart Control Charts

SHEWART CONTROL CHARTS
Used for SPC, upper and lower control limits can be calculated and warning lines as well.

SOFT SYSTEMS
Pioneered by Checkland. A method of tackling complex, ill defined quality problems by redefining the problem content into a number of clearly defined discussion points.

Create a 'rich picture'. This reflects the reality of the situation but may not provide a clear statement of the problem.
Decide upon areas of possible action and relevancy.
Compile a root definition (see CATWOE).
Produce conceptual models.
Compare the models with reality and the rich picture.
Debate.
Implement.
SPC
Statistical Process Control. Collection and analysis of data to enable a production system to be kept 'under control'.

STATIC Vs DYNAMIC AUDITS.
Wilbourn (1990) distincts between two types of audit as follows.......

Static. The system is in equilibrium. A deviation from standard procedures is therefore a non-compliance.
Dynamic. The same deviation would still be a non-compliance, but the auditor would evaluate alternative actions with a view to determining acceptability.
The difference is that Static auditing emphasises the need for status quo. Dynamic auditing is open to the introduction of change and improvement. A table of features can be drawn up to compare the different approaches, objectives, standards, methods, execution, style etc. The main difference is that static audits follows fixed rules, dynamic audits provide the auditor with a degree of flexibility.

STRATIFICATION
An analysis where the data is divided into groups so that the source can be studied. For example, a component may be produced on three different machines. Rather than look at the whole component batch, the samples are taken from each of the three machines and compared.

SYSTEMS FAILURE METHOD
The weld failing on a production line is seen as a quality problem. A weld failing on an oil-rig killing people is seen as a failure. The SFM is used to clarify and investigate high-level problems and usually starts when you are confronted with a situation or failure.

Stage 1 Pre-Analysis.
Stage 2 Identification of Significant Problems or Failures.
Stage 3 System Selection.
Stage 4 System Modelling.
Stage 5 Comparison.
Stage 6 Further Analysis.
Stage 7 Synthesis.
SYSTEM MAPS
A snapshot showing the components of a system and its environment at a point in time. For example, ovals within ovals containing text. A big oval may contain the text 'Company System', a smaller oval inside may be the 'Production System' and inside that oval may be smaller ovals containing 'Solvent Recovery System', 'Finishing System' etc.

TAYLOR
An American Engineer who designed the 'Scientific Management Approach' in 1923. He held the view that if you could establish how much work a really capable worker could achieve, then this would provide a standard against which the performance of others could be judged.

TAYLORISM
The above engineer provided the term and it can be summed up as the following management approach...........

Work methods and a fair day's pay must be based upon scientific study and not what the foreman and workers think.
Piecework payments should be used to motivate workers in terms of both quantity and quality.
The role of management should be to control the workers.
TAGUCHI
Another guru. He places greater importance upon optimising a process or product thereby reducing variation and considerably extended one of the core concepts of TQM - quality improvement. He introduced the 'Quadratic Loss Function' and used data from statistically planned experiments to reduce performance variation. To Taguchi, 'Total' therefore encompasses the concept of unification, ratification and standardisation. Interestingly, he also considered TQM as a measure of the loss imparted by the product to society from the time that the product is shipped.

TALLY CARDS
An old method of recording variation. A mark is made on a card to indicate the quantity for each size/card. The marks are usually four lines with a diagonal line through them to indicate a batch size of five.

TOTAL QUALITY
Assumed to be Japanese, however the concept can be traced to and American called J.M. Juran who was invited to Japan in 1954 by JUSE. His quality philosophy spread and was taken up in Japan whilst the west largely ignored them.

TREE DIAGRAMS
Basically the same as a Fault Tree Analysis, often the diagram is compiled from the data obtained from an Affinity Diagram.

TQM
Total Quality Management. There are five key aspects to any TQM system, and various systems.

Continuous Improvement (and involvement). Products, design, production, technology, automation, communications, systems, management, transport etc etc.
Multi-functional Team Formation. For design, for improvement etc. The teams must cross inter-departmental borders, thereby knocking down barriers between departments.
Reduction in Variation. Tuguchi emphasised the need for unanimity. This means automate wherever possible to reduce the possibility of human error. SPC.
Supplier Integration. Build up relationships, sole supplier mentality, JIT, inspection, documentation, QA audits, influence the supplier to control their suppliers etc.
Use of Education & Training. Formal programmes, training targets, who controls them, how is training validated etc. Is training relevant, ensure that it stimulates and enlightens, keep records.