1.    Explain why continual quality improvement is important.

Continual Quality Improvement has following advantages to the industry:

• It reduces errors which may be defects in case of manufacturing industries, and mistakes in service industries, CQI aids in eventual elimination of these errors.
• Better equation with dynamic nature of markets, as we know the demands & desires of customer changes continuously, since a business involved in CQI follows a dynamic nature of processes it better adapts to the market and has higher chances of customer attraction and retention.
• CQI makes the end workers more involved in the process and gives them a chance to contribute towards increasing the company’s efficiency, they feel more involved and productive rather than feeling unproductive and inefficient in case of traditional businesses where mistakes are loaded on them.
• CQI uses monitoring the process data for finding improvement opportunities which is more quantitative and ordered approach as opposed to whimsical improvements.

All the above factors increases the business’s efficiency, productivity and thus, revenue.

2.    What is management’s role in continual quality improvement ?

Among a manager’s primary duties are evaluating the performance of staff , providing feedback and mentoring, developing education programs, contributing to staff professional development, interviewing and hiring staff, developing departmental budgets, and maintaining inventory of , equipment and supplies. Managers may also speak on behalf of their staff when upper management is making decisions that affect the staff. In this situation, managers serve as a representative and promote the best interests of their staff and the customers that they care for.

Other managerial duties include:

• Provide leadership and guidance to staff.
• Ensure that staff is properly trained
• Address any personnel issues to promote a productive and supportive work environment
• Monitor for quality

So, in a nutshell managers’s role in CQI starts from training, educating workers, gathering their feedback from the processes ad they know them the best, collect suggestions present and communicate with the top level management. Bring best practices into use and provide any support needed for maintaining conducive environment of the workplace.

3.    Discuss the Kaizen approach.

Kaizen is an approach for creating continuous improvement based on the idea that small, ongoing positive changes can reap major improvements. It has been successfully implemented in the healthcare industry, and is complementary to lean manufacturing, Kaizen is coined by coalescence of two Japanese word which mean good change.

There are ten principles of Kaizen as follows:

These principles are for the directing, how a company’s mindset should be apply Kaizen,

1. Let go of assumptions.
2. Be proactive about solving problems.
3. Don’t accept the status quo (Current company conditions financially, socially, politically).
4. Let go of perfectionism and take an attitude of iterative, adaptive change.
5. Look for solutions as you find mistakes.
6. Create an environment in which everyone feels empowered to contribute.
7. Don’t accept the obvious issue; instead, ask “why” five times to get to the root cause.(Root Cause Analysis).
8. Cull information and opinions from multiple people.
9. Use creativity to find low-cost, small improvements.
10. Never stop improving.

Kaizen is also distilled to Deming’s cycle or PDCA cycle.

Following flow diagram summarizes the steps involved in the Kaizen Approach.

Figure: 1 Steps in implementing Kaizen Approach – BY ME

4.    How would you describe a lean system?

A lean system is one which has successfully eliminated waste wherin, waste can be material waste, time waste, extra moves etc. A lean system uses a simple design process and eliminates all of he above, always a lean system must incorporate continuous improvement and look for opportunities to reduce the lead time, moves, scrap and reworks. A modern lean system should incorporate Information technologies like ERP, High speed network, Statistical Quality Control software packages etc.

5.    What is lean six-sigma and how would you apply it to a quality management system?

Lean Six Sigma is a synergy of two managerial concepts:

Lean & Six Sigma.

Lean focuses on the elimination of the eight kinds of wastes:

• Over-production
• Waiting
• Non-utilized talent
• Transportation
• Inventory
• Motion
• Extra-processing

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.Sigma recognizes special cause and normal variations and thus, guides to reduce  the variations.

Synergistically, Lean aims to achieve continuous flow by tightening the linkages between process steps while Six Sigma focuses on reducing process variation (in all its forms) for the process steps thereby enabling a tightening of those linkages. In short, Lean exposes sources of process variation and Six Sigma aims to reduce that variation enabling a virtuous cycle of iterative improvements towards the goal of continuous flow.

Lean Six sigma uses a philosophy of acronym DMAIIC as discussed below:

Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Implement, Control.

Define the opportunity for improvement.

Measure the process parameters.

Analyse these parameters.

Based on these analysis try to improve the process.

Implement in the improvement

Check if the system is still in control

This process goes on continually reducing waste/muda as discussed above and increases the sigma level of the process which means less number of variations, errors and thus ensuring precision of the process.

6.    Define benchmarking. Define auditing. How does benchmarking and auditing relate to each other?

Benchmarking is looking out at other businesses, organizations and understand how they perform and analyze their processes.

Benchmarking explains how a well performing organization is doing it so well and point out he key areas of focus that others can implement to compete and perform better.

Figure 2: Steps in Benchmarking- BY ME

Auditing is an on-site verification activity, such as inspection and examination, of a process or quality system, to ensure that the company is agreeing with the requirements.

Quality audit means a systematic, independent examination of a manufacturer’s quality system that is performed at defined intervals and at sufficient frequency to determine whether both quality system activities and the results of such activities comply with quality system procedures.

An audit can apply to an entire organization or specific to a function, process, or production step.

Audit is a quality improvement process ,where performance is measured against standards or criteria, which are important for overall performance. In audit there will be pre-determined standards within defined parameters, against which performance will be evaluated. Changes can then be implemented to improve standards. Audit can be done by an internal or external person.

Benchmarking depends on having an audit system in place at an early stage so that it can build up enough data to define benchmarking measures. The initial audit provides a baseline. So, audit can be thought of as a step in the benchmarking process.

7.    How can you apply benchmarking data in auditing processes, systems, designs, products, factories and services?

Benchmarking process yields quantitative as well as qualitative data of our own company and the other companies, all of this open data can be very helpful in auditing, beacause auditing is basically checking the records of the company and seeing if it is up to standards, benchmarking data also includes details about processes, systems, designs, products, factories & services used and comparison with other companies process data this can be used while auditing and checking if the company meets the standard.

8.    What is a JIT system?

A JIT system is one which uses JIT inventory control system, JIT is an acronym for Just In Time. In this inventory system, the company holds no inventory and gets raw materials when needed for production and thus saves inventory storage, moving and maintainence costs, but this prompt availability of inventory needs the company to have good bond with the supplier and also the supplier generally needs a legal bond for supply, this type of system produces when they get an order. JIT system can lead to the supplier being your competition as he gets valuable information.

9.    What are the benefits of JIT/lean?

Following are most important advantages of JIT:

• It eliminates the need of line balancing.
• Reducing over-production.
• Reduced waiting times and transport costs.
• Effective usage of resources by streamlining your production systems.
• Reducing the capital you have tied up in stock.
• Decreasing product defects.
• All of the above increases efficiency and competitiveness.

