On Importance of Statistical Quality Control in a Quality Management System

Strategic importance of product and service quality has been growing steadily for the past few decades, its impact on balance sheet items of successful companies not to be overlooked. As practitioners know, there are no easy ways to achieve, maintain and improve quality. Still, the efforts and expenses can be vastly reduced, if standard quality assurance practices are introduced and used in companies. Among many national and international quality standards, ISO standards are the most widely known. If not misunderstood or misused, they can represent a foundation of an efficient quality management system. One of the components of a quality management system is statistical quality control (SQC). Companies could and should benefit from continuous and proper use of statistical methods. However, there are not that many that have enough statistical knowledge (even if they are technically well equipped) to do so. It even seems as if the role of the statistical quality control is becoming of less importance with the focus of attention shifting from production to service sphere of the company, and from the problems of choosing the right quantitative tool to solve a certain problem to various intuitive managerial methods and procedures without quantitative background, that are easier to grasp and therefore tempting. Empirical evidence suggests that different levels of SQC methods application exist in companies with ISO-certified quality management systems (Kim and Larsen, 1997; Ograjenšek, 1998). It is therefore important to give answers to the following questions: • Is it possible to identify measures and activities, whose application would increase the awareness of the statistical quality control’s importance in companies with ISO-certified quality management systems and effectively contribute to its easier and faster integration into the system? • How could statisticians and their professional associations contribute to the proper use of statistical quality control methods in companies?