12/3/21, 4:11 PM Quality control - Wikipedia

Quality control
Quality control (QC) is a process by which entities review the
quality of all factors involved in production. ISO 9000 defines
quality control as "A part of quality management focused on
fulfilling quality requirements".[1]

This approach places emphasis on three aspects (enshrined in

standards such as ISO 9001):[2][3]

1. Elements such as controls, job management, defined and well

managed processes,[4][5] performance and integrity criteria,
and identification of records
2. Competence, such as knowledge, skills, experience, and
qualifications Quality inspector in a Volkseigener
3. Soft elements, such as personnel, integrity, confidence, Betrieb sewing machine parts
organizational culture, motivation, team spirit, and quality factory in Dresden, East Germany,
relationships. 1977.

Inspection is a major component of quality control, where

physical product is examined visually (or the end results of a service are analyzed). Product inspectors
will be provided with lists and descriptions of unacceptable product defects such as cracks or surface
blemishes for example.[3]

Contents
History and introduction
Notable approaches
In project management
See also
References
Further reading
External links

History and introduction

Early stone tools such as anvils had no holes and were not designed as interchangeable parts. Mass
production established processes for the creation of parts and system with identical dimensions and
design, but these processes are not uniform and hence some customers were unsatisfied with the
result. Quality control separates the act of testing products to uncover defects from the decision to

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allow or deny product release, which may be determined by fiscal constraints.[6] For contract work,
particularly work awarded by government agencies, quality control issues are among the top reasons
for not renewing a contract.[7]

The simplest form of quality control was a sketch of the desired item. If the sketch did not match the
item, it was rejected, in a simple Go/no go procedure. However, manufacturers soon found it was
difficult and costly to make parts be exactly like their depiction; hence around 1840 tolerance limits
were introduced, wherein a design would function if its parts were measured to be within the limits.
Quality was thus precisely defined using devices such as plug gauges and ring gauges. However, this
did not address the problem of defective items; recycling or disposing of the waste adds to the cost of
production, as does trying to reduce the defect rate. Various methods have been proposed to prioritize
quality control issues and determine whether to leave them unaddressed or use quality assurance
techniques to improve and stabilize production.[6]

Notable approaches
There is a tendency for individual consultants and organizations to name their own unique
approaches to quality control—a few of these have ended up in widespread use:

Approximate
Terminology year of first Description
use
Statistical
quality The application of statistical methods (specifically control charts and acceptance
1930s
control sampling) to quality control[8]: 556
(SQC)

Popularized by Armand V. Feigenbaum in a Harvard Business Review article[9] and

Total quality
control 1956 book of the same name;[10] stresses involvement of departments in addition to
(TQC) production (e.g., accounting, design, finance, human resources, marketing,
purchasing, sales)
Statistical
The use of control charts to monitor an individual industrial process and feed back
process
1960s performance to the operators responsible for that process; inspired by control
control
systems
(SPC)
Company-
wide quality
1968 Japanese-style total quality control.[11]
control
(CWQC)

Total quality Quality movement originating in the United States Department of Defense that uses
management 1985 (in part) the techniques of statistical quality control to drive continuous organizational
(TQM) improvement[12]
Six Sigma
1986 Statistical quality control applied to business strategy;[13] originated by Motorola
(6σ)

Lean Six Six Sigma applied with the principles of lean manufacturing and/or lean enterprise;
2001
Sigma (L6σ) originated by Wheat et al.[14]

In project management

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In project management, quality control requires the project manager and/or the project team to
inspect the accomplished work to ensure its alignment with the project scope.[15] In practice, projects
typically have a dedicated quality control team which focuses on this area.[16]

See also
Analytical quality control
Corrective and preventative action (CAPA)
Eight dimensions of quality
First article inspection (FAI)
Good Automated Manufacturing Practice (GAMP)
Good manufacturing practice
Quality assurance
Quality management framework
Standard operating procedure (SOP)
QA/QC

