The Collaboration Imperative On Quality In Manufacturing

The importance of quality in manufacturing cannot be overemphasized. The cost of quality is not confined to costs related to process assurance, product inspection, rework and rejects; rather it encompasses the impact on performance and market perception for the product and the corporate. In the new global economy, multiple entities collaborate to deliver a product to the end-customer. In such a scenario, the quality of a product is a determinant of the quality of the work done across the supply chain by myriad entities. The imperative today is to eliminate all non-value adding quality activities through innovative process or technological means. Information technology can play a huge role in ensuring that end quality is achieved through collaboration in quality assurance and quality management activities across the manufacturing supply chain. The authors examine the enormity of the quality problem, provide a framework to ascertain the maturity levels of industry responses, put forward a transitioning methodology and illustrate a case of how IT can enable the entire process. Managing Quality In The Emerging Manufacturing Environment Quality as a function has played a pivotal role in the highly competitive manufacturing environment. The significant consumer shift in the US from the local auto majors to the Japanese ones during the 80s has shown how quality can generate significant competitive advantage. Managing quality effectively has been a key determinant in an organizations’ pursuit of lower total costs and increased customer satisfaction. In earlier days, quality challenges were pre-dominantly specification or process led and linked to equipment being unable to produce components and products of quality desired by customers to a desired specification in a reliable fashion. This was largely an enterprise challenge and was tackled as such. Today’s challenges are very different. The quality of a product today depends not only on the activities carried out on it within the enterprise but also at every stage in the value chain. The supply chains of today are many tiers deep and need to work in an integrated fashion. To substantiate, lets look at some of the macro trends in manufacturing in the past few years: Globalization Globalization Of Manufacturing Bases Globalization Of Supplier Bases Globalization of Customers Modularization of product components Product Proliferation Part Rationalization Increased Levels Of Outsourcing Advent Of the “Virtual Organization” Consumer Related Trends Reduced Product Life cycles Quick Issue Resolution The Imperative To Collaborate On Quality Is Driven By Several Macro Trends