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Research Article | Volume 3 Issue 2 (July-Dec, 2022) | Pages 1 - 4
Quality Control Challenges before Industry 4.0
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1
Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Amazonas, Manaus Industrial District Campus, Brazil
Under a Creative Commons license
Open Access
Received
July 17, 2022
Revised
Aug. 22, 2022
Accepted
Sept. 14, 2022
Published
Oct. 30, 2022
Abstract

Quality control in industrial processes is so important that it is one of the factors determining a company's success or failure. Quality is what meets a customer's needs embedded in a product or service. The closer the quality is to customers' wants and needs, the greater their satisfaction. On the other hand, Rami 4.0 is an architecture or pattern of implementation of Industry 4.0 principles to facilitate the internal and external interconnections of organizations. Practices, however, have shown that some challenges have appeared to combining quality control with Rami 4.0 axes and layers. This study presents four challenges that quality systems must overcome to harmonize with Rami 4.0. The conceptual bibliographic method was used in its four stages to generate the results of this theoretical essay: (1) formulation of research questions, (2) data collection in the Google Scholar database, (3) data organization and (4) generation and writing of answers. The results showed that the challenges are (a) assembling a work team in which learning is the foundation, (b) the need for organizational investments in hard and soft skills technologies, (c) engagement of people to achieve their own goals and objectives and (d) alignment of corporate sectors to obtain synergy gains. The conclusion shows that Rami 4.0 did not come to undo current production practices but to improve what is well done and update what is in disagreement with the new times.

 

Keywords
INTRODUCTION

We know how important quality control is in industrial processes and that it is a factor that determines the success or failure of a company [1,2,3,4]. Quality can be defined as something that meets expectations; it is the sum of the characteristics of a product to meet the needs of a target audience. Quality is an essential requirement for a company to stand out among its competitors because it is responsible for putting itself ahead of its competitors whenever possible. Customers always look for quality and reliability. Therefore, every company needs to be well managed so that each process is guaranteed to be within the established standards.

 

Ensuring adequate quality control is not an easy task within organizations. It is a significant challenge [5,6,7]. But some tools help in this complex and arduous task, which is to guarantee the quality of a product, as is the case of statistical process control. This tool monitors the variations found in the process and uses statistical data to detect possible failures that may occur in a production process. Another tool is the flowchart, which allows you to visualize the entire process, whose objective is to show in a simple way each of its steps. The Ishikawa or fishbone diagram is a tool that lists the possible causes of a given problem, allowing the visualization of all the reasons that lead to a given situation. Finally, the Pareto chart displays the process occurrences, prioritizing those that will be corrected from the most frequent to the least frequent.

 

We know that before the first industrial revolution everything was produced almost extremely artisanal. Workers worked with their manual skills for everything that was made. With the industrial revolution, products began to be built in greater quantity and optimization became a requirement to be achieved. The greater the amount to be produced, the more challenging it is to maintain a quality standard for all items delivered. Industry 4.0, also known as the fourth industrial revolution, brings excellent opportunities by merging the physical and virtual worlds [8,9,10]. It is a fusion of the natural world with the virtual that brings real-time information to improve production processes further. The challenge is being able to predict a problem before it happens. It is one of the advantages of industry 4.0 because everything will be connected, from the supplier who will make the raw materials available to the final product. This connection allows for detecting possible faults and correcting them.

 

Companies must always be up to date with new technologies. Technologies make the day-to-day a lot easier and allow you to align with what is happening in your operations market. Many technologies help improve quality control processes originating from Industry 4.0. Among them is augmented reality, which makes it possible to interact in a virtual reality that can only be seen with special glasses, through which one can interact and simulate everyday situations in industry, helping to improve processes.

 

Another technology that can be used in industries is the Internet of Things (IoT), which enables the communication of objects with a network connection, allowing interaction between them. It has many benefits to controlling machines and objects from several kilometers away. It is only possible through this technology. Cloud storage is another technology that allows data to be stored and accessed anywhere in the world. It makes sharing and keeping an organization's information and software much more manageable. Finally, big data is a tool that enables the storage of a large amount of data and its handling to generate knowledge, helping to make more proactive decisions. These are Rami architecture technologies that can be used further to improve quality control in any organization. But doing quality control work in an organization is not easy. There are many challenges to be faced and overcome.

