Term Paper on "Quality Assurance Can Influence and Enhancing Flight"

Term Paper 31 pages (8484 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Quality Assurance Can Influence and Enhancing Flight Safety in the Airline Industry

One of the most effective means of enhancing flight safety in all regards is the implementation of a quality assurance program. A quality assurance initiative is an operational management method that utilizes strategic steps of evaluating all levels of the business' services in terms of current quality and areas where quality can be improved. When a quality assurance initiative is not implemented, flight safety suffers because essential components of a flight are not updated in light of external changes. Thus, safety is compromised and often time money and time is wasted in terms of the particular airline. Further, with the use of technology, most quality assurance initiatives can be standardized.

A. Defining Quality Assurance

Quality assurance can be defined as the activity of providing evidence needed to establish confidence among all concerned. Typically, this establishment of confidence refers to ensuring consumers that quality related activities are being performed effectively with the goal of ensuring the quality of the product, good or service. Any and all planned or standardized actions needed to provide this confidence are part of a quality assurance program. The purpose of quality assurance is to that specific effective procedures are in place in order to make an advanced assurance that expected levels of quality can be assured.

Quality assurance occurs at all phases of a product or service development, including the design, development, production, installation, servicing, documentation and use. It also pertains to ensuring the quality of raw materials, assemblies, product components, production services, management and the inspection process. As defined by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Regulation 10 CFR Part 50, Appendix B, quality assurance "comprises all those planned and systematic actions necessary to provide adequate confidence that the structure, system, or component will perform satisfactorily in service." Thus, quality assurance necessarily encompasses quality control, or the subsection of quality assurance actions specifically related to the physical characteristics of a material, structure, component or system that provides a means of controlling the quality of the material, structure, component or system as required.

Types of Quality Assurance Management Models

Shewhart Cycle/Plan-Do-Check-Act

One of the most popular quality assurance management models is the Shewhart Cycle, which is based on the Plan-Do-Check-Act method. This quality assurance model is based on the Scientific Method of Hypothesis (Plan), Experiment (Do) and Evaluation (Check). The Plan-Do-Check-Act method (hereinafter "PDCA") begins with the Plan, where objectives and processes necessary to deliver the specified results are established. In the Do phase, the process in implemented. In the Check phase, the process and results are monitored and evaluated against the objectives and original specifications. These results are reported as the Outcome. In the Act phase, actions are applied to the Outcome in order to achieve the necessary areas of quality improvement. In doing this, the Plan, Do and Check phases are reviewed, modified and again implemented.

The key to a successful PDCA cycle is repeated implementation as additional quality-based knowledge is gained. With each PDCA cycle, more knowledge is gained and thus the user is able to get closer to meeting its goal of complete quality. The benefit of the PDCA cycle as a method of quality assurance is that it is relatively simple to implement. However, it's reliance on the evaluation of a hypothesis can make measuring its results difficult. For these reasons, the PDCA cycle is often best used in association with a sizable project that involves many people, time and the need for managers.

Statistical Control

Another popular method of for maintaining quality assurance is using a statistical process control in order to bring a company to Six Sigma levels of quality. In summary, the statistical control process works so that the overall likelihood of an unexpected failure is confined to the six standard deviations of the normal distribution model.

The typical statistical process controls are utilized in manufacturing operations and are characterized by the use of random sampling and testing of a fraction of the total manufacturing output. Further, variances of critical tolerances are tracked continuously and the manufacturing processes are always corrected before any under-quality part is produced.

Statistical Process Control

Statistical Process Control (SPC) is defined as being an effective method of monitoring a process through the use of complex control charts. SPC is accomplished by collecting data from samples made at various points in the overall process. Any variations in the process that may affect the quality of the end service is quickly detected and corrected, thus reducing waste as well as the likelihood that the customer will experience any form of problems. Thus, in an SPC quality control system, the focus is on early detection and prevention of problems. It therefore has a distinct advantage over other forms of quality assurance that tend to focus resources on detecting and correcting errors at the end of the product or service.

Another major advantage of the SPC model is that it often leads to a reduction in the time needed to produce a service from start to finish. This is due to the fact that SPC creates a diminished likelihood that the final product will have to be reworked and its ability to quickly identify bottlenecks, wait times and other sources of ineffectiveness.

Six Sigma

Six Sigma is a variant of the traditional SPC process. Six Sigma was originally developed by the Motorola company in order to systematically improve processes by eliminating defects, or nonconformities of a product or service to its specifications. The foundational principles of Six Sigma include:

Continuous efforts to reduce variation in process outputs is the key to business success.

Manufacturing and business processes can be measured, analyzed, improved and controlled.

Succeeding at achieving sustained quality improvement requires commitment from the entire organization. This is particularly true of top-level management.

Six Sigma refers to its highly effective process of producing output within specifications. For example, any company that is able to operate with six sigma quality assurance is producing at a defect level of below 3.4 defects per one million opportunities.

Six Sigma quality assurance programs operate using one of two methodologies. According to the DMAIC method, quality assurance is done in five steps:

Define the process improvement goals that are consistent with customer demands and enterprise strategy.

Measure the current process and collect relevant data for future comparison.

Analyze to verify relationship and causality of factors. Determine what the relationship is, and attempt to ensure that all factors have been considered.

Improve or optimize the process based upon the analysis using techniques like Design of Experiments.

Control to ensure that any variances are corrected before they result in defects. Set up pilot runs to establish process capability, transition to production and thereafter continuously measure the process and institute control mechanisms.

On the other hand, according to the DMADV methodology of Six Sigma, quality is assured by following these five steps:

Define the goals of the design activity that are consistent with customer demands and enterprise strategy.

Measure and identify critical to qualities, product capabilities, production process capability and risk assessments.

Analyze to develop and design alternatives, create high-level design and evaluate design capability to select the best design.

Design details, optimize the design, and plan for design verification. (This phase often requires the use of simulations).

Verify the design, set up pilot runs, implement production process and handover to process owners.

Both Six Sigma approaches are heavily data-driven and offer a systematic approach to problem solving with the primary focus on the end impact on the consumer. The biggest advantage to using a Six Sigma approach to quality assurance is that it was a pioneer in professionalizing the field of quality assurance. Before the development of Six Sigma, quality assurance was typically regulated to the production floor or internally within a service department. However, Six Sigma revolutionized this method by borrowing from the martial arts concept of ranking and cutting across business functions. In order for Six Sigma to create effective quality assurance, the business must implement numerous positions across the corporate structure. These roles include executive leadership, champions, master black belts, experts, black belts, green belts and yellow belts. Every individual role has a specific function in a company's quality assurance process, thus although there is a hierarchy, no one position is more important than another because the hierarchy is structured under the pyramid design.

ISO 17025

ISO 17025 is in reference to an international standard of quality assurance that creates a rubric for competence. According to this method of quality assurance, there are fifteen individual management requirements and ten technical requirements needed to ensuring quality control. These requirements state exactly what a laboratory must do in order to be accredited and provide quality assurance information to services and manufacturers.

Company Quality Approach

The company quality approach is a company-wide approach to ensuring quality assurance. Using the company quality method of quality assurance, emphasis is placed on four specific factors, or aspects:

Infrastructure and how it either… READ MORE

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