Title: Quality cost model improvement based on 6σ management

Authors: Baoguang Bai; Jian Zhang

Addresses: School of International Business, Inner Mongolia University of Technology, Hohhot 010080, China ' School of Business Administration, Inner Mongolia University of Finance and Economics, Hohhot 010060, China; School of Economics and Management, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China

Abstract: 6σ management theory has been successfully used in the top enterprises around the world, such as Motorola and General Electronics However, a serious contradiction has found between the traditional quality cost theory and 6σ theory, e.g., when quality level approach to 'zero defect', total quality cost does not converge to infinite rapidly. It is contradicting with the main conclusion of traditional quality cost model. This paper optimised the traditional quality cost model with learning curve and 6σ management ideas. Through the continuous improvement of working processes and service quality, the first pass rate approach 100% gradually. The costs losses can be reduced greatly. The new quality cost model proposed in this paper is more suitable to the manufacturer and the modern quality concept. We also give the optimal quality level in different setting.

Keywords: 6σ management; quality cost model; learning curve; zero defect; optimal quality level.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMTM.2018.093360

International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management, 2018 Vol.32 No.4/5, pp.396 - 411

Received: 26 Oct 2016
Accepted: 15 Mar 2017
Published online: 25 Jul 2018 *

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