a system of world standards is a great opportunity for theUK.

D. SPICKERNELL(Director General, BSI)

2.2 References1 'Facing international competition'. Advisory Council for Applied

Research and Development (HMSO, July 1982)2 'Standards, quality and international competitiveness'. Department of

Trade (HMSO, July 1982)

3 What is quality?

The meaning of qualityQuality is not a property which has an absolute meaning:a high-quality pair of beach shoes can well be a low-quality pair of walking shoes, a low-quality billiard cuecan be a very high quality beanstick. The quality of anarticle only has meaning when it is related to its function,that which makes it work or sell, and the isolation of func-tion is rarely simple [1].

Part of the judgment made of the quality of a product isupon its ability to continue to function satisfactorily, andthis property has been given the name 'reliability'.

The two terms most often encountered are quality andreliability, which may be defined as follows:

(a) quality is fitness for purpose(b) reliability is the ability to continue to function to an

acceptable quality standard.

3.2 Achievement of qualityIt follows that, having defined quality, then its achievementmust start with an understanding of the purpose of theproduct. There are two distinct, but interrelated, aspects toquality:

(a) quality of design: the degree of achievement ofpurpose of the design itself

(b) quality of conformance: the faithfulness with whichthe product agrees with the design

Frequently it is only this latter aspect which is consideredwhen quality is discussed.

As it happens, it is the only aspect with which we areotherwise concerned in this colloquium, but it is worthobserving that this restricted view can lead to excessivecosts. If one is attempting to achieve conformity to anunnecessarily high design quality, such as over close toler-ancing of machined parts or the attempt to derive a hightotal quality from a basically poor design (the productiondepartment will make it work!), then inevitably oneobtains an overexpensive and usually unsatisfactory result.

A poor design can never result in high quality, althoughpoor execution can easily debase a good design!

3.3 Design = quality. True or false?—Managementimplications

Much is made of the management of quality, but whatabout the quality of management? Economy andimproved quality can go hand in hand with remarkableresults, but to achieve this management must also be fit forpurpose.

What should their overall purpose be? Surely it is tomeet reasonable and foreseeable market requirements,while using company resources in terms of money,machines and manpower as economically as possible.

3.4 Meeting market-place requirementsApplying the Pareto principle to an analysis of customerrequirements over a representative recent period of time

will allow management to choose the Pareto factorsresponsible for 80% or so of the demand.

Efforts can then be concentrated on a comparativelysmall number of the company's products or services;usually something like 80% of demand can be satisfied bysome 20% of the products on offer.

An analysis of changes to customer requirements over arepresentative period of time will also indicate trends. Forexample, when designing an aero-engine to meet therequirements of a new aircraft which is itself in the earlystages, it is forseeable that a requirement is likely to arisefor an increase in specified thrust of, say, 10%.

3.5 Using company resources economicallyHaving decided what the reasonable and forseeablerequirements are, how do we set about designing to meetthem, while ensuring that company resources are used eco-nomically?

There are three things to be avoided:(a) unnecessary complexity(b) unnecessary variety(c) unnecessary costs.

Taking them in order, lateral thinking, inspiration, call itwhat you will, from time to time leads to a simple solutionto what has previously been a more complex problem. Ofcourse, fewer simpler parts means less cost, together withless reliability and quality problems.

Utilising as many common user parts as possible resultsin the production of larger quantities of less variety.Larger quantities justify better production aids, whichreduce quality problems. Larger quantities reduce costsper item, and further, because they are common user, theyare proven items.

Designers and draughtsmen do not normally have anyincentive to reduce costs, and are only concerned that theproduct should function satisfactorily. Consequently, theytend to overspecify materials, and/or machining toler-ances; indeed the latter case is all too common.

Design management must ensure that disciplines toachieve these objectives are laid down and observed.

New materials and processes which appear to offer asignificantly better economic solution must also be evalu-ated.

3.6 Modular designOften, the building brick or modular approach to designcan lead to significant improvements. Modules can be builtin parallel with simpler test procedures, before being puttogether into the final product, with another simple finaltest procedure. This can cut building times to a fraction ofthat required for a one-piece conventional design, andgreatly eases quality problems because of the simpler testprocedures on the individual less-complex modules.

The Wadkin Vertical Spindle CNC Machining Centre isa good example of advantages of the modular approach,which, combined with a reduction in the number of com-ponents by some 37%, enables the machines to be built in20 days instead of 20 weeks. Further, by reading across toother industries and adopting the latest belt-drive tech-niques to replace conventional gearboxes, not only werethe number of components reduced but, because of thegreater efficiency and saving of space, the power transmit-ted could be doubled, which doubled the rate at whichmetal is now removed.

Although the number of man-hours to make themachines has been considerably reduced, the competitiveprice at which the new machine can be offered, togetherwith its improved performance, has increased demand to

1EE PROCEEDINGS, Vol. 132, Pt. A, No. 4, JULY 1985 229

such an extent that Wadkin have engaged 150 extra peoplewithin the group, an increase in the labour force of around12%.

