Last updated September 5, 1997
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People make quality with tools, which depend on the goal. If we want
move from averidge quality to exellent one, we need new tools.
The subject who makes quality is changing, too. One obvious change is the evolution
from isolated inventors and innovators to innovative teams.
Exercise. Analyze three things:
1 Company culture/quality culture: the level today / the next stage of evolution?
2 Which tools we have now / what we will need in the next stage?
3 Who makes quality: people and teams today / in the next stage?
All tools of TRIZ we have studied are quality tools at the same time. Weīll consider
how just quality can be created by TRIZ tools. Quality should be understood widely.
We can name at least six sub-fields of quality:
Example 2. Michael Waldmanīs pizza box has a concave box and small pyramids raising from the
bottom. The new quality: the box keeps pizza hot and crispy 45 minutes or three times longer
than a conventional box.
We can consider the new box as the combination of two systems:
- Thick box
- Thin box
Or:
- Sealed box
- "Open" box
Example 3. Self-service is the combination of two system
- a service person for every client
- no service at all
Self-service is most individual service without any service personal
Exercise: List more examples of quality creation by bisystem building
None of these advances gave new quality by itself. The superior quality appeared then they all
were put together.
Total Quality Management (TQM), or Total Quality Control (TQC) are examples of polysystems
in organisation and management. Isolated quality methods and tools are often rather weak, but
together they give the competitive edge.
Urban planning. Problems of a modern city are by far solved usually by partial improvements:
overpasses, multilevel highways, parking facilities, traffic control, public transport. Why not
to seek some "T Model city"? For example, not only multilevel highways, but two-level
or multilevel parts of the city. Old solutions together can give new quality: vehicles and people
will not disturb each other.
Computer support: Feature Transfer Modul of TechOptimizer helps to combine different
engineering systems into a single, innovative system. At the same time the benefits of
systems are combined into new quality.
Exercise: List more examples of quality creation by bisystem building
Air bag in the car. High-speed bag protects drivers and passangers in most collisions, but
can sometimes kill children and small adults. Low-speed bag doesnīt harm children, but
cannot protect efficiently averidge drivers and passengers. For details see articles of Ellen
Domb and James Kowalick:
- E. Domb. Contradictions: Air Bag Applications,
TRIZ Journal, July 1997
J. Kowalick. "No-compromise" Design Solutions to the Air Bag Fatalities Problem,
TRIZ Journal, April 1997
When you want quality, seek contradictions. The contradiction is the first step to quality.
A spongue for washing consisting of rough and soft parts.
Often quality can be improved separating features in space.
New quality: only one operation is needed.
Often quality can be improved separating features in time.
Foamed metal. Solid substance as whole, gaseous one on micro-level.
Ericsson has used foamed metal to make a mobile telephone lighter.
Often quality can be improved separating features in structure.
The ideal final result steers design towards the ideal quality. Some features of the solution of
good quality is predicted, although the same solution is not yet developed.
The mechanical transmission (chain and sprockets) in a bicycle is rather complex and contains
many parts. We can forecast, that competition and customer requirements will force to introduce
a more simple transmission. For example, a belt transmission (which is already developed, but
not widely introduced).
Improving quality means decreasing the number of components and operations compared to
features and functions. That is, a high quality system is a maximally trimmed system.
The bike: coordination trend. A common upright bike is a beautiful example of the
man-machine coordination. The bike is light and transforms muscular energy to
the rectilinear motion with high efficiency. The trend says that coordination will
be further improved. Is the upright position of a cyclist most optimal? There are
many people who say that the recumbent gives much more comfortable riding. In any
case, the bike will be coordinated better with a cyclist, and with environment.
Trends are quality improvement tools, too.
By predictions you can find many ways to improve the quality of an engineering system.
Principles are, too, very good tools for quality improvement.
Pizza box: condensation of steam on the bottom are used to keep pizza crisp, and to use waste
energy, too (heat is recovered by condensation).
Using effects you can add to the product new features, that is, new quality.
Compared with losses due bad quality, the costs of building quality culture are extremely low.
Quality is, if not literally free, at least very cheap.
Cost-consciousness in companies is often too narrow. Only visible costs are calculated:
An example of loss due to a late launching: An British bike company Raleigh
needed eight years time (1959-1967) to admit that an small-wheel bicycle
(the concept of Alex Moulton) is worth to manufacture.
Engineers often consider that if some thing cannot be measured of calculated exactly, the
whole thing does not exist at all. But a rough estimate can be very useful. If the turnover
of the company is 500 millions, and estimated losses due to insufficient quality are
about 10 per cent of turnover (estimated losses in Finland are on the averidge 20-30
per cent. So the order of losses are tenths of millions.
So can we afford to improve quality? Costs of quality improvent are training costs and
today often software costs, too. These costs are of lower order that costs we will have
is nothing new will be done.
Time is important, too. What we will win, if we begin to raise quality in time? What we
will lose, if we are slow? Not only the level of quality is important, but the speed of the
evolution of quality. We are speaking not only of the time-to-market, but also of how fast
the company learns.
The analysis of invisible costs and lossed income is healthy yet in one sense. It turns
attention to the problems of customer, instead of the inner difficulties of the company.
Here we have an analogy with the philosophy of Genichi Taguchi: quality and genuine
cost-efficiency mean minimazing losses.
Exercise. Analyze costs and benefits:
- How much we are losing due to insufficient quality?
- How much we can win if we improve the creativity of people?
- Compare risks: a risk when weīll do nothing new, a risk when we make
serious efforts to increase creativity
- Which are benefits and risks, when we are fast, and when we are slow?
An example of a good investment is T Model Ford. An example of failured investment
is a bicycle from plastic: Itera in 1982.
Updated September 5, 1997
Archive
Previous tutorial: The Dialogue with the Customer
Next tutorial: Future city
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