ISO concepts and Approaches

Basic approaches to quality management are in accordance with standards set by the INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR STANDARDIZATION. (ISO). ISO is a non-governmental, international standard-setting group, comprised of representatives from numerous national standards bodies, which creates industrial and commercial standards. PMP Exam preparation will include this concept with examples. NON-PROPRIETARY APPROACHES to quality management are contained in processes used by project managers, such as: TQM (Total Quality Management)rnSix SigmarnCOQ (Cost of Quality, Failure Mode and Effect Analysis)rnDesign ReviewsrnVoice of the CustomerrnContinuous Improvement Non-Proprietary Quality Management Approaches: TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM) is used to track and maximize quality output and increase customer satisfaction. It is one of the most widely used management systems for quality control. It is effectively used to implement quality methods, processes, and procedures throughout the total production or service process, or, throughout the organization. PMP Preparation includes a review of TQM. SIX SIGMA is a structured application of the tools and techniques of TQM. Six Sigma is applied to a project to achieve strategic business results, with a 99.99966% success rate. The Six Sigma application measures, analyzes, improves, and controls. THE COST OF QUALITY (COQ) refers to the total costs incurred to ensure project quality. The cost of preventing mistakes typically costs less than the cost to correct them. CONTINUOUS PROJECT INSPECTIONS help detect mistakes that can cause bigger and expensive problems later on. EXAMPLE: Vehicles can be high quality products, but low grade (limited options). However, vehicles are not acceptable if they are low quality (cheaply made with defects) but have many options (high grade). The project manager and project management team are responsible for ensuring both quality and grade. Low project quality creates the most problems during project progress. PRECISION is a value consistency where the value of repeated measurements are clustered and have little scatter. Precise measurements are not necessarily accurate. ACCURACY is the degree of correctness that the measured value is very close to the true value. Very accurate measurements are not necessarily precise. Both quality management and project management focus on: customer satisfactionrnpreventing mistakes rnmanagement responsibilities for successrncontinuous improvement using the plan-do-check-act cycle Stakeholder Register: identifies stakeholders with an interest in or impact of quality Cost Performance Baseline: the time phase used to measure cost performance Risk Register: holds information on threats and opportunities that could impact quality Enterprise Environmental Factors: include Governmental agency regulations and operating conditions of the project that could affect quality.