Conversely, the Ferguson TX colour television [2] wentthe other way, and subunits or modules which had evolvedas a means of making servicing, fault finding and repaireasier, and which required around 1000 components, wereabandoned in favour of getting rid of unreliability by sig-nificantly reducing:

(a) components(b) soldered joints(c) heat.

In fact, the number of components was reduced from justover 1000 to just over 300, the nuniber of joints reduced byabout 85%, with about 60% made automatically. Further,the fewer components led to the power consumption beingreduced to about 40 W, and hence to much less heat beinggenerated.

In both the machine tool and the television examples,not only were costs significantly reduced, but customercalls were reduced by 75%!

3.7 Some sacred cows to the slaughterAn editorial with this title in the journal Machinery andProduction Engineering, in January 1978, described theexperience of a British company which bought a similarAmerican company in the same line of business. Althoughboth were comparable in all important aspects, the UScompany's overall performance and profitability, in parti-cular, were superior. A detailed study to compare the twowas an obvious move.

It was originally thought that the US company must beusing more up-to-date plant and equipment. Not so. Ahigher number of its machines were more than 21 yearsold and a lower number less than 10 years old comparedwith the British plant. Surely the US company enjoys alarger and more standardised home market? Not so. Thediversity of its products was much the same as in the UK,and, if anything, a little worse from the production stand-point. Did the US workers put more effort into their hoursthan those in the UK? If anything they put in less effort.

Finally, it was surmised that the US company was usinga different (and more favourable) pricing structure. Not so.It sells its products in world markets at roughly the sameprice as those made in the UK company, pays its workersabout twice as much and still makes more profit!

Four sacred cows believed to account for many of thedifficulties of UK manufacturing companies are, therefore,already in the abattoir. Lack of investment in new plantand equipment, lack of a standardised home market, lackof individual worker effort, and disproportionately highwage rates. So what did the survey reveal? First, for com-parable products, the man-hour element in the US rangedfrom 70 to only 48% of that required in the UK. A majorfactor here proved to be 'design for production'. Productdesigns are continually reviewed from this standpoint, toreduce the number of man-hours required to make them.

If the number of man-hours required to make a productcan be substantially reduced by attention to the designprocess, this is, in fact, the only investment required andcontinues to pay off throughout the production run of theproduct. If this can be reduced for a comparatively smalloutlay at the design stage, then it will lead to increasedproductivity in terms of man-hours, and, indeed, in termsof pounds of value added per pound of wages/salaries paid.

Value added is the difference between the cost of thematerial and the value of the goods produced from it.

It could well be the means of creating real new jobs and

reducing unemployment, because, if there are less man-hours required to make a product, the percentage of theadded value paid out in wages/salaries will be reduced.

In this connection Pizzali [3] showed how the percent-age labour costs in companies' value-added figures correl-ate closely with the next years unemployment figures overa 20 year period (see Fig. A).

vI 85 1000

I 1E 80 o 8008 |~ 75 £ 600

8 70"? 400

^ 65 o 200

1 11955 57 59 61 63 65 67 69 71 73 75

Fig. A Wages and employment

So does design = quality, true or false? In my view, verytrue and an essential ingredient in the recovery of theBritish manufacturing sectors, provided we can havequality of management as well as management of quality!

L.T. SUMNER(Quality Consultant, L. Sumner & Associates)

3.8 References1 LOCKYER, K.G.: 'Factory and production management' (Pitman,

1974, 3rd edn.)2 TOPPING, D.R.: 'Quality in domestic television receivers'. Institute of

Quality Assurance, Nov. 19803 PIZZALI, B.: 'The real growth gap', Management Today (British Insti-

tute of Management, Aug. 1977)

4 Quality as perceived by the consumer

4.1 DefinitionsThe term 'quality' tends to mean different things to differ-ent people. In the 18th or 19th century a 'person of quality'was somebody who was well established in the upperechelons of the social hierarchy. Some people use the termto describe a product that is relatively rare and almost cer-tainly expensive. A quality car might at best be a Rolls-Royce and at least a BMW. Good quality to most peoplemeans something that is well made and will last.

'They don't make them like that nowadays' is the kindof comment made by people who are disenchanted by pro-ducts which were once made in cast iron for example butare now made in sheet steel. People who want qualityexpect to pay for it. Quality is also seen as an aspect of theenvironment. The. quality of life is thought to be enhancedby pleasant surroundings, by the conservation of the coun-tryside and the more attractive aspects of buildings and ofcities. More recently, in the pronouncements of theACARD report and the UK Government's White Paper,quality is equated with conformity to standards.

All these interpretations have validity to a greater orlesser extent. But what is important in product design isnot only that good quality is an essential element in thedesign specification, but that the inbuilt quality is properlyexpressed in the design.

230 IEE PROCEEDINGS, Vol. 132, Pt. A, No. 4, JULY 1985