10. Discuss automation system ideas for JIT/lean.

Automation is the use of control systems  for actuators such as machinery, boilers, processes, aircraft and the automobile industry. Automation was first performed in the automobile  by General Motors in 1947 where productions of parts were done by the use of robots as equipment. Automation brings faster process with less errors as the human error factor is eliminated, In a JIT system with cellular manufacturing system if automation is used the production time will be reduced a lot, but for a job order production the automation system has to be flexible, so finally a lean system with automation will have a very low cost, high efficiency, high productivity, less or no scrap and rework, less supervision cost, high quality product. The only expected disadvantage will be that due to JIT manufacturer cannot exploit the bulk order discounts and automation will have very high capital so the total capital investment will have to be very large.

Social Networking:

2G ethanol overcoming technical glitches, seen competitive with oil at $70 per barrel

http://www.bworldonline.com/2g-ethanol-overcoming-technical-glitches-seen-competitive-with-oil-at-70-per-barrel/

The article describes about possibility of switching oil usage with 2nd Generation Bio-fuels like ethanol, the prose says bio-fuels had some technical glitches which made the interest of its production but now those production glitches have been removed and a company in Sao Paulo of Brazil is producing 40 million liters of cellulosic ethanol per year , seeing the oil at $70 a barrel bio-fuels are now economically feasible too! Shashak and Saravanan and me support the movement as it is Eco-friendly and are very keen to see bio-fuels in use in future.

Hacker exposes security vulnerability in popular cryptocurrency site ETHERSCAN!

https://futurism.com/the-byte/etherscan-hack-security-vulnerability?utm_source=Digest&utm_campaign=469cf9a6a2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_07_24_09_20&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_03cd0a26cd-469cf9a6a2-247478205&mc_cid=469cf9a6a2&mc_eid=3ee82a4279

The article shows how a hacker hacked a blockexplorer which is a site where investor can see the graphs of the cryptocurrency, view their previous transactions, according to some analysts hacker could have modified the graphs showing the current value of cryptocurrency and lead to buy/sell of currency and hence misguide the investor. I and friends feel the blockexplorer should not allow any information without validating the user like most servers of internet banking with financial institutions do!

40,000 year old worms revived from Siberian permafrost.

https://newatlas.com/worms-revived-siberian-permafrost/55669/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2018-07-30%20142813%20USA%20Daily%20Basic%202018-07-30%20143808%20Tiny%20Microlino%20EV%20now%20street%20legal%20in%20Europe%20moving%20into%20production&utm_content=2018-07-30%20142813%20USA%20Daily%20Basic%202018-07-30%20143808%20Tiny%20Microlino%20EV%20now%20street%20legal%20in%20Europe%20moving%20into%20production+CID_b08c3b157ffd805d56b1aba0054b50ff&utm_source=Campaign%20Monitor&utm_term=Read%20more

This article is very interesting, it shares images of two worms which were thawed after being frozen for 40000 years in siberia, now they are oldest living multicellular organisms on earth, me and my friends were fascinated to find out about this. It would be very interesting if scientists were able to find any larger mammal of that age!

1.    Explain what is QFD (Quality Function Deployment)?

Quality Function Deployment refers to the conversion of qualitative desires and specification a customer expects from a product to the quantitative design characteristics.

Figure 1: Flowchart of steps in Quality Function Deployment – BY ME

A matrix as below is used to deploy QFD.

Figure 2: QFD  matrix : By NPD solutions.

So, here customer requirements are correlated to product design requirements and the correlation is determined strong/mild- positive/negative which gives the sense whether current design supports the customer’s requirements the box to the right gives a graphical representation of how well the competitor’s design match the customers requirements. The technical evaluation shows the feasibility of customer requirements from a engineering point of view. In view of all of these priorities of inclusion of customer requirements are figured out and their importance rating is calculated.

2.    Explain the WHATs in a QFD matrix.

As shown in the Figure 2 : QFD Matrix the customer requirements are called as WHAT’s of the QFD, it comes from the question : What customer wants.

In the above example of a company which manufactures turbines the customers want low weight, reliable, a side generator a specific volume handling capacity and a power ratings these specifications are WHAT the customer desires, now as opposed to this the design requirements of turbine developed by the company is presented and the table makes the correlation between these two.

3.    Explain the HOWs in a QFD matrix.

HOWs form the other dimension of the relationship matrix it represents the design specification requirements of the company. These are the necessary design requirements for the current design to work. If the relationship matrix in figure 2 shows a positive correlation it means that the design allows to incorporation of the customers desires and then its technical difficulty and importance rating is calculated after which the desires of customers are integrated in the product thus forming a part of continuous development.

4.    Explain the 1, or 3, or 9 interrelationship values in a QFD matrix

These number values represent the strength of the relationship between the WHATs and the corresponding HOWs. The higher the number, the stronger is the relationship. 9 is the strongest, 3 has a medium strength & 1 is the weakest relationship.

5.    Explain how you calculate the technical priorities in the design target matrix.

Importance of Priorities=

Step 1: [Interrelationship rating(0,1,3 or 9)] *[ corresponding overall weighting  value (planning matrix)]

Step 2: Summing up the column.

6.    Define statistical process control.

In traditional quality control systems the quality is ensured by inspection of the products after the production, in contrast statistical process control is a method in which the quality is ensured by measuring the variations of the process before production this reduces a substantial amount of scrap and rework.

In SPC control charts are formed for continuous data recorded from the process and according to the Western Electric rules the process are judged to be in or out of control after which process capability is checked assuming the process results in products with defects between six standard deviations or in mathematical words the products follow a standard normal distribution curve.

7.    Explain control charts for variables, with a simple mathematical example.

Control charts for variable are plotted for samples, with each sample containing continuous data of process variables like temperature, pressure, flow rate etc.

x̄ Control charts plot the variation in sample mean i.e  x̄

R Control charts plot the variation in range for each sample

both the plots are closed on both sides by upper control limits and lower control limits and even if one of the points in the sample averages crosses the control limits the process is out of control.

Figure 3: X bar and control R bar Control charts. (Sample and plot By me)

So, the above chart shows the range and sample average is in control so the process is in control and can be checked for capability.

8.    Explain control charts for attributes, with a simple mathematical example.

In the above example the charts were plotted for pressure which can be done but attributes cannot be measured so can’t be plotted for example no of defects. So we make use of attribute charts also known as C-charts, these are used to calculate the number of defects in a sample.
c-bar= total defects/number of samples
UCL= c-bar + (3 x square root of c-bar)
LCL= c-bar – (3 x square root of c-bar)
Once calculated and charted, this shows where the process was in or out of control.

9.    Discuss and explain various continual quality improvement methods and tools.

Continual quality improvement is a management philosophy  which aims at ongoing development of process to increase efficiency, reduce scrap, rework and lead time.

Common tools used are:

Control charts, Histogram, Plan Do Check Act (PDCA) cycle, Pareto charts, Fish bone diagram, Failure Mode Effect Analysis, Brain Storming, Process Mapping, Checksheets etc.

