QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN A PRINTED-CIRCUIT BOARD MANUFACTURER - A CASE-STUDY EXAMINATION

This paper reports how a company with 100 or so employees and manufact uring high technology and complex printed circuit boards is wrestling with the issues surrounding a process of continuous improvement. The s tudy has highlighted a number of problems faced by the company. The pr oblems are typical of those found in the environment in which the comp any operates, including a lack of accurate quality-related data, inade quate resources to commit to a programme of quality education and trai ning, a lack of technical staff, the responsibility for improvement re sting with a small core group of personnel, and an insufficient number of people with knowledge of the application and use of quality manage ment tools and techniques.