Why and How Organization Need to implement ISQ (In Station Quality) Concept

By Sumudu Rajaguru

As we all know, Quality is very much important factor for the manufacturing organization. So, it is very important discuss about this topic and currents trends relating to the quality.

According to the one of the quality guru "Philip Crosby" quality means conformance to the requirements. that mean any organization create some product, that has to be matched to the customers requirement. actually this is not only for the manufacturing organization, that can applicable for the service sector also. However, when consider about the manufacturing organization, organization has to look at quality from 03 aspect. such as;

01. Product Quality - that is one of the prime responsibility of the producer and that can be match with the pre defined standard (sample) and manufacture has to make their product within the tolerance limits give by the customer.

02. Process Quality - Some of the organization think, process is not much more important, any how organization want to achieve the product quality required by customer. that is totally wrong. Because sustainability come through the correct process. Simply can say, if organization has proper manufacturing processes and all members in the organization every time focus the processes, results (Good Quality Product) automatically come. Special thing is output not depend on the human who engage with the process.

03. Service Quality - This is very important, if organization expecting to create long term relationship with the customers. it is included on time delivery, attend to the customers inquiries, transference with the customers, etc.

most of the organizations facing to failures because most of the time they focus only the product quality.

Before discuss about the ISQ, it is very important to understand, how quality evaluate with the time. in below explained briefly about the quality concepts evaluations.

01. Inspection - this is the first quality concept followed by most manufacturing organizations. in this mechanism, production and inspection area physically separated and inspectors (Checkers) responsibility is to check the completed product based on the pre defined sample. checkers have not any idea about the work environment of the production area and they don't know at least who produced that products also. their responsibility is to segregate good and bad products based on the standards given. when consider the customer point of view, customer will receive the good quality products. because manufacture send only the inspector pass quantities. However, manufacture has to face some issues relating to the required quantity. because at the final stage lot of bad quality products accumulated at the inspecting area. after several thought processes manufacturing specialist introduced QC mechanism as solution for that.

02. QC (Quality Control) Process - even though this is also post mortem, manufacture got chance to correct the products then and there. because according to this concept checking activity has to happen at the end of the production. simply it can explain, all product completing has go through the end line checking activity and if there are any damages, same time it has to go production line and production team responsibility is to re correct and again handover to the end line checkers as soon as possible. with this mechanism, 4M (Man, Machine, Method, Material) concept also popularized because when production team going to do re correct activity, they have to consider about how that damage happened. usually it is based on the 4M mechanism. this concept created more benefits to the organization. however, again manufacturing specialist think, is there any mechanism to address the quality before complete the final product. then they thought about the QA process.

03. QA (Quality Assurance) Process - According to this, without waiting till last products, assure the quality at several stages. it started from first operation and go to the last operation through the the manufacturing process. that mean organization create several quality gates on their process. when consider the quality point of view, it is good. but when consider the business point of view it created huge cost to the organization. because number of members increased in the organization for quality activities. when increased the number of members number of layers also increased in quality department structure. so, there are huge communication problems also created. other specially thing is researches found that, checking is totally non value adding activity to the organization.

"Definition of value adding activities - if any activity change the shape, nature or composition of the product and if any activity requested by customer, only value adding activities in the organization"

Even manufacture increased the number of quality members, still organizations failed several quality audits. then researches start to thought about the another concept.

04. ISQ (In Station Quality) Process - this mean assure quality at the source. in another way all members participate to production activities, have great responsibility to achieve the quality parameters of their operation. this is very important concept and now most of the organizations thinking to implement this concept. however, if any organization going to implement this without meaning, it will not success. so, it is very important to discuss about how organization can sustain the ISQ concept.

Before implement the ISQ concept, organization need to setup the 04 capabilities in their operation arear.

Four capabilities to implement ISQ

01. Create system to surface the problem as they occur.

02. Create system to solve the problem as they seen

03. Spread new knowledge continuously.

04. Develop capabilities 01, 02 and 03 and give leadership to sustain.

04th capability is very important. because, it is meaningless to setup first 03 capabilities without the proper leadership. to setup and accurately function above 04 capabilities, organization has to at least spend 06 month (Depend on the organization culture) time period. however, without setup above capabilities, it is meaningless to think about the self quality assurance process.

After setup all above four capabilities, organization has to setup the pre request to implement the ISQ concept.

Clear Responsibility

01. 5S and Visual Factory concept - 5S make work place standardization and because of that abnormal conditions coming out. as well as searching time reduce. it will support to the problem solvers.

Visual factory contain visual displays and it will support to communicate information. visual control is another factor and it will create behavioral change on the employees. Finally "Poka Yoke" create mistake proofing and it will support to achieve good quality.

02. Line Balancing - for sustainability of the ISQ, employees have to maintain some discipline. that is "Accept only good quality product", "Make only good quality product", " Deliver only good quality product".

So, to maintain that discipline, WIP in front of the operator has to be reduced. so, line balancing work has to be properly implemented.

Consistent Standard

Usually organization want to reduce the variation of the production process, they have to give proper Standard work sheet to the operators. then operators will get understanding about the work they have to follow and simply can say, associates will start their works with meaning. SWS (standard work sheet) has to include "Basic Steps / Key Points / Reason for Key Points" and Reason for Key points parts will create support to the machine operators to correct their individual defects without taking any consultation of the other parties.

Conditioned Responses

01. Andon - This is some what of visual audio mechanism and it will help to surface the problems. there are mainly 03 benefits can achieve through the Andon concept.

-Communication speedup

-Surface the problem

-Problem communicate directly and as it is.

02. PDCA - If organization has some repetitive and burning issues, PDCA is the one of best concept can use to solve the problem in standard way. So, all quality and other critical issues organization has to solve as team by using PDCA concept and it will support to run the self inspection activities, because already organization given fix solutions for critical issues.

03. KAIZEN - finally organization want to engage all employees for operational objectives achievements. so, KAIZEN is best methodology to take employees ideas for the improvement activities and hence take their engagement for the improvement journey.

Above discussed pre request called as 3Cs in ISQ process because all terms started from letter "C" (Clear Responsibility, Consistent Standard, Conditioned Response)

to setup pre request for the ISQ also will take 1.5 years to 2 years. So, if any organization try to implement, demand from the operators for self inspections, it will not happened until setup all above described all factors.