Page 161 - DMGT501_OPERATIONS_MANAGEMENT

Unit 6: Quality Assurance and Control

Notes
over supply of tea and the demand of the Russians for better quality, South Indian tea is
losing Russian market also. Even in the domestic internal market, the Tea Board found in
a survey that the South Indian tea "was becoming unpopular because of its poor quality".

According to former Coonoor Tea Trade Association (CTTA) chairman Dipank Shah, who
relinquished office last month, the tea from Coonoor "can get consumer acceptance and
realise higher prices only if the industry is committed to quality".

In his address to the 9th annual general meeting (AGM) of CCTTA recently he said that Tea
Board and UPASI had taken a number of steps to bring about qualitative changes in the
plucking and processing of tea. Tea Board took a delegation of growers and manufacturers
to the North Indian tea market to make a comparative study of the quality of tea sold there
and those produced by the Southern industry.
The result, in the words of Mr Shah, "Was heart-breaking as it was found that tea of only a
couple of factories matched with what the buyers wanted."

Realising the urgent need for quality upgradation of the South Indian teas Tea Board and
UPASI embarked on educating the growers and manufacturers.
The farmers were trained to maintain plucking standards and the bought leaf factories to
improve quality of their produce.
Mr Shah said there was no immediate impact on prices "because of the demand/supply
position". He denied the accusation that the prices were manipulated by trade cartels.
Gradually the improved quality was realised by the upcountry buyers and they came
forward to offer higher prices. "Price of good tea improved by atleast 15 per kg and
plainer ones by 4-6," he said.

Source: Article at financialexpress.com
6.2 Collection and Presentation of Data

Objective decisions in quality management can be built only on facts. The decisions naturally
would be as good or as bad as the data on which they are based. Thus, it is important to build that
base of sound lines.

Example: Standardisation of inspection procedures is essential if it is desired to compare
two inspectors, shifts etc., or to have, even a meaningful dialogue with the customers.
Generally, an investigation will compromise of planning, collection, scrutiny and analysis of
data, interpretation of result of analysis and finally report writing to enable appropriate decision
making by the concerned executives. While planning collection of data, one should take into
account the objectives of the study and the availability of past experience or data on the subject.
The method of analysing data should also be borne in mind at this stage. Other points to be
pondered over at the planning stage are:
1. In what form and on what characteristics to collect data variable or attribute?

2. How much data should be collected?
These questions are answered in the succeeding paragraph.
Data can be of two types: attribute and variables. The former is generated when items are
inspected and classified as good or defective, number of off beats in a unit time, number of
defective moulds, number of NTs rejections etc. The latter involves the actual measurement of

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