Q 470. Explain Juran Trilogy and its elements. Provide an example highlighting how the elements were actually implemented in an organization.   

 

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 Juran Triology, is a universal view of “Quality,” perceived as, combination of “Quality Planning, Quality Control, and Quality Improvement. The systematic application of these three tenants, first described by Dr. Joseph M. Juran in 1986, results in the reduction of the cost of poor quality.  

                                                

1.       Quality Planning: Determining the Voice of the customer

2.       Quality Control: Measurement of process performance.

3.       Quality Improvement: Repair/Improve process performance by selecting on of the 4 R’s technique.

 

Quality Planning:  The steps attempt to identify process customer-end users for product or service generated in process. Customer concerns are identified and acknowledged to generate “Voice of the Customer”. The “Cost of Poor Quality”, is vital concern that hampers production, due to secluded instances of failures and, variation in system, service, process, product.  The presence of all stakeholders in multidisciplinary team units, is required, to define, the anticipated performance & the attributes changes, required in the product/process/service/system.  The panel reviews “Voice of the Customer” and suggests series of improvements steps referred to as, “quality by design”, or “Design for Six Sigma”. The exercise brings changes in design assembly, improves performance of existing control standards, & catalyses the implementation of corrective measures to produce qualitative & quantitative improvements in product/service.

 

Quality Planning

Establish quality goals

Identify who the customers are

Determine the needs of the customers’

Develop product features that respond to customers’ needs

Develop processes that can produce the product features

Establish process controls and transfer the plan to the operating forces

               

Quality Control: The Quality Control is summed as the activity of measurement of performance as defined in international standards and compliance of system performance with recorded international quality standards. Quality control activity starts with estimation of variable that need to be measured to gauze the performance of ideal system/service/process/product. The Quality Control is implemented by measuring the actual performance of system/service and acting on the gap between in performance and targeted achievement. The Quality Tools—Esterification—Flow Charts, Fish Bone Diagram, Pareto Charts, and Control Charts are utilised to represent performance gap between actual performance and targeted performance of the system.

 

Quality Control

Evaluate actual performance

Compare actual performance with quality goals

Act on the difference

 

Quality Improvement: Quality Improvement is aimed to target incremental improvement implemented in periodic step wise manner to bridge gap between Planned Quality and level of quality assurance achieved in Quality Control. A proper review achieved as “step-back” from normal production of product/service is required to implement breakthrough in the system. The customer requirement targeted in production, present level of quality assurance and breakthrough improvement in series of changes in system requires special mandate for manager to bring transformation to desired quality and production levels. Managers may be required to select one or more of the following strategies to effectuate Quality Improvement:

 

a.       Repair Strategy: involves fixing what that is broken or missing from the system/process/product/service.

b.       Refinement Strategy: lays stress to bring continuous steady stare of improvement in functional system/process/product/service.

c.        Renovation Strategy: involves improvement in system/process through addition of innovation or technological advancement to existing system/process attributes.

d.       Reinvention Strategy: involves a fresh start over with a new study introduced to observe, focus, analyse, and implement changes.

 

 

Quality Improvement

Prove the need

Establish the infrastructure

Identify the improvement projects

Establish project teams

Provide the team with resources, training and motivation to diagnose the causes and stimulate the remedies

Establish controls to hold the gains

 

 

 

Until the Late 1980, Quality function was mainly focussed on Quality control and keep defects and processes under control to which organisation could manage and seep out quality defects to customer. Dr. Joseph Juran presented the Juran Trilogy as a new means to manage Quality at organisation Level.

The Juran Trilogy is considered a universal way of thinking of Quality which is fit for product and services at all levels and functions making it one of the most used quality management practice across the globe.  The three key components of Juran Trilogy are:

1.       Quality Planning (targeting COPQ)

2.       Quality control in operations (targeting Defect control)

3.       Quality Improvement (Targeting CI in Quality)

The above graph visually demonstrates Quality in terms of product efficiency / defects in Y-axis along the time scale in X -Axis. The COPQ is a part which is prior to the operational induction of new product or service in production and is tied into Quality improvement to develop new products with cyclic approach of learnings.

