Quality methods and tools - Classic tools

The success of an ongoing quality improvement project, and product and process quality control, is based on a number of methods and tools that have been developed in recent years.

These methods can be divided into three main categories, each of which uses specific tools, as shown in figure 1 .

Each of these methods is based on the MOTP tools (tools and techniques for problem solving), formerly used by Japanese-style quality circles. These have now all but disappeared, to be replaced by "progress groups", which are formed to implement "all methods aimed at mobilizing the entire company to achieve greater customer satisfaction at the lowest possible cost".

In these groups, priority is given to people in general, and to working together in particular, taking into account that "quality is everybody's business but also everybody's business", i.e. that everyone's ideas must be heard, and that everyone's participation, initiative and creativity bring to the workgroup the synergy necessary to the ongoing process of progress.

The examples quoted are drawn from experience in industrial companies alone; these methods and tools are equally applicable to service companies.

This article is divided into two parts: the first dealing mainly with classic MOTP tools, and the second with quality tools for management, design and production.