10. Explain the way control charts could be used for quality improvements.

Control charts  can be are very useful and mark a huge difference between traditional and modern quality control methods.

Control charts can aid in detecting and eliminating problems before they arise and affect quality also reducing scrap and rework.

They can be used to gauge the effectiveness of any process changes, for good or bad.

Attribute charts give idea of no of defects, percentage defects, no of defects per part.

It also tracks the capability of producing a product to the specifications/expectations of the customer. Process capability measures help in this.

Social Networking

1 Technology in Small businesses.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/26/small-businesses-using-big-technology-attract-more-hirees.html

Shashank, Sravanan and me all agree with  Eric Edelson, the CEO of Fireclay Tile, who quotes, “Although some small business might be hesitant to implement newer technology, in the long run, it is beneficial to have these invaluable tools,” As shown in the prose many small scale businesses use software packages like excel, i cloud, YouTube to streamlining their business . As exemplified in the prose, technology helps in creating work life balance, shorter work period, live participation etc which all aid to the company and it’s employees. Although the implementation of technology is tricky some tech support companies are making it easy, so the only concern is of money, I think streamlining the business will eventually increase the productivity, quality and thus make more profits for the business and thus covering the expenses of the tech involvement.

2. UD announces new Dean.

http://www.scsuntimes.com/news/20180726/ud-announces-new-college-of-engineering-dean

So the paragraph provides an introduction of professor Levi T. Thompson, the Richard E. Balzhiser collegiate professor of chemical engineering at the University of Michigan. He has earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering from University of Delaware and completed his Masters in Chemical & Nuclear Engineering from University of Michigan and had been awarded Doctorate in Chemical Engineering by U Michigan, the president and provost has warmly  welcomed Dr. Levi and have lauded his vision of bridging between courses. We all wish a good luck to Dr. Levi T. Thompson.

3. Need of cleaner fuels!

https://www.news-press.com/story/opinion/contributors/2018/07/27/rooney-we-need-cleaner-fuels-not-carbon-tax-resolution/840795002/

In this story Francis Rooney, A republican is against taxation on carbon but claims  switching to a cleaner fuel will help the country more in terms of independence of  Europe from Russian gas. He suggests that US should export and tap more on the Natural gas reserves it has. I disagree with this statement as Natural Gas is not a clean fuel by it self it may be less carbon emitting than charcoal but it is again the same combustion process and the global warming will continue but maybe at a slower rates so if the taxation on carbon emission will lead to use of less coal it is a better plan to go with rather than letting on the current consumption of a coal and tapping gas as an additional help to increase global warming and sea level.

Error 1: Music playing while the laptop is still on!

Picture 1 (Laptop locked and still playing): By myself

So, I discovered this when I was in the Van Houten Library I just opened the laptop for opening moodle which I had opened earlier in and browser and closed the laptop and put it in bag! Unfortunately the browser was running with Jimmy fallon show and as soon as I opened the laptop in library it started playing and it was such an embarrassment for me to disturb others reading there!

So the prevention I looked up on the internet were as follows:

Apparently the Mac has an interesting setting for this in which this problem is used as making your laptop into a music player and eventually saving the battery.

But with my Dell Inspiron Laptop I have no such setting and the prevention is to always close the browser while closing the laptop lid and always pressing the mute button when you are closing the laptop lid.

Error 2 : Manual push and pull CD ROM Drive.

Picture 2 (CD ROM Tray): By myself

I would like to discuss another defect with my laptop, it has manual push pull CD ROM Drive, yeah most of the latest laptops have got rid of it because CDROM being obsolete but in some cases like my favorite games which I have a CD of makes it neccessary to buy a laptop with CD ROM Drive.

Due to push and pull if you can see in the picture above the tray is inclined at an angle, this causes hindrance while pushing as well as pulling and also eventually damage the guide itself which may lead to access of the laptop interiors to dust, dirt and moisture which can increase the maintenance and depreciation.

Solution the above problem is most likely implemented in high end laptops wherein the push and pull is automatic and there is zero chances of the tray not aligned in perpendicular direction which solves the problem!

Error 3 : Design Defect in Laptop.

Picture 3 (Fan on laptop rear): By myself

My laptop has a cooling fan affixed on the lower side which is normally kept against table or lap or any surface so if you play games for longer the laptop starts to blow out the heat from fan and this makes a high noise because of collision of the air with the table and this sound is very irritating and even worse when the hot air blows on your lap.

Solution to is like in Mac the air hot air blows out off the hinges of the laptop and this makes very less or no noise, thus making if very comfortable to the user and other people around.

Error 4 : Soap holder with erroneously small draining holes.

Picture 4 (Soap Holder): By myself

The above picture depicts my soap holder with very small draining holes, this makes the water dripping from the soap bar to accumulate in the holder and thus makes the soap very mushy and unusable.

The problem can be solved by making the pores very large so that all the water drains out leaving the soap dry and fit for next usage.

Error 5 : Headphones with wires.

Picture 5 (JBL Wire headphones): By myself

So I had a JBL wired headphones which I bought in India, these headphones cost around $40 and they didn’t even work for a month although the sound quality is perfect with no droppings as these headphones use wires the transmit the data, but the problem was its design which had inclined edges at the jack end and the ear bud end which would constantly be in tension due to activities like sleeping and listening music and running with the headphones on etc.

The solution to this problem is addressed by leading brands like Bose, Apple & Beats which have introduced new headphones with just rigid buds which fit in the ears and the data transmission is made through Bluetooth giving these ear pods the advent of no wires and user can enjoy full range of motion while listening to the songs like run sleep workout etc without having a need to keep consciousness to not damage the wires.

Error 6 : Unbalanced study table.

Picture 6 : (Legs of study table.) by myself.

The above picture depicts the legs of a study table I ordered from amazon last month, after assembling the study table I found that one of the legs is smaller than the other and so the table is unbalanced. I tried replacing it back but that was another headache to wait for a new one and assemble it again!

The above problem’s solution was very clear to me when I saw another steel table at Shoprite which had guides an each leg to adjust the height of table, in such case even is by defect a table has one short leg it can be compensated by setting the guide to desired height.

Error 7 : Chair with no back rest setting.

Picture 7 (Chair in CKB): By myself

The above chair is one in the central king building in our campus, these chairs have springs in the back rest, that means the more your exert pressure on the back rest more they incline, but the problem is when after a certain period of usage the spring gets deformed and is no longer able to come the original position and exert a opposite force to user back giving him comfort to lay on it. this makes it very difficult for a person who wants to sit in a upright position with a little bit of back rest.

The solution to the above problem is with some chairs in which the back rest moves on it’s own through a motor actuator to the preferred alignment or in some chairs with guides and locks at different angles.

Error 8 : My crocs shoes.

