What is Quality Circle?
The technique in which a group of employees uses participant management to identify and solve problems with the performance or quality of a product is known as Quality Circle. In this, small teams of employees meet to discuss, evaluate, and solve problems related to quality in an organisation. It is an essential component of enterprise management, in which small groups of six to twelve people volunteer to improve the employee’s quality of work life while simultaneously increasing productivity, quality, and overall organisational performance. Using this technique, the employees can work with complete dedication and commitment by reducing mental tension, and the rate of rejection, rework, and solving work-related challenges.
Geeky Takeaways:
- All the members of the quality circle must come from the same work area so that they are all familiar with the issues they identify to ensure effective involvement in the group.
- It must be remembered that the number of members shouldn’t be so large that none of them can participate or have enough opportunities to do so.
- The quality circle also motivates employees to develop innovative ideas to solve problems.
- The quality circle promotes teamwork and cooperative working environments.
Why Quality Control Circle?
Quality Circle focuses on improving quality control by capitalising on employee’s strengths and abilities and also helps in improving the overall productivity of the organisation. The following are some benefits of the Quality Control Circle:
1. Reduction of Costs: By adapting the quality circle approach, businesses work on addressing their inefficiency which can help reduce waste and operational costs.
2. Better Quality: Quality Circle teams actively take part in identifying and resolving quality-related problems, which results in higher-quality goods and services.
3. Increased Productivity: The members of quality circle collectively work to eliminate bottlenecks in the process resulting in higher productivity and more effective operations.
4. Improvement in Work-life Balance: The quality circle result in a better working environment, better relationships, and greater satisfaction with work, in addition to enhancing team culture and attitudes.
5. Promoting Innovation: The members of quality circle works on finding innovative solutions to ongoing problems which can ultimately lead to organisational innovation.
Features of Quality Circle
1. Voluntary Group: A quality circle is a voluntary group of employees that is formed for a common cause. In this, no member is forced to join using coercion or pressure. Also, no member may be prevented from participating in quality circles.
2. Participative Program: This is a collective effort to solve a problem. Members are free to express what’s in their minds without any fear of peer judgment. Every team member participates in the projects and receives recognition collectively.
3. Improvement of Performance: The collective approach results in the improvement of quality, productivity, and overall performance. In addition, quality circles also reduce the cost and level of wastage.
4. Periodic Meetings: The members of quality circles meet frequently to solve the quality-related problems of the organisation.
5. Works for a Particular Agenda: Each Quality circle team has its specific agenda. It has its problems and provides solutions for the same.
6. Problem-Solving: Problem-Solving technique is adopted to identify and solve the problem related to the quality, defects, or inefficiencies in the process.
7. Improved Employee Engagement: The employees are the assets of the organisation. Thus, it is important to satisfy them. The quality circles engage them in the decision-making process which ultimately increases the satisfaction of the employees.
8. Training: Training is provided to the team members so that they can understand their objectives, roles, and responsibilities and work for improvement. They are also trained in various methodologies like teamwork, communication skills and problem-solving techniques, etc.
Objectives of Quality Circle
The main objectives of quality circle are:
1. Skill Development: Quality Circles result in the skill enhancement of the members by engaging them in problem-solving, team building, and open communication.
2. Quality Improvement: The quality circle aims to improve the quality by working on good communication skills, promoting problem-solving techniques, and using standardisation for continuous improvement.
3. Employee Satisfaction: Satisfied employees create a happy work environment. To satisfy them, recognition technique such as quality circles can be used. It gives the employees a sense of achievement which promotes job satisfaction, enthusiasm, and motivation.
4. Relationship Management: Quality Circles aim to maintain good relations between the employees and managers and to create cordial working relations.
5. Cost Reduction: Quality Circles work on improving the product’s quality and reducing the per-unit cost of the output.
6. Achievement of Objectives: The main aim of the quality circle is usually aligned with the broader objectives of organisation. Their efforts collectively contribute to promoting competitiveness and organisational success.
7. Innovation: The quality circle promotes creativity and experimentation. With experimentation, members can work on identifying creative solutions to problems that makes the organisation competitive in the market and make a positive business environment.
8. Customer Satisfaction: The quality circle mainly focuses on developing products and services that can increase the satisfaction of customers. The organisation can build customer trust by focusing on quality improvement, customer centricity.