Quality Planning:   All of the Quality planning starts from working backward and understanding customer needs and developing products and services to meet the customer demands from the features of the product or service. One of the key elements in Quality planning is VOC( Voice of customer) and COPQ ( Cost of poor quality) to gather inputs both from customer externally and internally. This helps to define and design product/service features and devise relevant process enabling customer needs.

Quality Control:  once processes are defined, During production the Quality control adheres to specification limits ( acceptable deficiencies ) to keep the process under control  through periodic checks, Audits and inspection to track the quality metrics and take corrective and Preventive actions (CAPA) if the process get out of control.  This is a reactive process (Fire fighting) of monitoring and correcting while these deficiencies could be tracked back to bad Quality planning processes.

Quality Improvement: This part of the trilogy focusses mainly on Quality improvement opportunities for the product, process or service. This is done through use of Statistical Analysis, TQM or other Quality improvement tools to reduce deficiencies further to remain competitive and meet customer requirements.

The three processes are interlinked which finally connects to our purpose of Quality Management system. The Juran Trilogy and Deming’s Cycle are some of the pioneering work in establishing the TQM methodology which is widely used in the 1980s and 1990s.

 

Example of of Juran’s cycle elements Implementation at Miniature motor Manufacturing Organisation

1.       Quality Control and Quality Improvement for Coils defects:  One of the Largest organisations of DC Stepper Motors introduced Juran’s principle for quality control and improvement mechanism when several manufacturing facilities were transferred from EU to Asia in the late 1990 and early 2000. Some of the key initiative under Quality control and improvement were development of Statistical process Control mechanism (Control charts, Pareto, fishbone to name a few) for solving issues with high rejection rates of Coils and Endcaps in motors due to process changes, training, SOP migration and technology transfers.

2.        Quality Improvement used for New Product Design: Some of the application of the Stepper motors manufactured were used in Aerospace Industry. key inputs from VOC was used to analyse the failure pattern from customers and defect rate acceptable to this industry was used develop new products for application in aerospace. The organisation also worked backward to perform FMEA analysis to review Failure modes due to either quality, workmanship or Equipment / process which involved wider functions such as supply chain, Change Management, R&D and production. This internal analysis and external customer inputs were used to build new Quality products and improved the defect rates by over 35%  due to failures of endcaps and Coils.

3.        Quality Planning Inputs: New Vendor Quality strategy and Inhouse Quality planning was performed with revised sets of inputs from the VOC and FMEA analysis to build interdepartmental Quality Policies at the stepper motor Manufacturing site. There were also key strategic decision on inhouse vs Outsource Quality management developed to improve efficiencies and reduce rework due to defects in assembly line.

The Juran Trilogy

As we know it today, Quality has become a paramount concern and survival for the organisations in the cut throat competition. Organisation started focusing on the Quality and its concept widely popularized by Japanese Quality Guru and many others Gurus like Deming, Juran etc.

Deming considered the father of quality by many and given a cycle called PDCA (Plan - Do - Check - Act) which have been the most powerful and influential. The methodology is called Deming Cycle.

In 1960s, 07 QC tools has been introduced by Ishikawa and these tools are being used for problem solving and almost 80-85% problem could be analysed and solved by using them.

In the continuation, one of the Quality Gurus Dr Joseph M Juran's contribution would be always remember in the world of Total Quality management (TQM).

Dr Joseph Juran has developed The Juran Trilogy which is an improvement cycle that is addressed to reduce the cost of quality or can say cost of poor quality into process/product/service at the all levels. Earlier, the conventional thinking was to focus on quality control but nowadays this Trilogy has become essential part for most of functions and management best practices around the world as well as customer oriented.