Picture 8 (Crocs shoes): By myself

I’ve clicked my crocs shoes which seems a little unusual, the thing is I have wide feet which makes it difficult for me to use standard sizes of shoes, for example I have an exact fit for Euro 11 number shoes length wise but the width is always narrow and causes rashes and scars on my feet, but this experience is worst in case of crocs shoes, when I looked over the internet, crocs is made out of croslite material which is closed chain polymer with a very low flexibility thus, rubbing my feet to an extent of bleeding.

The solution what I used was to, boil the crocs in hot water so that it becomes very plastic and easy to mold and wear two/three layers of socks and force my leg into the hot plastic, this actually works, due to three socks layer the plastic is expanded more than required and actually provides compensation for the size shrinkage while cooling down. So as you can see the picture the crocs have actually expanded in the front and conformed to my feet.

Error 9 : Recess at the top of my pitcher water filter.

Picture 9 (Pitcher water filter): By myself

The picture shows a recess provided at the top of the pitcher to facilitate the pouring, but this is major cause for unclean water and dust on the top of the lid to percolate into the filtered water.

Error 10 : Water clogging in the pitcher.

Picture 10 (Pitcher water filter): By myself.

As you can see the pitcher is divided in two colors the blue part and the transparent white part below, the blue part is a reservoir to store unclean water needing filtration the filter connects between the both compartments the lower compartment is to store the filtered water, but when the filtered water rises to a certain level and goes above the end of the filtration unit due to capillary action the water from the upper reservoir stops to flow through the filter into the lower compartment and this causes the dirty water to stop in the upper compartment and when we need to retrieve the clean filtered water from the pitcher it mixes with the remanent unclean water in the upper compartment and contaminates it!

A water filter attached to tap adress both the problems in error 9 &10.

Error 11 : Non standardized electric chargers.

Figure 11: (my Indian Samsung charger) by myself

The above picture depicts my Indian charger, unfortunately this works only in Europe and India there is different charger slots for Japan, Australia and the US.

I had to buy a travel charger adapter with multiple charging heads suiting to the various countries requirements.

Error 12 :  Half covered tempered glass protector.

.

Figure 12: (tempered glass protector) by myself.

This is my old phone with tempered glass cover which does not cover the bezels due to this my is weared at the corners.

Solution to this problem is tempered glass which covers the bezels too and extra protection which may be phone cover so that the first impact is always bared by the cover.

Social Networking.

1.    Discuss the eight principles of the ISO 9000 standard

PRINCIPLE 1: CUSTOMER FOCUS

As it should be with any quality management system customer focus is the most pivotal characteristic. A business should always emphasize on what a customer needs and try to match their expectation in terms of attributes and specifications provided in the product and also the customer service. A business should always try to exceed customers’ expectation and find a new way to keep the distinction in the market and never let the competition till neck.

As the customer satisfaction increases their loyalty towards the company increases and the business increases its’ chance of attracting a customer back.

PRINCIPLE 2: LEADERSHIP

Without clear and strong leadership, a business flounders. Principle 2, is concerned with the direction of the organisation. The business should have clear goals and objectives, and ensure its employees are actively involved in achieving those targets.

The benefits are higher levels of employee engagement and increased motivation to satisfy customer needs. Research shows, if employees are kept ‘in the loop’ and understand the business vision, they’ll be more productive. This principle seeks to rectify employees complaints about ‘lack of communication’.

Every worker of the company at every level should be clear of the company’s short, intermediate and long term goals and should have a goal congruent with the company’s this is known as goal congruence.

Goal congruence can be achieved by proper communication and proper education of every worker and encouragement provided by means of incentives.

All of the above can be achieved when a company has a top level managerial team with excellent leadership skills, so this point is crucially included in ISO 9000.

PRINCIPLE 3: PEOPLE INVOLVEMENT

The process approach is all about efficiency and effectiveness. Well-managed processes reduce costs, improve consistency, eliminate waste and promote continuous improvement.

By becoming a more efficient organisation, you will build confidence in your stakeholders by optimizing performance. Manage processes by making responsibilities clear and ensuring your resources are used in the best way.

PRINCIPLE 4: PROCESS APPROACH

The process approach is all about efficiency and effectiveness. It’s also about consistency and understanding that good processes also speeds up activities.

In process approach workers are expected to increase the effectiveness and efficency of the product and this can be done by proper understanding of the process.

A good process approach leads in decrease of rework, scrap and waste and result in reduction of costs.

PRINCIPLE 5: SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO MANAGEMENT

ISO defines this principle as:

– Quote 1: British Assessment Bureau

This is a simple logic in which similar processes in an organization are recognized and managed together to get a better efficacy and efficiency.

PRINCIPLE 6: CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENT

This principle is very straightforward: continual improvement should be an active business objective.

The benefits of this are clear: increased ability to embrace new opportunities, organisational flexibility and improved performance. Especially in difficult economic times, the businesses that thrive are those that can adapt to new market situations.

PRINCIPLE 7: FACTUAL APPROACH TO DECISION MAKING

A logical approach, based on data and analysis, is good business sense. Unfortunately, in a fast-paced workplace, decisions can often be made rashly, without proper thought. Implementing the Quality Management Principles we’ve discussed will allow decisions to be made with clarity.

Informed decisions lead to improved understanding of the marketplace as data is collated and analysed, and the ability to defend past decisions.

PRINCIPLE 8: MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL SUPPLIER RELATIONS

This principle deals with supply chains. It promotes the relationship between the company and its suppliers; recognizing it is interdependent. A strong relationship enhances productivity and encourages seamless working practices.

The result is optimization of costs and resources, improving and building long-term relationships and the ‘flexibility of joint responses to changing market or customer needs and expectations’.

2.    Discuss Pareto Charts.

Pareto Charts are charts which consists of bar graphs and line graph. The left vertical axis is the frequency of occurrence, but it can alternatively represent cost or another important unit of measure. The right vertical axis is the cumulative percentage of the total number of occurrences, total cost, or total of the particular unit of measure. Because the values are in decreasing order, the cumulative function is a concave function.

Pareto charts are used to analyze the problems and their frequency , it is mainly used to find the most significant problems in a set of problems.

–  Fig 1 : Pareto chart for problems in a bicycle (BY ME)

So, to create the above chart I first listed down the problems in a bicycle and then assigned the frequency of occurrence according to my judgement, the plot of cumulative frequency and percentage of occurrence of events  gives us the above bar graph and line, this shows that Major portion of bicycles will be solved by resolving the tyre pressure issues by using a better valve or a rubber material or by using a high quality chain which can take more shear and be less deformed.

3. Fish Bone diagrams.

Fish bone/ Ishikawa diagrams are representation techniques in the shape of a fish bone structure hence called as fish bone diagram The head of the fish represents the problem and the bones in the remaining diagram represent causes for the problem, in this way together fish bone diagram is a way to represent and recognize a problem and also its root cause. Below is a fish bone diagram of the same example used in the pareto charts i.e problems in a bicycle the root problems have been analysed with brakes handle chain and tire and the causes have been represented on the bones of the fish below.

