THE INTEGRATION OF QUALITY-CONTROL AND SHOP-FLOOR CONTROL

Quality control refers to the operational techniques and activities re quired to manufacture products conforming to their specifications. It is part of company-wide quality management. Quality management and qua lity control should not be considered as isolated functions but must b e integrated into the other functions of a manufacturing system, like design, process planning and production control. Shop floor control is directed to the control and monitoring of the activities on the shop floor. It is responsible for the in-time completion of production jobs and an efficient use of the resources. The relation between quality c ontrol and shop floor control is twofold. Quality control contributes to the due date reliability. In addition, the quality-related activiti es must be attuned to the other manufacturing activities. This paper d eals with the integration of quality control and shop floor control. B ased on the ISO 9000 Standards series, five quality tasks are distingu ished which are related to shop floor control. Special attention is pa id to the inspection activities, being the most important part of qual ity control. The quality-related activities can be controlled in an in tegral way by so-called quality jobs. This holds for both the inspecti on activities as well as the management of the resources required for quality control. The activities which take place in the quality room a re controlled by a so-called quality station controller. The functiona l architecture and information structure for quality station control a re presented. The implementation of a prototype of a quality station c ontrol module is discussed. Further extensions towards enhanced qualit y management are described.