Introduction
Before the concepts and ideas of TQM were formalised, much work had taken place over the centuries to reach this stage. This section charts the evolution, from inspection through to the present day concepts of total quality.
From inspection to total quality
During the early days of manufacturing, an operative’s work was inspected and a decision made whether to accept or reject it. As businesses became larger, so too did this role, and full time inspection jobs were created.
Accompanying the creation of inspection functions, other problems arose:
• More technical problems occurred, requiring specialised skills, often not possessed by production workers
• The inspectors lacked training
• Inspectors were ordered to accept defective goods, to increase output
• Skilled workers were promoted into other roles, leaving less skilled workers to perform the operational jobs, such as manufacturing
These changes led to the birth of the separate inspection department with a “chief inspector”, reporting to either the person in charge of manufacturing or the works manager. With the creation of this new department, there came new services and issues, e.g, standards, training, recording of data and the accuracy of measuring equipment. It became clear that the responsibilities of the “chief inspector” were more than just product acceptance, and a need to address defect prevention emerged.
Hence the quality control department evolved, in charge of which was a “quality control manager”, with responsibility for the inspection services and quality control engineering.
In the 1920’s statistical theory began to be applied effectively to quality control, and in 1924 Shewhart made the first sketch of a modern control chart. His work was later developed by Deming and the early work of Shewhart, Deming, Dodge and Romig constitutes much of what today comprises