–  Fig 2  : Fish bone diagram for bicycle problems (BY ME)

4.    Discuss histograms

Histograms are essentially graphs which represent the probability density function of any activity it is plotted for.

The total activity is divided into bins which are intervals and frequency of activity resulting in an interval is represented by the height if the histogram.

The histogram is used for a continuous function, and bar graph is used for categorical activities.

Examples of continuous data: Amount of rain, Weight of a student

Examples of categorical data: Blood group A,B,AB+/-, Types of fruit (Orange, Apple)

The height of  histogram represents the frequency of the activity in a particular event and width of the histogram represents the interval width or proportion if the interval in the total data sample.

–  Fig 3 :Histogram of travelling time of population sample (US census 2000)

Here since the population having travel time beyond 50 min is less the interval width is increased and still the graph gives well understanding of the frequency being less.

5.    Discuss control charts for variables

Variables control charts plot continuous data, as discussed above for example length or pressure as a function of time. In contrast, attribute control charts plot count data, such as the number of defects or defective units. Variables control charts, allow us to see if the process parameters are in control, there are patterns like 7 points above the line/ 7 points below the line repeating patterns all signifies that there is some problem in the system and it is recurring.

There are two main types of variables control charts:

1. Charts for data collected in subgroups (data under similar condition or in one trial).
2. Charts for individual measurements.

Say we take 6 readings in a go and 10 such readings our subgroup size will be 6 and group size will be 10. All the below are plotted for data with subgroups.

Variables control charts include Xbar, R, and S.

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Here S stands for standard deviation chart, R stands for Range chart and X chart stands for mean charts.

Apart from these to see the variations in a single data measured I charts and Moving range charts are used as represented below.

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 –  Fig 4&5  :All charts from minitab support

6.    Discuss flowcharts and give a simple example

Flow chart is a diagram which explains an algorithm or represents a process step by step.

An activity or process step is represented in a rectangle

A decision is represented by a diamond.

–

–  Fig 6 :Flow Chart of credit card payment algorithm(Partially by me)

Above is a flow chart representing an algorithm of paying through credit card the processes are represented with rectangle and the decisions like validity of credit card is put in a diamond and the arrows give the direction of steps in order of the algorithm and the last and first step to be marked are represented in a circle. So, as we see the number of diamonds increases so does the number of branches increase, and the process becomes elaborate.

7.    Explain what is an FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis)

FMEA is an acronym for Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, it is essentially a risk assessment tool, that evaluates the severity, occurrence and detection of risks to prioritize which ones are the most urgent. And creates a number which indicates the risk priority of a task

Each of three categories of severity, occurrence and detection has a score range between 1-10 .

• Severity of 1 denotes low risk to the end customer, and a score of 10 denotes high risk to the customer.
• Occurrence of 1 denotes low probability of the risk happening, and a 10 denotes a very high probability of the risk happening.
• Detection of 1 denotes a process that is unlikely to catch a failure, and a 10 means the process will almost certainly catch a failure.

After scoring of each category is complete for each risk, the three scores are multiplied together (Severity x Occurrence x Detection) to determine the Risk Priority Number (RPN). The higher the RPN the more is the priority is to resolve the problem.

After the activities are improved the RPN’s are again calculated and if the new RPN is low the corrective measure has successfully worked.

8.    Provide an overview of the Toyota practical problem solving process

–  Fig 7 : Toyota way practical problem solving

A well thought system or process always decreases the errors than an unplanned expedition.

The Toyota Way, suggests a framework to Practical Problem Solving. According to the framework, when confronted with a problem, first stwp is recognition of cause of problem. That’s followed by a series of 5 WHYs? to investigate the root cause. And finally countermeasures, evaluations, and countermeasures.

1. Initial Problem Perception

Large, vague and complicated problem is presented. The first step is to perceive all the information available at this point information of time.

Ex: “The pressure inside the boiler is above UCL”

This doesn’t show the actual problem, but just a perception of it.

2. Clarify The Problem

Next step is to clarify the problem and narrow the possible causes with rationale. To do this information must be gathered.

Ex: “Maybe the gauge was faulty”

3. Locate Point Of Cause

Next step is to dig a little deeper and try finding the point of cause.Where is the problem observed? Where is the likely cause? This will lead us to the vicinity of the root cause, which we find in step 4.

Ex. “The gauge was not calibrated”

4. Ask, 5 WHYs? Investigation of  the root cause

Here from the direct cause, we expose and go deep to the root cause of the problem by asking WHY five times.

Ex.

1. 1st why – Why was pressure above control limit: Because gauge wasn’t working.

2. 2nd Why – Why gauge wasn’t working – Because it wasn’t calibrated.

3. 3rd Why – Why was gauge calibrated– Because of wrong previous calibration entry date

4. 4th Why – Why previous calibration entry date – Because of  the human error of the operator.

5. 5th Why – Why human error of operator –  Because of carelessness.

By asking a series of 5 whys, we can generally get to the root cause of the problem and fix it there instead of just duct-taping it and be waiting for it to rise again.

5. Countermeasures

This step is fixing the root cause of the problem so that this doesn’t come up again.

Ex. Moved to a more sophisticated auto-calibration indicator system.

6. Evaluate

After the countermeasure have been executed, it’s important to evaluate the effect post that. Was the problem solved?

Ex. “Now the pressure data is in control and even if the gauge miss getting calibrated, we get an alert to know it beforehand and take action.”

7. Standardize

This resonates with another Toyota principle of jidoka, meaning building in the quality.

How can we standardize the countermeasures such that similar problems are not faced again? How can we propagate our learning across the organization?

Ex. “Document and standardize the process that for all our instances and jobs proper alerts must be in place so that we know when they are malfunctioning”.

9. Explain a total quality decision making process

Decision-making is a critical task in a total quality setting. It is a process of selecting one  course of action among two or more. Decisions play the same role in an organization that  fuel plays in an automobile engine: They keep it running. The work of an organization  cannot proceed until decisions are made. The decision-making process is a logically  sequenced series of activities through which decisions are made. Numerous decision-  making models exist. Although they appear to have major differences, all involve the  various steps shown in Figure and discussed next.

• Identify or Anticipate the Situation: – Anticipating the situation is like driving defensively; never assume anything. Look, listen, ask, and sense.
• Gather the Facts: – This manager might identify the problem as poor morale and begin trying to improve it. However, he or she would do well to gather the facts first to be certain of what is behind the negative attitudes.
• Consider Alternatives: – Considering the alternatives involves two steps: (1) list all of the various alternatives available and (2) evaluate each alter- native in light of the facts.KM
• Choose the Best Alternative, Implement, Monitor, and Adjust: – After all alternatives have been considered, one must be selected and implemented, and after an alternative has been implemented, managers must monitor progress and adjust appropriately.