The Juran Trilogy represents the 03 elements:

 

1. Quality Planning: It is planning stage which have major activities such as

Ø  Identity who your customers are

Ø  Determine Voice of Customer (Needs)

Ø  To define Critical customer requirements

Ø  Convert CCR into CTQ

Ø  Create plan for Process or system to meet these requirements

Ø  Execute the Plan

2. Quality Control: To control the process for achieving consistent outcome over the period of time by meeting customer specifications. It can be done by using SPC(Statistical Process Control), Control charts etc:

Ø  Find out what are the needs to measure

Ø  Determine quality performance parameters

Ø  Set and compare goals with your performance

Ø  Do gap analysis

Ø  Act on the gap analysis findings

3. Quality Improvement: Continuous Improvement is the activity which carries out by most of companies nowadays to remain competitive and become part of culture.

Ø  Identify specific areas in need of improvement, and execute improvement projects.

Ø  Focus on Proactive approaches

Ø  Identify Breakthrough Projects

Ø  Focus on innovative and technological advancement project

Ø  Establish Team and execution plan for Improvements

Ø  Control to sustain the Gains

 

                                           The Juran Trilogy

                   

                    The World Competition in Quality

 

 

 

 

The Juran Trilogy Example:

Let’s have an example from Steel Industry where Juran Trilogy been used successfully.

Quality related issues became crucial concern for the one the steel industries in India as customer has got lots of choices to buy steel from different industries within India.

Hence, same steel company has decided to improve quality by using The Juran Trilogy:

The contribution of one of the quality issues was around 1.6 % of total production and it was huge as we need to pay heavy compensation or can say very high cost of poor quality.

1.       Quality Planning: Here, 1^st through Pareto charts, we are able to find major contributor as far as concern about quality issues and in second stage we are able to find impacted customers due to poor quality and through feedback and customer survey, finally we got voice of customer and CTQ parameters.

2.       Quality Control: In this stage, we identified the metric which was % of rejection and set business limits to keep in view specification limits. At the early stage while checking the performance we found few outlier or spikes the control charts and decided to investigate 1^st found obvious reason which was system up gradation. Our target was to reduce by 50% from 1.6% to 0.8%. Once target set, do brainstorming for the potential causes and their solutions and implementation of solutions followed by sustenance plan.

3.       Quality Improvement: Focus shifted to reduce chronic waste and to reduce variation through tightening the control limits by improving process further. Process FMEA been revised as a proactive approach and we get some breakthrough projects. Our technology has been outdated and need to go with new technology advancement. So we have made design changed as well as upgrade system which help us to redefine our control limits with improved Cpk 1.3. Later process has been standardized by creating control plan and modified SOPs.

 

 

Edited May 12, 20224 yr by Saurabh Dhaked
To show images

             In 1986, Dr. Joseph Juran presented “The Juran’s Trilogy” also called as Quality Trilogy, as a means for Quality Management. Though the traditional method was Quality Control based on the specifications and the requirements, Juran introduced the best practice and the an improved approach.

 

Some of the Juran's definitions / phrases about quality:

“quality does not happen by accident”

“Quality means fitness for use"

 

The basic concept is that Quality Management consists of 3 processes:

•           Quality Planning (Quality by Design)

•           Quality Control (Process Control & Regulatory)

•           Quality Improvement (Lean Six Sigma)

 

The Juran Trilogy diagram is presented as a graph (as below), with time on the X-axis and cost of poor quality (COPQ) on the Y-axis.

 

Explanation on the Juran’ Trilogy Chart:

 

        The initial activity is quality planning, in other words, ‘Quality by Design’ .This could be applicable to a new product, service, process, etc. On a practical scale, getting a 100 percent defect free product/ service is not possible. This is mainly because, there are inherent errors or process variations that require rework.

 

         In the diagram, more than 20 percent of the work must be reworked due to errors. This is a chronic problem / waste (from Lean perspective) —it continues until we find its root causes and remove it - the Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ).

 

         In the diagram, we can see a sudden sporadic spike against the failure level to more than 40 percent. This spike is due to some unforeseen event such as a power failure, process breakdown, or human error.

In order to control the process , the operating team group together and take the necessary action to restore the status quo. This is often called corrective action or troubleshooting. The objective is to restore the error level back to the planned chronic level of about 20 percent.