Structure of Quality Circle
1. Steering Committee: It is supervised by a senior executive that includes representatives from human resources development and management at the top. This committee is in charge of creating and implementing various strategies and policies that guide the program in the proper direction.
2. Coordinator: The administrative officer in charge of monitoring tasks and managing the program is the coordinator.
3. Facilitator: This supervising officer works with the circle leaders to arrange the operations for several quality circles.
How does the Quality Circle Work?
The adoption of the quality circle approach includes the following steps:
1. First of all, training is provided to the employees for effective implementation of Quality Circle in the organisation. In this, employees are trained in several problem-solving tools and techniques, like 7 QC tools, 5 Whys Poka-Yoke, etc.
2. Then the Quality Circle team is formed. These are generally formed with 4 to 6 members. This team includes one supervisor, that usually acts as a facilitator. In addition, the team leader changes by rotation turn.
3. In the third step, the theme of Quality Circle is decided. It is very important to know the theme, as with this every member knows their work.
4. Generally, several projects come under one theme. The Quality Circle team has to select the project that comes first on a priority basis. The team works on that project and finds the solutions to the problems.
Process of Quality Circle
The process of Quality Circle is as follows:
1. Quality Circle Formation: This includes forming a small group usually consisting of 6-10 members that can collectively work to improve the quality of their knowledge and skills.
2. Training: Under this step, training is provided to the team members so that they can better understand their objectives, roles, and responsibilities and work for improvement. In addition, they are trained in various methodologies like teamwork, communication skills problem-solving techniques, etc.
3. Project Selection: It includes the identification of areas that need improvement in the organisation. For this purpose, members conduct several brainstorming sessions and write down the ideas that can be selected based on their experiences and surveillance.
4. Problem Identification: In this step, team members determine the nature and extent of quality-related problems. Data is collected and examined to identify the underlying causes of the problems. The organization uses several tools like problem-solving tools and techniques to identify causes of the problems.
5. Formulation of Solutions: The group considers and generates potential solutions for the problems by analyzing each solution based on practicality, efficacy, and future impact. After this, the best solution among the various alternatives is selected.
6. Selection and Implementation: After determining which solution is the most effective, the team develops an implementation strategy that includes defining steps, roles, and responsibilities. This plan is executed after monitoring the progress, communicating the plan to various stakeholders, and making required adjustments.
7. Review and Evaluation: This includes identifying the deviations by comparing the actual results with the desired targets. The implementation of solution outcomes is reviewed, and required changes are made, if any.
8. Documentation: In this step the entire process (problem statement, analysis, solutions, and implementation) is recorded and the lessons learned from the other departments in the organisation are shared.
9. Reward and Recognition: Recognition plays an important role in acknowledging the efforts of the team members. Additionally, team members are motivated and encouraged for continuous improvement.
10. Standardisation: Successful solutions are incorporated into existing processes with the aim of continuous improvement of quality.
Duties of Quality Circle Leader
The duties of a quality circle leader include:
- Building trust with members and communicating freely about any challenges that arise.
- Organising the discussions of the quality circle team.
- Giving each member an equal chance for achievement.
- Giving specific tasks to each member.
- Collaborating with the facilitator.
- Motivating team members to utilize their abilities and monitoring the work of each member.
- Leading the group members in the appropriate direction.
Advantages of Quality Circle
1. Job Satisfaction: Every person has some psychological needs which include the need for recognition. It gives the employees a sense of achievement which promotes job satisfaction. Thus they work with more enthusiasm and motivation.
2. Waste Reduction: With this quality circle approach every team member works collectively and helps each other. This results in the reduction of waste, and saving of labor and time which ultimately leads to improvement of quality.
3. Team-Spirit: The quality circle develops team spirit among the quality circle members. It also creates a feeling of togetherness. With this, members help each other and solve each other’s problems at work.
4. Reduces Grievances and Absenteeism: With quality circle, employees prefer to work rather than sit at home. They also enjoy their work and do not treat the work as a burden. This ultimately reduces the grievances of the employees.
5. Quality Improvement: It is the main aim of the quality circle to improve the quality by enhancing communication, promoting problem-solving techniques, and using standardisation as a benchmark.