 

In this sense, this study aims to present some challenges for implementing quality control in organizations based on the fundamentals of the Rami architecture, which is a reference for implementing Industry 4.0. This benchmark allows organizations to be more innovative in collecting and transforming data into information. With a more creative industry, your processes can be improved. Since everyone is connected, improvement in one leads to progress across the entire network. The improvements that can be made include different aspects and objectives, from financial ones to the strongest substantive human desires, such as the quality of life of all employees. The method used was the conceptual bibliography developed by Nascimento-e-Silva [11-14], which consists of (a) formulating a research question and its corresponding standard response, (b) collecting bibliographic data in scientific databases, (c) organization of data in line with the response pattern and (d) generation of the answers sought. This method is the first part of the scientific-technological method, which aims to generate scientific knowledge that will be used to produce technologies.

 

Quality Control: Literature Synthesis

Quality control can be defined as the domain of quality [15]. Quality control requires a certain mastery of certain essential variables because they impact a company's final results. It is important to know them so that you can adequately control them. Knowledge and control generally lead to making important decisions with a high degree of rationality, contributing enormously to the much-desired continuous improvement of production processes.

 

Quality control is also carried out for monitoring, as the study by Suhardi et al. [16] points out. Whenever we think of an organization, we think of a system, that is, a process that depends on the other, complementing each other and thus forming a chain that unites to create a whole. For this reason, we need everything to be in sync, ensuring the system can function correctly. It is essential to seek to manage each part of this whole based on quantifiable indicators and parameters to obtain a final product that meets the requirements measured by the arrows and reference parameters. This procedure makes it possible not only to achieve but also to exceed the expectations outlined.

 

It can be said that quality control is a part of the management process [17]. In the management process, we are constantly seeking to meet the expectations of all stakeholders. The great challenge will be to plan, fulfill and seek to improve the production process so that the needs and perspectives of the interested parties can be met. As a result, a consistent quality approach is necessary to obtain data that makes possible the transformation process into information that will feed the decision-making process aimed at achieving the improvement of those processes, as Table 1 shows.

 

Quality control can be seen as a system [18]. A system is the various parts of the quality management process that work together to form a single interconnected mechanism. The system is responsible for meeting the expectations outlined by an organization so it reaches the quality standard stipulated by it. The organization plans and organizes its production process following the expectations of its customers, translated into production plans and quality control. The more the organization adds these expectations to the product, the greater the satisfaction of its customers will tend to be.

 

Quality control can be interpreted as an industrial management technique, as seen in Lemma's study [19]. We can then define that the general function of management can be understood as the ability to establish tasks to be fulfilled by all departments of an organization. The role of leadership as a technique is to ensure that all organizational subunits meet established standards for operationalization and achievement of set goals and standards. The performance will only be considered satisfactory if the standards are contained in each stipulated quality target.

 

Quality control is also a type of process [20]. We need steps to be completed to produce a product or operationalize a service. The processes are the sequencing of these steps, responsible for generating a particular final result, which is expected when all the process steps are completed. In an organization, all processes need attention so that they can flow adequately, by what was planned, so that the final result is as satisfactory as possible. It is why attention must be paid to each step of the process and the set of steps, seeing the process as a whole.

 

Quality control can be seen as actions [21]. Quality management uses strategic measures, where the various processes work together to ensure the improvement of the products offered; tactical actions, which are limited to a particular sector of the organization, such as marketing, finance, or production; and operational actions, which  are those responsible for materializing products and services to  be  delivered  to  demanding  customers.

 

Table 1: What is Quality Control

References

What is

Baran and Polat [15]

Quality control can be defined as the mastery of quality, taking precautions against situations that can reduce the quality efficiency of the process.

Suhardi et al. [16]

Quality control can be defined as activities performed to monitor activities and ensure actual performance.

Febriani et al. [17]

Quality control can be defined as a part of quality management, which is vital in almost every industry, one of which is the automotive industry.

Kartika et al. [18]

Quality control can be defined as a system used to maintain the quality of goods or services at the expected quality level.

Lemma [19]

Quality control can be defined as that Industrial Management technique through which a product of uniformly acceptable quality is manufactured.

Ihuoma et al. [20]

Quality control can be defined as a structured process aimed at maintaining standards for a manufactured product.

Elaho and Ejechi [21]

Quality control can be defined as actions taken by manufacturing organizations to ensure that items are produced at the highest quality.

Source: Data Collected by the Authors

 

As each works with processes, each act must be based on indicators and parameters that can be measured and evaluated. In this way, quality management is not limited to the production process. Still, it encompasses an entire chain of operations of an organization, from the suppliers of the raw materials used to the delivery of the product to the final consumer. Its objective is always to seek to maintain a good standard that meets the expectations of everyone involved.