10. Explain why quality tools are important

Quality management tools are follow: Project Planning, Pareto Charts , Fish-bone    Charts, Histogram,Charts and Graphs.  These Quality tools have a dual role. Quality tools  are important for many reasons such as help collecting and displaying information in  ways for us to understand quickly and thoroughly, also help identify problem areas and  provide future improvement opportunities, enable employees to do their job effectively.

Social Networking

Trump administration plans to scrap rule meant to limit abuses at for-profit colleges

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2018/07/27/trump-administration-plans-to-scrap-rule-meant-to-limit-abuses-at-for-profit-colleges/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.4a33c9695661

The article explains about Trump administration scraping a rule which was implemented by Obama administration to protect students from abuses of non profit colleges. The rule imposes that loan payments for a typical graduate cannot exceed 20 percent of discretionary income or 8 percent of total earnings. So the colleges needed to have high income yielding courses in compliance with the rule. Trump administration has called this an imposition on higher education sector and special targeting of for profit organizations in this sector. I along with saravanan and shashank read this article and the reactions of and predictions of journalists and find that scraping out this rule would cause a serious debt on students head an make a lot of money for for-profit organizations.

1.    Discuss the importance of quality team works, and team building.

Quality and team work can be said to be mutually inclusive, team works promotes the work sharing, work completion before deadlines, healthy competition, motivation etc.

Team work always results in a diverse solution set and thus more optimal solution to the problem in hand. I would like quote Henry Ford, Founder Ford Motors.

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success”

All successful businesses testify the idea that team work ensures quality.

As easy as the conducive relationship between team work and quality is, executing team work is even harder. This process of planning and executing team work is called as team building. Team building results in better understanding between the employees,  team building consists of a group of collaborative activities aiming to increase interpersonal relationships between the employees, for example when we were admitted into NJIT we were given a paper to find five people who fit in five questions printed on it. In this way people in the whole room were moving around communicating with at least five people.

So, in this way team building creates a sense of  belongingness between the workers ultimately propagating a quality culture in the organization.

2.    How would you handle conflicts in quality teams?

Conflicts are imperative to have a better quality, if like-minded people work they will definitely have a smaller sets of approaches to solve a problem which is exactly opposes continual development and inhibit quality growth.

When a conflict arises in a team I would first acknowledge it and discuss its bad implication on team dynamics, after that I would first hear everyone carefully to analyze their view-point keeping in mind that my view point can also have a flaw. This kind of communication will lead to choosing a best option to resolve the conflict with.

I would analyze and bring out the assumptions and methodologies used by me and my team mates to rule out if any assumption coherently deemed as incorrect, I would also encourage smaller like-minded factions to bring out fallacies in other factions methodology to narrow the solution set more.

Finally, I would ask everyone’s opinion on the best solution and compromise with the majority votes to agree on a decision.

3.    How do you reward quality achievements in a team?

The process of rewarding quality achievements in a team is known as team compensation. Compensations can be of two types :

1. Individual Compensation
2. Team Compensation

Individual compensation provides a healthy competitive environment in the group and team compensation recognizes and values the efforts of team members. Although both the compensations are motivators but an unplanned and unjustified compensation scheme will demotivate the team and may create a hostile working environment. So the compensations must be well planned and justifiable.

I have jotted down some key points to plan a just compensation plans:

Firstly, dividing the compensation into individual and team, if more percentage of compensation is given to an individual it will demotivate the other members of the group.

Compensation should have a fixed and a variable part so that fixed compensation relieves the team from the risk of over competition and anxiety!

Fixed portion of compensation should be purely based on job description, experience, position so as to limit of budget allocated to compensation.

The ceiling of the compensation should never be fixed to encourage employers to put the best they can.

The frequency and amount of compensations should be varied to keep the team aware that compensation is not some kind of job entitlement.

At all times compensation should be profitable to the company and should not interfere with the production, manufacturing, overhead budget etc of the company.

4.    How do you communicate effectively? Focus on communication skills and soft-skills.

Effective communication consists of 4 key features:

1. Listening
2. Non-Verbal Communication
3. Stress management
4. Putting forward your thought in respectful way

I have found these four keys very relevant, when I am studying or listening to music or doing some other task and someone talks I don’t reply in a consistent manner because of lack of hearing,this irks the other person and is a major no in effective communication. When someone doesn’t make an eye contact with me while talking I take it as being dishonest or not interested to talk to me. Stress management is very crucial because the other person may say something that overwhelms you, so to communicate effectively further you need to cool down fast! Last but not the least I have learnt never to make disrespectful comments to the other person this will end the conversation into a conflict!

Other than these features effective communication  requires qualities like:

Attitude, communication, creative thinking, work ethic, teamwork, networking, decision-making, positivity etc.

5.    Why are listening skills important?

Listening skills are important to feel empathetic to the other person’s viewpoint if we listen to what the other person is saying we can think about it carefully, without judging from some preconceived beliefs and notions and see if we agree or disagree to them. Then after that we can put forward out thoughts in a respectable manner to make clear your stand to the other person, this kind of conversation is effective. So in a nutshell listening skills are pivotal for the conversation being effective.

The image below demonstrates the contribution of listening skills towards effective conversation:

Figure 1 : Listening skills contributing towards effective communication

BY ME

6.    What are the management strategies for quality-focused interpersonal needs?

A management strategy for quality focused interpersonal skills may include:

1. Recognizing and figuring out the needs of interpersonal skills : All the level from managers to end workers must think of interpersonal skills needed and discuss and finalize a set of such skills.
2. Dynamic set of interpersonal skills: There must be continual addition to the skills required.
3. Education of interpersonal skill set: The managerial level can educate their thoughts to the end workers and vice versa!
4. Measurement: The interpersonal skills agreed upon needs to be measured for all individuals.
5. Incentives: All workers need to be rewarded for their contribution towards interpersonal skill set of the company and the extent to which they execute it.

The figure summarizes the strategy:

Figure 2: Summary of strategy for developing quality focused interpersonal skills.

-BY ME

7.  What are the principles of overcoming negativity and conflicts in the workplace?

According to me the major cause of negativity and conflicts is when someone feels that he or she is not respected in the workplace. The solution to it is education to all the people at workplace that respect comes above all.

Negativity and conflicts can arise when there is difference in viewpoints and ideologies of workers this can be sorted out by effective communication as we discussed earlier in conflict resolution same principle follows to prevention of conflicts.

Other prevention and remedy to conflicts and negotiations is incentives, every body has to receive deserving amount of incentives to meet their psychological needs and work for the good of organization.

Celebrations and gatherings can help alleviate any negativity in the workplace and give a chance to reform any ill will between workers.

A counselor should be present at any point for the worker to share their problems and find the solution to them.

