Quality management principles in engineering companies

In this first part of the post, we will review the main points related to internal control mechanisms that a good quality manager must know to implement in their company or organization.

Management of non-compliances and their correction

Nonconformity Management

The company will always tend to ensure that products and services are in accordance with requirements, that is, it will try to prevent non-conforming products from reaching customers, even if inadvertently or unintentionally.

Some of the measures that can be taken:

• Identification of the products, or batches of products, that have not passed the corresponding controls to prevent them from reaching users.
• Complete replacement of the products or performance of the service again.
• Establishment of compensatory measures.
• Warning to the customer of the characteristics of the product to avoid disappointment

Operating experience and lessons learned

When a company detects an evolution, innovation or improvement in the way in which the work was carried out, or an improvement in the characteristics of the product, it should not remain an isolated event. It is important that there is some way in which the company can take advantage of its own activity for the continuous improvement of processes, which is not only based on fixing errors.

In the ISO 9001: 2015 1 Standard, the following are given as examples of improvement:

• The corrections.
• Corrective actions.
• Continuous improvement.
• The abrupt change.
• The innovation.
• The reorganization.
• Quality management principles: Report

The best mechanism that has been found and applied in companies to carry out internal control of any aspect or variable, process or event that occurs has been the written report or the documented information.

Activity logs

It is essential to record data regarding the times consumed, and the material resources that have been used to know the times, personnel costs and the materials that have been used for each of the deliverables of each process. With these first data, managers will be able to propose optimizations in the processes and procedures to reduce the “Time and Cost” variables and increase the “Quality” variable in a balanced way.

Test records

The test records must include all the information that ensures that the execution was correct in all its aspects, regardless of the result obtained.

They must provide evidence of their conformity with the established requirements,

Equipment calibration records

It is necessary that the instruments used to measure magnitudes are required to have a certain accuracy and a confidence threshold. The Quality Management System must guarantee that these instruments are in perfect working order when used to validate the final products with the established requirements.

Performance evaluation records

Organizations need to determine the magnitudes or indicators that they consider should be taken into account in order to evaluate their performance.

• Magnitudes that will require monitoring and measurement.
• Tracking methods to implement.
• Methods to be used to perform the measurements, and the instruments to do so.
• Criteria for acceptance, analysis and evaluation of said measurements.
• How often will the data and the corresponding evaluations be collected.

Analysis and Evaluation

All the data that the organization collects through the registries must be appropriate to be able to provide reliable information that allows knowing:

• The degree of conformity with respect to the established requirements.
• The degree of customer satisfaction.
• The performance and effectiveness of the Quality Management System.
• The degree of effectiveness in the implementation of the activities.
• The effectiveness of actions, corrective or preventive.
• The effectiveness of contingency plans.
• The degree of satisfaction of the organization with its external suppliers.
• Opportunities for improvement, or need for it.

Stalwart International – One of the best chemical process equipment manufacturers in India.