Ans 5 a)

The Seven Basic Tools of Quality is a designation given to a fixed set of graphical techniques identified
as being most helpful introubleshooting issues related to quality.
[1]
They are called basic because they are
suitable for people with little formal training in statistics and because they can be used to solve the vast
majority of quality-related issues.
[2]

The seven tools are:
[3][4][5]

Cause-and-effect diagram (also known as the "fishbone" or Ishikawa diagram)
Check sheet
Control chart
Histogram
Pareto chart
Scatter diagram
Stratification (alternately, flow chart or run chart)
The designation arose in postwar Japan, inspired by the seven famous weapons of Benkei.
[6]
It was
possibly introduced by Kaoru Ishikawa who in turn was influenced by a series of lectures W. Edwards
Deming had given to Japanese engineers and scientists in 1950.
[7]
At that time, companies that had set
about training their workforces in statistical quality control found that the complexity of the subject
intimidated the vast majority of their workers and scaled back training to focus primarily on simpler
methods which suffice for most quality-related issues.
[8]

The Seven Basic Tools stand in contrast to more advanced statistical methods such as survey
sampling, acceptance sampling,statistical hypothesis testing, design of experiments, multivariate
analysis, and various methods developed in the field of operations research.
[9]

The Project Management Institute references the Seven Basic Tools in A Guide to the Project
Management Body of Knowledge as an example of a set of general tools useful for planning or controlling
project quality.
[10]


Ans 5 b)
Benchmarking is the process of comparing one's business processes and performance metrics to
industry bests or best practicesfrom other industries. Dimensions typically measured are quality, time and
cost. In the process of best practice benchmarking, management identifies the best firms in their industry,
or in another industry where similar processes exist, and compares the results and processes of those
studied (the "targets") to one's own results and processes. In this way, they learn how well the targets
perform and, more importantly, the business processes that explain why these firms are successful.
Benchmarking is used to measure performance using a specific indicator (cost per unit of measure,
productivity per unit of measure, cycle time of x per unit of measure or defects per unit of measure)
resulting in a metric of performance that is then compared to others.
[1][2]

Also referred to as "best practice benchmarking" or "process benchmarking", this process is used in
management and particularlystrategic management, in which organizations evaluate various aspects of
their processes in relation to best practice companies' processes, usually within a peer group defined for
the purposes of comparison. This then allows organizations to develop plans on how to make
improvements or adapt specific best practices, usually with the aim of increasing some aspect of
performance. Benchmarking may be a one-off event, but is often treated as a continuous process in
which organizations continually seek to improve their practices.

Ans 5 c)
Six Sigma is a set of techniques and tools for process improvement. It was developed byMotorola in
1986,
[1][2]
coinciding with the Japanese asset price bubble which is reflected in its terminology. Six Sigma
became famous when Jack Welch made it central to his successful business strategy at General
Electric in 1995.
[3]
Today, it is used in many industrial sectors.
[4]

Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of
defects (errors) and minimizing variability in manufacturing and business processes. It uses a set
of quality management methods, including statistical methods, and creates a special infrastructure of
people within the organization ("Champions", "Black Belts", "Green Belts", "Yellow Belts", etc.) who are
experts in the methods. Each Six Sigma project carried out within an organization follows a defined
sequence of steps and has quantified value targets, for example: reduce process cycle time, reduce
pollution, reduce costs, increase customer satisfaction, and increase profits. These are also core to
principles of Total Quality Management (TQM) as described by Peter Drucker and Tom Peters
(particularly in his book "The Pursuit of Excellence" in which he refers to the Motorola six sigma
principles).
The term Six Sigma originated from terminology associated with manufacturing, specifically terms
associated with statistical modeling of manufacturing processes. The maturity of a manufacturing process
can be described by a sigma rating indicating its yield or the percentage of defect-free products it creates.
A six sigma process is one in which 99.99966% of the products manufactured are statistically expected to
be free of defects (3.4 defective parts/million), although, as discussed below, this defect level
corresponds to only a 4.5 sigma level. Motorola set a goal of "six sigma" for all of its manufacturing
operations, and this goal became a by-word for the management and engineering practices used to
achieve it.

Ans 5 d)
Business process re-engineering is a business management strategy, originally pioneered in the early
1990s, focusing on the analysis and design of workflows andbusiness processes within an organization.
BPR aimed to help organizationsfundamentally rethink how they do their work in order to dramatically
improve customer service, cut operational costs, and become world-class competitors.
[1]
In the mid-
1990s, as many as 60% of the Fortune 500 companies claimed to either have initiated reengineering
efforts, or to have plans to do so.
[2]

BPR seeks to help companies radically restructure their organizations by focusing on the ground-up
design of their business processes. According to Davenport (1990) a business process is a set of logically
related tasks performed to achieve a defined business outcome. Re-engineering emphasized
a holistic focus on business objectives and how processes related to them, encouraging full-scale
recreation of processes rather than iterative optimization of subprocesses.
[1]

Business process re-engineering is also known as business process redesign, business transformation,
or business process change management.

Ans 5 e)
A quality circle is a volunteer group composed of workers (or even students), who do the same or similar
work, usually under the leadership of their own supervisor (or an elected team leader), who meet
regularly in paid time who are trained to identify, analyze and solve work-related problems and present
their solutions to management and where possible implement the solutions themselves in order to
improve the performance of the organization, and motivate and enrich the work of employees. When
matured, true quality circles become self-managing, having gained the confidence of management.
Quality circles are an alternative to the rigid concept of division of labor, where workers operate in a more
narrow scope and compartmentalized functions. Typical topics are improving occupational safety and
health, improving product design, and improvement in the workplace and manufacturing processes. The
term quality circles was defined by Professor Kaoru Ishikawa in a journal entitled [title needed]
[1]
and
circulated throughout Japanese industry by JUSE in 1960. The first company in Japan to introduce
Quality Circles was the Nippon Wireless and Telegraph Company in 1962. By the end of that year there
were 36 companies registered with JUSE by 1978 the movement had grown to an estimated 1 million
Circles involving some 10 million Japanese workers. Contrary to some people's opinion this movement
had nothing whatever to do with Dr. Edwards Deming or indeed Dr Juran and both were skeptical as to
whether it could be made to work in the USA or the West generally.
Quality circles are typically more formal groups. They meet regularly on company time and are trained by
competent persons (usually designated as facilitators) who may be personnel and industrial relations
specialists trained in human factors and the basic skills of problem identification, information gathering
and analysis, basic statistics, and solution generation.
[2]
Quality circles are generally free to select any
topic they wish (other than those related to salary and terms and conditions of work, as there are other
channels through which these issues are usually considered).
[3][4]

Quality circles have the advantage of continuity; the circle remains intact from project to project. (For a
comparison to Quality Improvement Teams, see Juran's Quality by Design.
[5]
).