 8.    How can you manage conflict in the workplace?

1. Discuss the importance of quality partnering and strategic alliances.

First importance of quality partnerships and strategic alliances that clicks to my mind is exchange of each other’s expertise. For example Amazon and UPS, both brands are a perfect couple of supplier and customer, but there’s more to it, Amazon ships approximately 1600000 packages a day and it recognizes  UPS (United Parcel Service), as one of the oldest courier services (founded in 1907) and their excellency in the shipping industry  and in this way both make millions of dollars each year. Amazon has a trust on UPS to an extent that it ships all its prime members packages through UPS only!

Strategic alliances can also benefit by allowing sharing customers, pottery barn and Sherwin Williams (decor) serve a perfect example, pottery barn offers exclusive paint and decor by Sherwin Williams to complement their furniture, in this way customers are attracted to pottery barn and make business for Sherwin Williams too.

Strategic alliances help companies exploit their shared values and products, like in case of BMW and Louis Vuitton, both share their luxurious items and complement each others, presently Louis Vuitton makes travel bags exactly fitting in a BMW cars, this in a way increases luxury of both the brands.

2. Discuss the various forms of quality partnering and strategic alliances. Focus on the process model.

3. Discuss the importance of quality culture.

Quality culture may be defined as a set of values, beliefs, ethics, attitudes common to a group of individuals in an organization. If a company doesn’t have quality culture no matter how good technologies and methodologies is in use in the company it wont have a efficacy. Quality culture can be described as the efficacy with which the employees execute the process and methods decided by the management. A good quality culture is imperative to have continual development. Quality culture means that every worker should feel quality around them, should take actions and decisions for good quality, all this should be done by a worker in addition to maintaining the quality code of the organization. For example : If in a company machining mechanical parts, all the lathes are new and the workers are supplied with high quality tools but every time the machined part goes out of tolerance limits this means the worker doesn’t think quality is important and so does everybody around him and the company is useless with all the inputs is has put in!

 – BY ME

4. Explain the difference between traditional and modern quality cultures.

The most striking difference in the modern and traditional quality cultures is the integration of computer software packages:

In traditional quality cultures, quality reforms directly used to reflect on production lines and if the reform doesn’t work well they used to put all the products into scrap and do all the rework resulting in huge losses. Now due to evolution in computer technologies and software packages engineers are able to simulate the changes made in production lines. Example ENOVIA, a product life cycle management software allows a 3-D platform to see what would be the effect of change, even this software allows the engineers to see the ergonomics of the new plan introduced! So there is negligible chances of scrap and rework.

In modern quality cultures everybody till end worker is empowered, a production line worker has the power to stop the line if anything severe is happening on the line.

In modern cultures the focus is on long-term improvement by improving the quality whereas in traditions quality cultures the objective was to complete the order. The modern effect is more customer centric as compared to traditional since it aims to improve the company name and reputation in long term.

In a nutshell, modern work cultures are more collaborative in terms with relations to  the customers and suppliers, problems are addressed by taking action to solve them all these ethics have made modern work cultures to be more supportive of continual development.

-BY ME

5. How do you understand who is a customer?

In my words, A customer is like a grade sheet of an examination the grades received are feedback value and trust of the product/service supplied to them and the degree is the payment received from them. The trust, satisfaction and reputation earned are the most important outcome from customer they help in building goodwill of the company that can get the company through any kind of crisis!

6. Explain customer defined value, value analysis and retention.

1. Customer Defined Value

In marketing terms there are 4 types of values:

1. Functional Value : Extent to which the product or service is functional to the customer.
2. Monetary Value: The feasibility according to the customer of the product or service.
3. Social Value: The amount of connection the customer makes with the society by using the product or by having the service.
4. Psychological value: The value associated to the product by its name: Brand name.

All four of these features validate the value of a product or service of a commodity so an industrial engineer has to aim at increasing all these four features in a product to increase its value.

2. Value Analysis

As I discussed above customer sets a value of a product broadly in these four ways, so as to increase the value of a product to achieve a greater customer satisfaction the company has to analyze the current value of the product and any improvements possible. (all from a customer’s point of view)

3. Customer Retention

Customer Retention can be thought of how well has the company performed and how well has the company performed the customer value analysis, as the name suggest if a customer returns to the company for another purchase the company is said to have retained the customer. All the big names in any product/service based industry have a great customer retention Ex: We buy or trade in Apple devices every time a new product is launched!

-BY ME

7. Discuss product innovation models for customer retention.

Product Innovation models focusses on retaining the customer through innovation, this model is used by every company including technological giants like Apple, we look forward to products from Apple each year due to its innovation and pioneering technologies. If the customer is attracted by the distinction in the product quality from all others in the market they will compromise with their budget to get the project.

Mainly it involves seizing the opportunity by analyzing customer needs, this idea is now put forward to research for getting alternatives and then an optimum alternative is chosen out of them and then commercialization of the solution takes place.

8.    Discuss employee empowerment.

There are important differences between involvement and empowerment of employees. Involved employees are asked for their input, but they are not given ownership of their jobs. In the employee empowered organizations, managers provide an open, nonthreatening, creative environment and employees get involved physically, intellectually, and emotionally. In such situations, employees will be more willingly to observe, sense and ponder the following questions like is the procedure right is there a better way, will customer like this. These kind of questions aid continual development.

9.    Discuss leadership for quality.

Leadership for quality is the perspective of total quality. It is about applying the principles of leadership set forth in such a way as to continually improvement in the performance of people, processes, and products. Customer focus, Obsession with quality, Recognizing the structure of work freedom through control unity of purpose Looking for faults in systems teamwork, Continuing education and training, emphasis on best practices and peak performance.

10. How to lead for a better quality change?

Develop a compelling change picture next comes, communicating with the change in picture to all stakeholders and conduct a comprehensive roadblock analysis to plan ahead. The major thing for a better quality change is communication with customer and active feedback.

Social Networking

1.IKEA

Its nice that IKEA has thought of venturing in India as my friend Saravana pointed out India is the second most populous country in the world. I think IKEA will be successful in a couple of decades after looking after how it is mending its policies and implementing assembly team according to the choice of Indian people to not assemble their own furniture. Also IKEA is targeting cities new on their establishment like Hyderabad, with all these major strategies IKEA will definitely capture the Indian market and make a fortune.

2.McDonalds’ and Starbucks teaming up to create completely recyclable cups.

Both McDonalds and Starbucks cumulatively raised thousand billion cups each year these cups are either made completely of plastic or coated with plastic and most of these cups aren’t recyclable due to plastic separation or failure or mechanical devices to conveniently handle them, I agree with all my friends that this hazard needs to be limited and so appreciate 5 million dollars donated by both of these giants, forming a totally recyclable will take time and the initiative taken is a huge step!

3.Solar Calculator.

The solar estimate calculates the total irradiation on your house according to the longitude and latitude, it considers important factors like rooftop slope, tree cover insolation and makes up an appropriate calculation of how much the installation will cost you and how much it will save over the years, I have given the data for my house but and would definitely recommend it to my renter.

Omkar Suresh Hatti

NJIT Id: 31475125

IE 673

Question 1: What is Quality?