 

Quality Control Challenges before Rami 4.0

In general, the management of any quality control system has three central focuses: avoiding the waste of raw materials and time and rework [22,23]. Technically speaking, quality tools are equipment that focuses their lights to illuminate and make it possible to see flaws that may exist in the future so that managers can make their decisions. The waste of raw materials is a consequence of inadequate planning or execution of production plans. Planning is what is done, from ordering raw material to delivering the finished product to the customer. Wasted time is correlated with improper production planning and execution. There must be synchronization between the order time and the start of production, setup time and between the stages of the production process. It is a production schedule challenge. Rework is the prototypical example of a failed production process. More precisely, the existence of flaws in the quality control process. In the same way that losses, thefts and all sorts of waste of raw materials represent a reduction in the competitive capacity of organizations, rework consumes, in addition to materials, the most precise asset they have, which is the workforce.

 

In addition to these natural challenges of all quality control, with the Rami 4.0 architecture, other higher ones have been encountered that need to be faced and overcome. These challenges are: (1) assembling a qualified team, (2) investing in new technologies, (3) engaging people in this new reality and (4) aligning the sectors. Organizations that have not yet found a way to reconcile the problems of non-compliance with the new requirements of Industry 4.0 cannot be considered intelligent organizations nor operate effectively in this new era of the associated production.

 

Assemble a Qualified Team

It has been challenging for people to keep up with the constant technological advances. Perhaps the reason is that advances happen at such a speed that keeping up with them becomes a challenging task, almost impossible for most human beings. And the result of this is that the fourth industrial revolution needs more and more than ever qualified people to carry it out in the daily life of organizations. The difficulty lies in the fact that more skill is required with the new technologies that appear all the time, which means that professionals who do not follow these innovations are, unfortunately, a step behind the job market. Therefore, the commitment is to the need for organizations to train and update their staff's skills and help develop them throughout their value chain. After all, an organization's challenge is a challenge for the entire chain because everyone is connected.

 

Invest in New Technologies

Having adequate connectivity is one of the essential items for everything to work in an integrated way. For all of this to work in accordance with the Rami architecture, the company must invest heavily in technologies aimed at improving the quality of its processes and products. For this, its staff must know how to operate these technologies. Why, what's the point of having good tools if you don't have people able to use them?

 

People Engagement

In contemporary organizations, an essential item is to have employees committed to doing their best. That best is as much for themselves as it is for the organization. The engagement with oneself is in the quest to be increasingly competitive, more skilled professional, with more improved knowledge and more human; Engagement with the company is a result of this love for oneself, to see it as a fundamental partner in the long process of improvement as a human being, in reciprocity, in which the employee does good for the organization so that the organization reciprocates with another good. Employees need to have life goals to match those goals with the organization's goals. It is this connection and integration of objectives, that Industry 4.0 needs.

 

Sector Alignment

The world of isolation, it seems, has its days numbered. One can even venture to say that the world of the present is already a world of connection and integration. A collaborator no longer operates alone. It operates in interaction. The product of your work will feed the work of the other in the same way that your work was done using resources that someone passed on to you. The same thing happens between production lines and all sectors of an organization. Everything is connected. Everyone needs to be clear about this reality and be able to see it in their daily lives. Without this vision of totality, any effort to continually improve, to avoid waste, whatever it may be, is meaningless.

CONCLUSION

This study presented four significant challenges that quality control systems need to address to harmonize with the principles of Industry 4.0 structured by Rami 4.0. First is to assemble a work team in which you desire to learn continuously, both from your successes and mistakes. Learning is necessary to multiply the possibilities of interconnections in all axes and layers of Rami 4.0. The second is the consequent need to invest in new technologies, the so-called hard technologies and soft skills. This second challenge shows that both the physical and constant learning aspects are fundamental to aligning quality systems with Industry 4.0. The third is people's engagement in the effective practice of shared responsibilities and assertiveness of both organizational leaders and their employees. The fourth is the alignment of sectors, so that the efforts of all administrative units are indeed directed toward achieving corporate objectives. It is because success is, above all, the fruit of mutual commitment.

 

Rami 4.0 did not come to undo the historical process of evolution of production systems. On the contrary, it came to enhance what has been successful, improve what has caused damage and failure and update what is in historical disagreement. This way of producing is in line with the need to make the most of available resources, especially natural ones, to reduce or eliminate the factors that cause pathologies and psychopathologies at work and guarantee that the needs of customers will be met. Therefore, quality control is an area of ​​executive action responsible for implementing these three focuses, which are also concerns of the Rami 4.0 architecture.

 

Acknowledgments

We greatly appreciate the financial, managerial and institutional support of our partners: Envision Indústria de Produtos Eletrônicos Ltda., Centro Internacional de Tecnologia de Software do Amazonas (CITS AMAZONAS), Fundação de Apoio ao Ensino, Pesquisa, Extensão e Interiorização do IFAM (FAEPI), Pró-Reitoria de Extensão do IFAM (PROEX-IFAM) and Polo de Inovação do IFAM.

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