What is a quality circle and its importance?

Quality Circles or in some companies termed as quality control circles are very popular concept of employee /people involvement into continuous improvement activities. Basically a Quality Circle consists of a small group of people belonging from a particular work zone or particular line of the overall process in an organization, they may be involved in doing similar type of work or their activities should be interrelated. The team size of these groups may vary from 03 persons to even 08 or more persons based upon the culture of the organization, need of involvement with reference to the problem and / or based on the expertise of individuals. Normally the Quality Circles involves workers or operators under the guidance of a senior member of supervisor. Normally the team itself decides the problem based on their own priority, and follows certain discipline or structured methodology to solve problem and showcases it to the management. In most of the Organizations practicing Quality Circle, reward and recognition system is an integral part of it, to amplify the level of motivation among the employees.

In the same line of problem solving initiatives like KAIZEN, practicing quality circles brings in benefits to the organisation in terms of –

Improved occupational safety of different work zones or stations.

improved product quality and improved process performance.

Reduction due to rejection at quality gates and reduction of defects

Productivity improvement due to multiple initiatives like 5S improvement, toolkeeping method improvement, process focus.

improved cost saving through special initiatives from employees

Improved employee morale due to high engagement.

One of the major key factor that drives the success of Quality Circle initiative in an organisation is Training. Training needs to be given on problem solving skills, structured and step by step problem solving methodologies, 7 QC tools, logical tools such as process mapping, data gathering, affinity diagrams, PDPC (Process Decision Program Chart), flow chart, analytical tools such as 5W1H analysis, why-why analysis etc.

Another key factor is discipline in terms participation, regularity in meeting, timely task completion and review meetings. High attention to be given to the QC meetings by the senior management of the organization to have a regular track on the performance of the teams.

Quality Circle as a small group activity was initially described by William Edwards Deming in 1950s, later this term was more precisely defined by Professor Kaoru Ishikawa in his book “What is Quality Control? the Japanese Way”. It got circulated and subsequently accepted in most of the japanese industry through JUSE (Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers). The first company in Japan to introduce Quality Circle concept was “Nippon Wireless and Telegraph Company in the year 1962. Gradually it became a very common concept of employee engagement and continuous improvement across most of the organizations in Japan. The concept got popular around the world in most of the manufacturing organizations. In India QCFI (Quality Circle Forum of India), is promoting this activity across.

Structured steps of quality circle is given below. These steps shown below does not mean it is fixed. This may vary company to company. This is given just for reference.