Engineering Quality

There is a perception held by many that quality equates to cost.  This misconception is underpinned by popular sayings like “you only get what you pay for”.

In the world of product design, quality is defined as “fitness for purpose” and this has many more dimensions than just cost – it’s a measure of how well a product fulfils all of its purposes ….. from cradle to grave. Understanding the needs of the people who come into contact with the product at all points of its life, therefore, is pivotal to creating a design of high quality.

The price and what’s written in the technical specification are very important but they are not everything.  Other drivers such as user experience, market readiness, manufacturability, logistics, maintainability, full-life cost, end-of life considerations etc. are all important and will have a bearing on the quality of a solution.

Through our previous employments our management team has benefited from having experienced many “faddy” Quality initiatives that have been in and out of fashion, such as 5S, TQM, Lean, DFSS, Lean Six Sigma, PRINCE2, Kaizen and lots of other tools that underpin them like Brainstorming, DF*, QFD, VA/VE,  Kano Analysis,  Pugh Matrices etc.  Our experiences** tell us that these processes and tools can be hugely beneficial when applied to the right topic at just the right time, but they would likely be an over-kill if their use was enforced on every project.  Being truly independent we are at liberty to apply the tools only when needed and not to use them when we believe they will not bring value.  Our working knowledge of these tools brings a very comprehensive and powerful toolbox to the project team.

** Warley Design Solutions’ Director John Durban has previously qualified as a DFSS / Six Sigma Black Belt, a PRINCE2 practitioner and in the application of Boothroyd Dewhurst Inc’s DfMA methodology.