Chapter 7- Integrated Quality Control (eChapter)

To achieve a high-quality level economically, a product needs to be designed so it can be manufactured without defects. Manufacturing systems must be designed to achieve superior quality at the least cost, and in a flexible manner. Flexibility usually means that a company designs and builds its own manufacturing equipment. It also means that a company understands that linked-cell manufacturing systems employing make-one, check one, move-one-on methodologies are key to technological competitiveness. There are many different tools for statistical quality control. The two most popular techniques are acceptance sampling and control charts. Poor quality has meant the demise of more than one plan to implement lean production. Integrated quality control is sometimes called total quality control or company-wide quality control, because all departments in the company participate in quality control efforts, as do all types of employees. Integrated-quality control goes hand in hand with the concepts of cellular manufacturing systems.