For me Quality, is the level of satisfaction felt from a service or product. Quality can be manifested as the precision of product to what is expected from it, Quality can be different for different people to get a holistic idea about it I have collected a list of definitions from different authors as follows:

1. According to New Oxford American Dictionary, Quality is “the standard of something as measured against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence of something.”
2. Margaret Rouse explains pertaining to an information technology product or service, quality is sometimes defined as “meeting the requirements of the customer.”
3. Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company defines Quality as,” doing it right when no one is looking”

So, as we look to the definitions we find that quality definitions is subjective but the main motto is to achieve the level of satisfaction as expected or greater than it!

I will exemplify quality as I perceived it from some of my life instances:

First example is of an air conditioner, I bought a Voltas air conditioner in India, it costed me about Rs. 30000 ($ 415), I was pretty happy about getting a cheap AC but in the peak of summer it broke down and when I saw the specifications it had an aluminum condenser, which punctured due to excessive heating, the mechanic welded the puncture but the problem was recurring, the maintenance costed me more than a new Daikin air conditioner , with copper condenser and high durability, So from this instance I believe the meaning of quality as the value, performance, satisfaction, worth that I get for what I pay.

Another Experience I would like to share would be of a dish I ordered in a restaurant, Paneer Lahori, It’s taste was awesome and I couldn’t find anything to match it still now, but wait, there’s a twist to it, yeah! I got sick the next day, So from this instance I understand, quality can be thought of excellency of the product or service in all the parameters a customer can judge it on!

Question 2: What is Total Quality Management?

Total Quality Management proposes a management method aiming to a long term success for the business, by incorporating every member of organisation to produce a better product, better cost and company culture which culminates in customer satisfaction.

I prepared a basic layout of positions in an industry as below:

Figure 1: Elements of an industry (by me)

So, as we can see in the above flow chart a company consists of management, engineering, shop floor supervisors, end workers and machines. Total quality management describes a methodology in which each of these elements smoothly communicate with each other, discuss their problems and find a optimum solution.

For example in yesterday’s class I learned how end workers asked the management for a customized work table, to which management consulted the engineers and they deviced a pneumatically operated tool for the comfort of end worker. Other than this there are various ways like fish bone diagrams, process flow charts and various other graphical representations that aid the communication between different elements of an industry. All of the above finally contributes to a healthy work culture and thus profiting the company!

Apart from creating a systematic work and healthy culture in a company Total Quality Management emphasizes collection of performance data of company & using various statistical methods to process this data in a legible format, to make continual changes in the product according to the customer’s desires.

Question 3: How can we achieve organizational excellence with quality?

Organizational excellence is a term used when the measure of performance exceeds the expectations of all the stakeholders of the company. So I would a quote on what is quality:

According to New Oxford American Dictionary, Quality is “the standard of something as measured against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence of something.”

So, from the above quote we can interpret that as the quality of a product or service increases its degree of excellence increases & so does the organizational excellence!

Organizational excellence can be established by providing the best service, quality at a cost that the customer deems it worth of, to do so the product must continually develop according to customer needs, price needs to monitored and controlled, organizational work ethic and morale should be boosted, the whole hierarchy of employees should be empowered, respect for each other must be a thumb rule, problems should be openly discussed and solved, every worker should be made aware of his/her role in the company and should be timely trained and educated to facilitate the inflow of latest technology. All of this can be taken care of by creating a Total Quality Management approach for the company.

Question 4: What is the Deming cycle?

Deming cycle or PDCA cycle is a four part management cycle with its four parts being:

Plan: Making a plan for a selected process (selected on the basis of, if updating needed) then set objectives which we wish to obtain by this update.

Do: Implement the plan and collect the resultant data.

Check/Analyze: The data collected is to be statistically manipulated and interpreted if the new plan makes any betterment?

Act: After analyzing data, see if in any way there be more improvements?

PDCA follows a continuous cycle which propagates a continual development.

Question 10: What is the engineering manager’s role in quality ethics?

Engineering manager is the person responsible for taking an ethical quality decision for the company his decision. All of these decisions may be thought of as benchmarks to look after by managers in future. Role of engineering manager is not only to make an ethical decision but also to ensure that everybody in the company follows work ethics.

A manager should show good leader ship qualities and use his skills and experience to make good decisions.

A manager should always communicate customers needs to the organization and help it develop continually.

Manager should record the output of processes and analyze the data to to collect the facts and further suggest improvements based on these facts.

Question 12

Autonomous vehicle pilot program to launch in frisco.

I agree with the Drive.ai that we should go forward with driverless cars, as stated in the prose it is just like switching from driving horses to cars, of course there are safety issues like the incident when the driverless car ran over a pedestrian but we can’t neglect the fact that driving the first car and first plane for that matter would have been less dangerous. Apart from dangers, on a bright side as the Drive.ai car would be programmed for its operation there would be negligible chances of it to create any sort of traffic violations that a normal driver is prone to. Also as the prose says people could impede the driverless cars, to take care of which side displays have been installed, in addition to that if people are educated on how to interact with these driverless cars there are more less chances of them being a bait of road accidents than being hit by a negligent driver. Other benefit from driverless cars would be it would definitely free up traffic and parking space! Yes there are money and safety issues but they can be eventually ironed out in the course of time. After discussion with my friend Saravana, who supports my argument totally and quotes that Frisco’s feet is just a spark to the fire”. We both agree that the pros for a driverless cars far outweigh the cons and so I support and appreciate the effort put by these pioneering companies.

ASSE Member goes viral.

These confetti’s are really baffling as I  saw many different colors before going through the article, as explained in the article our mind deceives us from seeing the original color of the circles and the Easter eggs. The different colors we perceive in the dots are due to the neighboring tint of stripes, with change in the color of these stripes changes the color of dots it’s really bewildering! As the text suggests we can really see the color of the dots when we zoom in a little bit,  my friend Saravana and me both found confetti amazing and browsed through the internet for some more and we are really confounded by these confetti’s and now have started to make us feel proud of how amazing things human brains can do!

Drones critically used to perform critical energy industry

I agree with Velky’s statement that he sees the drone business burgeoning in the future, as we are the only species with high thinking and problem solving capabilities we shouldn’t act wild and put humans through jungles and rugged terrains and electrically charged equipment and rather combat the situations with technology like drones in our case. The passage describes drones having incredible capabilities of capturing rugged terrain, mapping and even detecting heat signals through thermal imaging, with these technologies loaded on a drone, it is really useful to energy business. According to me drone tech would definitely contribute in broadening energy industry’s horizon. As cited in the article drones can be used to find new oil wells, monitor the existing ones  and also used in maintenance of solar farms. With drones replacing humans the investment is more but definitely a rewarding one and in future with advancements it may completely replace humans and increase the profit in energy business exponentially. My classmate went forward and gather some statistics about how already these unmanned aerial startups have started to grow and expected to reach $20 billon industry in 2026.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton