Seven Basic Quality tools documents
Definition of Quality Management -- it is a method for ensuring that all the activities necessary to design, develop and implement a product or service are effective and efficient with respect to the system and its performance. It is also a principle set by the company to endure the continuous advocacy of quality services and products, or the further improvement of it.
Welcome to QT-charts knowledge base section. Hopefully you will find some of them useful in your work.
(Read articles below to learn more.)
Durability
By Jason Gagich, March 30, 2001
For OISM 470W
Original
text on www.freequality.org
What is durability? Dr. David Garvin, a leader in the field of quality at the Harvard Business School, listed durability as one of his eight dimensions of quality. And like most of the other quality dimensions, durability is a transcendent, product based, user based, manufacturing based, and value based concept. However to simplify the concept of durability, we will use a definition of durability by Dr. S. T. Foster, a professor at Boise State University. He describes durability as "the degree to which a product tolerates stress or trauma without failing." (Foster P6).
Like the other dimensions of
quality, it is easier to plan durability into a products design and
manufacturing process than it is to alter the finished product. There are many ways to increase a product's
durability. You can increase it by using
durable parts and modules in your product.
Another way to increase durability is to use redundancy. Redundant parts can vastly increase
durability; however, it will increase the products weight and cost as
well. And finally another way to
increase durability is to design a product for the most demanding user, that
way to the average user the product appears to be very durable.
When designing a product and its
durability, you should design with your product base, user base, manufacturing
base, and value base in mind. Different
product bases require different levels of durability. The difference can be seen in the two types
of Ford vehicles, the Crown Victoria, which is a law enforcement vehicle, and
the Focus, which is an economy car. Both
vehicles are designed from the ground up to be different types of cars with
different levels of durability. Another
way o look at it is that, these cars are designed for different users. An economy car it is made to be a good buy
for people on a budget, but the Crown Victoria is designed to take a cops’
punishment. Both cars are subject to
high manufacturing standards to increase durability. For example Ford doesn’t use one type of weld
for the Focus and another type for the Crown Victoria. However some products might require a change
in manufacturing, which in turn will create the level of durability for a
product. Finally it is just not
economically feasible based on product, user, and manufacturing to increase the
durability of the Focus; because, if you did then the Focus’s price would
increase removing it from the economy car class.
An example of a non-durable product
is the common light bulb. Light bulbs
are designed to last about a year or less, and the slightest power surge or
vibration can break their filament, rendering them useless. It would be nearly impossible to increase the
durability of finished light bulb.
However if you design the light bulb for extended life and use a quality
manufacturing process, you can drastically increase the durability of the light
bulb. The 23-Watt SpringLamp, from
Energy and Light, was designed in such a way. It was created as a filament less bulb, which
resists vibrations and power surges. The
SpringLamp light bulb has a very high durability, and the company claims that
they will last forever, or at least out last the original owner.
There are many web sites you can visit
to learn more about increasing product durability, the Ford Motor Company at http://www.ford.com/,
Energy and Light http://www.energyandlight.com/ are a few.
In conclusion there are many reasons to
increase a product's durability, whether it is to gain market support or to
increase the life of your product. In
either case choosing the way to do it is always easy. Start increasing a product's durability from
design and continue on through manufacturing.
Otherwise your product might just burnout like a light.
Bibliography
S. Tomas Foster. Managing Quality an Integrative Approach.
Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2001. Page 6.
Ford Motor Company. www.ford.com. March 30, 2001.
Energy and Light
Corporation. www.energyandlight.com.
March 30, 2001.