 

         The diagram also shows that in due course the chronic waste was reduced down to a level far below the original level. This benefit was obtained from the third process in Juran’s Trilogy—improvement.

 

Quality Planning (Quality by Design):

 

         The design process is an innovative process in designing the products, process etc., based on customer defined specification limits and functional limits. This is the process where we strive to meet the functional requirement of the product / service, which is also called as DFSS – Design for Six Sigma (DFSS).

 

Implementation Steps – Quality Planning:

 

1. To determine the Consumer for whom the product / service is designed and categorize in different horizons.
2. Determine what consumers need or want. We must be able to identify consumer needs that have been determined in the first stage. Example : Performance, Features, Reliability, and Conformity with specifications, durability, service, aesthetics, and perceived quality.
3. To develop products with features that respond to customer needs
4. To develop systems and processes that enable organizations to produce these features: SMEs must think and plan all components of the process that determine the quality features or dimensions needed by consumers.
5. The final step is to spread the plan to the operational level

 

 

Quality Improvement (Lean Six Sigma):

 

                Incremental improvements is the key approach for every organization to strive in the competitive environment. Among the day-to-day improvements done, Breakthrough Improvements  require special methods, approach & leadership commitment to attain the results.

 

                The first step is to understand what is preventing the process form meeting the customer requirement and needs. This step follows the Pareto Principle to identify the vital Breakthrough improvements that can help the organization to outperform its competitors and meet stakeholder needs.

 

Implementation Steps – Quality Improvement:

 

The Quality Improvement should be continuous and continual. The different steps involved in the implementation of Quality Improvement:

1. To Develop the infrastructure to make annual quality improvement: to invest in machines or tools needed for product quality development.
2. To Identify the specific areas of improvement and implement projects: to determine what priority dimensions should be developed to assign key performance indicators.
3. To establish a project team with responsibility for completing each improvement projects within the targeted timeline
4. To Provide teams with what they need to diagnose problems to determine root causes, develop solutions and establish control that will maintain results achieved.

 

Quality Control (Process Control & Regulatory):

 

          The concept was to widen the approach from detection control to prevention / proactive control. Earlier, the word “control” had a broad meaning, which included the concept of quality planning. The formulation of SQC gave the impression that quality control consisted of using statistical methods.

 

          Nowadays, “quality control” in general means quality control and compliance. The objective is to comply with international standards or regulatory authorities such as ISO 9000. The traditional terms / functions  are QC, QI and QP while recent development has given rise to the new terms / functions QA/QC, CI and DFSS.

 

Implementation Steps – Quality Control:

 

The Quality control involves the following steps:

1. To assess actual quality performance - to measure the product quality directly in the field, set the sample analysis, record and process it into information.
2. To compare performance against the customer specification - to compare with the criteria set in the planning stage to analyze whether there are deviations.
3. To work on differences between the actual performance and the customer specification.

 

 

Understanding the application of Juran's Trilogy in Nokia - Microsoft Collaboration:

 

1. Financial Practices:

         The accounts transaction between Microsoft and Nokia aims to prevent wastes and at the same time not affect any opportunity to invest into future innovative projects, which is done through meticulous planning. Hence, Nokia referred to Juran’s method on “Quality Planning” because if they do not have proper planning, their products might be too costly and it is not economically affordable by many consumers.

 

2. Performance Practices: 

        This practice is related to Juran’s “Quality Improvement” approach. However Nokia has slightly lose out because even though the product has been maintaining its durability feature, it is still not up to current consumer’s trend. Nokia faces strong competition for example, Samsung is famous for its mobile features, user friendly & reliability. This may be the reason for Nokia to depend on Microsoft.

 

3. Product Practices:

        The Product practices of Nokia are related to Juran’s “Quality Improvement”. Nokia has done an excellent job on this by having the manufacturing facility across different countries. Therefore, if one country gets affected with natural disaster, Nokia can still depend on other country to continue its production. This a continual improvement process that helps maintain the business continuity of Nokia.