Disadvantages of Quality Circle
1. Lack of Time: The employees feel that they are also occupied with their daily work and have to work overtime for the quality circle work. But with open communication, the managers can make them understand that by giving some extra time in the beginning, the employees can save money, reduce wastage, and improve quality by adopting this approach.
2. Lack of Ability: Indian workers lack initiative and a high degree of education. People are unwilling to explore new things because they don’t change. They must be educated about the advantages of high-quality circles.
3. Lack of Supervision Commitment: The dedication and support of upper management are essential to any program’s success. Employees will be ready to allocate their time to quality circles if they don’t get top support. However, it’s possible that workers won’t be permitted to have quality circle meetings during business hours. It is therefore impossible for quality circles to function effectively without the commitment and involvement of top management.
4. Limited Scope: Quality Circles works for specific issues in the organisation. This approach can be effective for solving these problems, but it can ignore border problems that require comprehensive solution. Thus the scope of quality circle is limited.
5. Limited Management Support: The implementation of a quality circle requires continuous support and commitment from the management. But if there is limited support, then members have to face challenges in conquering barriers, obtaining resources, and improving employee engagement in the long term.
Developing a Quality Circle
1. Initial Stage: The employees within the organisation must be aware of the quality circle concept. Everyone needs to know the basic implications and impact on the members and the business. The participation of employees in this quality circle team is voluntary. Individuals won’t be enthusiastic about joining until they start understanding its fundamental concepts. The business can help the interested person by providing the necessary training to improve and enhance their participation skills.
2. Quality Circle’s Constitution: Members of the quality circle are volunteers who are part of the same work area. The steering committee, coordinators, facilitators, leaders, and circle members who work for the company’s ultimate benefit are all listed in the constitution.
3. First-hand Solution to a Problem: To solve problems, information must be collected through self-suggestions, contacting employees, and record-keeping. It also consists of data analysis that determines the cause of the problem. The final activity is problem-solving, and it calls for regular participation from members so they can provide their ideas and useful suggestions.
4. Presentation and Approval: The group members give the management the solution, orally or in the form of a project report or assignment. For the employees and management to work together in the future, the presentation improves communication among them.
5. Implementation: Implementation is the last step in creating a quality circle. This includes delegating important tasks to the appropriate groups based on suggestions to create a realistic quality circle.
Techniques used in a Quality Circle
1. Brainstorming: The technique encourages the generation of as many new ideas as possible that can help in the decision-making process. This creates a discussion environment in which everyone is free to give ideas without any fear of criticism. These employees feel free to express themselves and promote creative thinking. The ideas are recorded simultaneously. After that, the pros and cons of every idea are discussed before making a final decision.
2. Sampling and Charting Method: This method includes observation of the events and their outputs by the members of quality circle. The results can be positive or negative. The members chart out every observation they have made, either chronologically or according to some other relationship, which gives a clear idea of the problem.
3. Cause and Effect Diagrams: This method includes finding out the root cause of the problems. After this, the effect of that root cause is identified. Later, the members identify other causes and effects. This technique is also known as the fishbone diagram, as it lists out the root and causes resembling fishbone.
Tips to effectively Implement a Quality Circle Program
- The Quality Circle members must actively participate in the discussions. In addition, the members must try to learn new techniques and new things.
- The members must attend this discussion regularly and punctually.
- The leader must focus on providing the training of various tools like 7 QC tools and kaizen to all the members.
- The members must follow the agenda of the circles without wasting time. The members must listen to each other’s suggestions and point of view to solve the problem.
- It is necessary to maintain the proper records of the activities of quality circles.
- The circle must have a coordinator and a facilitator who can monitor the activities of the team.
Quality Circle – FAQs
Who introduced the concept of quality circle?
The concept of Quality Circle was introduced by Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa in the 1960s to improve quality, productivity, and the work environment. He is also known as “Father of Quality Circle”.
What is the size of the quality circle?
A quality circle usually has between six and twelve members. This number ensures that the team remains small enough to maintain each member’s active participation and engagement while facilitating effective communication and teamwork.
What is the main aim of the quality circle?
The quality circles mainly aims to improve the quality and overall productivity of the organisation.
Why are quality circles referred as people-building philosophy?
In QC experts perform specific job that can work on solving work problems using creative ideas. This is the basis of the quality circle, which works at developing people.
What is the main reason for the failure of quality circles?
The main reason for the failure of quality circles is poor organisational design which can lead to managerial resistance.
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