References
1. ISO 9000:2005, Clause 3.2.10
2. Praxiom Research Group Limited (16 August 2017). "ISO 9001 Translated Into Plain English" (htt
p://www.praxiom.com/iso-9001.htm). Praxiom Research Group Limited. Retrieved 29 November
2017.
3. Aft, L.S. (1997). "Chapter 1: Introduction". Fundamentals of Industrial Quality Control. CRC Press.
pp. 1–17.
4. Dennis Adsit (9 November 2007). "What the Call Center Industry Can Learn from Manufacturing:
Part I" (http://www.nationalcallcenters.org/images/stories/InQueue/vol2no21.pdf) (PDF). National
Association of Call Centers. Retrieved 21 December 2012.
5. Dennis Adsit (23 November 2007). "What the Call Center Industry Can Learn from Manufacturing:
Part II" (http://www.nationalcallcenters.org/images/stories/InQueue/Vol2No22.pdf) (PDF). National
Association of Call Centers. Retrieved 21 December 2012.
6. Shewhart, Walter A. (Walter Andrew); Deming, W. Edwards (William Edwards) (1939). Statistical
method from the viewpoint of quality control (https://archive.org/stream/CAT10502416#page/2/mo
de/2up). Washington: The Graduate School, The Department of Agriculture. pp. 1–5.
7. "Position Classification Standard for Quality Assurance Series, GS-1910" (http://www.opm.gov/fed
class/gs1910.pdf) (PDF). US Office of Personnel Management. March 1983. Retrieved
21 December 2012.
8. Juran, Joseph M., ed. (1995), A History of Managing for Quality: The Evolution, Trends, and
Future Directions of Managing for Quality (https://archive.org/details/historyofmanagin0000unse),
Milwaukee, Wisconsin: The American Society for Quality Control, ISBN 9780873893411,
OCLC 32394752 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/32394752)
9. Feigenbaum, Armand V. (1956). "Total Quality Control". Harvard Business Review. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 34 (6): 93–101. ISSN 0017-8012 (https://www.worldcat.
org/issn/0017-8012). OCLC 1751795 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1751795).
10. Feigenbaum, Armand Vallin (1961), Total Quality Control, New York, McGraw-Hill,
OCLC 250573852 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/250573852)

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11. Ishikawa, Kaoru (1985), What Is Total Quality Control? The Japanese Way (https://archive.org/det
ails/whatistotalquali00ishi/page/90) (1 ed.), Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, pp. 90–
91 (https://archive.org/details/whatistotalquali00ishi/page/90), ISBN 978-0-13-952433-2,
OCLC 11467749 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/11467749)
12. Evans, James R.; Lindsay, William M. (1999), The Management and Control of Quality (https://arc
hive.org/details/managementcontro0004evan/page/118) (4 ed.), Cincinnati, Ohio: South-Western
College Publications, p. 118 (https://archive.org/details/managementcontro0004evan/page/118),
ISBN 9780538882422, OCLC 38475486 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38475486), "The term
total quality management, or TQM, has been commonly used to denote the system of managing
for total quality. (The term TQM was actually developed within the Department of Defense. It has
since been renamed Total Quality Leadership, since leadership outranks management in military
thought.)"
13. "What Is Six Sigma?" (https://web.archive.org/web/20131203031507/http://www.motorolasolution
s.com/web/Business/_Moto_University/_Documents/_Static_Files/What_is_SixSigma.pdf) (PDF).
http://www.motorolasolutions.com. Schaumburg, Illinois: Motorola University. 19 February 2010.
p. 2. Archived from the original (http://www.motorolasolutions.com/web/Business/_Moto_Universit
y/_Documents/_Static_Files/What_is_SixSigma.pdf) (PDF) on 3 December 2013. Retrieved
24 November 2013. "When practiced as a management system, Six Sigma is a high performance
system for executing business strategy." External link in |website= (help)
14. Wheat, B.; Mills, C.; Carnell, M. (2001). Leaning into Six Sigma: The Path to integration of Lean
Enterprise and Six Sigma. Publishing Partners. p. 100. ISBN 9780971249103.
15. Phillips, Joseph (November 2008). "Quality Control in Project Management" (http://www.pmhut.co
m/quality-control-in-project-management). The Project Management Hut. Retrieved 21 December
2012.
16. Rose, K.H. (2014). Project Quality Management: Why, What and How. J. Ross Publishing. p. 224.
ISBN 9781604271027.

This article incorporates public domain material from the General Services Administration
document: "Federal Standard 1037C" (http://www.its.bldrdoc.gov/fs-1037/fs-1037c.htm). (in
support of MIL-STD-188)

Further reading
Radford, George S. (1922), The Control of Quality in Manufacturing (https://archive.org/details/co
ntrolofquality00radf), New York: Ronald Press Co., OCLC 1701274 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/
1701274), retrieved 16 November 2013
Shewhart, Walter A. (1931), Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product, New York: D.
Van Nostrand Co., Inc., OCLC 1045408 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1045408)
Juran, Joseph M. (1951), Quality-Control Handbook, New York: McGraw-Hill, OCLC 1220529 (htt
ps://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1220529)
Western Electric Company (1956), Statistical Quality Control Handbook (1 ed.), Indianapolis,
Indiana: Western Electric Co., OCLC 33858387 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/33858387)
Feigenbaum, Armand V. (1961), Total Quality Control, New York: McGraw-Hill, OCLC 567344 (htt
ps://www.worldcat.org/oclc/567344)

External links
ASTM quality control standards (http://www.astm.org/Standards/quality-control-standards.html)

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