 

4. Strategic Practices:

         Windows Phone 8 came as a product of Nokia and Microsoft. Nokia understood that the only way to compete with its competitors is to collaborate with a company that has wide spread presence geographically and demographically, Microsoft. Hence this implies to Juran’s “Quality Control”.

 

5. Functional Practices:

          Nokia has a very direct organization structure that plans its department to handle and organize Nokia’s business activities to assemble devices, produces software and sales etc. This practice is based on Juran’s “Quality Planning”.

 

Juan Trilogy method is to manage a quality improvement cycle targeted at decreasing the cost of poor quality products/ services by planning quality into the whole process was presented by Dr. Joseph M. Juran in 1986.

Juran sets out a process to focus on quality management and best practices to yield the best possible results for customers.

 

The core focus is quality, when producing products/services it is important to ensure they are fit for the purpose they are created for. Juran based everything around three core processes or elements as below:

 

1.       Quality Planning: Designing for quality to advance products and process quality.

 

  a)      In this stage, it is important to define (1) who the customers are? (2) Define voice of the customer?

  b)      After the customer needs are identified, define the desires for the product, process, service or system.

  c)       Develop them for operations along with the corresponding stakeholder expectations

  d)      Planning activities are finished through a multidisciplinary team, with the contribution of key stakeholders

 

2.       Quality Control:  Process evaluations aspect involved in production from process control to Regulatory requirements. Actions that adhere to a standard set of quality criteria concerned with identifying defects.

 

  a)      In this stage, define what needs to be measured and set a goal for performance

  b)      Gain feedback by measuring actual performance and act on the gap between performance and goal

  c)       There are several tools that could be used like 7 QC tools and other statistical process control methods in this phase of the Juran Trilogy

 

3.       Quality Improvement: Continuous Improvement using Lean Six Sigma methodologies. Eliminating all failure points is the purpose of quality improvement.

There are 4 different approaches to be applied for improvements:

   a)      Repair: Responsive approach - fix what is broken

   b)      Refinement: Proactive approach - repeatedly improve the process that isn’t broken

   c)       Renovation: Improve through innovation or technological expansion

   d)      Reinvention: Abandon all current practices and start over with a new approach

 

Juran’s diagram is always represented with time and cost of poor quality on horizontal and vertical axis.

 

 

Juran model have been widely recognized, practiced and progressed over time to suit organizations with quality improvement plans/programs/initiatives:

1.       Build awareness of necessity for improvement

a)      Survey the employees, find why mistakes or errors are made

b)      Select the top ten reasons after 1 week

c)       Take decision how mistake-causing steps are not repeated

d)      Have track of no. of mistakes being made and ensure they are decreasing

 

2.       Set goals for improvement

a)      Decide specific goals and plans to be reached

b)      Allocate clear accountability for meeting the goals

c)       Base the rewards on outcomes realized

 

3.       Organize to reach the goals

a)      Establish quality councils

b)      Identify problems and select projects

c)       Appoint teams and designate facilitators

 

4.       Provide training

a)      Investment in education and training will fetch rewards

 

5.       Execute projects to solve problems

a)      Break-through improvements through cross-functional teams

b)      Handle the chronic problems and vital few problems created the innovations

 

6.       Document the progress

a)      Progress expected vs actual progress achieved

b)      Act to improve the operative status to decrease variance

c)       Provides confidence on quality improvement projects with Information on progress

 

7.       Offer recognition

a)      Team/Individual Morale booster

 

8.       Communicate outcomes

a)      Awareness on the approach used, likelihood to learn and improve further

b)      Imitate success in other areas

 

9.       Retain score

a)      Observe progress, Report accomplishments and deficiencies

 

10.   Sustain momentum with inclusion of annual improvement in the regular processes

 a)      Individual and Team oriented

Very detailed answers by all respondents. There are 2 winners for this question - Chandrashekhar Hande and Saurabh Dhaked for providing the explanations for the 3 tenets of Juran Trilogy along with an example.