Reynolds Wrap Up: Total Quality Management of FEMI QA/QC

Executive Summary

This article discusses total quality management (TQM) of our FEMI quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) processes. Herein, I will emphasize the similarities, differences, and the relationship between FEMI QA and FEMI QC. Basically, the two functions have a “hand-in-glove relationship” when it comes to establishing and sustaining FEMI with systems, procedures, and standards, as well as inspection, testing, and examination activities. QA and QC are very important functions, but FEMI QA is perhaps more important. I will show how total quality management embodies the entire QA/QC program into a culture of continuous improvement to ensure that your QA/QC program is the best it can be at detecting and preventing fabrication and repair defects as well as in-service damage mechanisms from causing loss of containment (LOC) and lost profit opportunities (LPO).

Introduction

FEMI QA processes, procedures, and standards set the requirements and recommendations needed to prevent and find defects. At the same time, FEMI QC inspection, examination, and testing methods follow through to find any defects that might have occurred despite the QA requirements and recommendations. In the TQM process, we should look back at how well the FEMI QA/QC processes worked in each situation and decide what improvements need to be made to the overall process if the results met expectations. That TQM look-back might be as simple as one or two FEMI specialists analyzing the results of finding a few defects after the repair of a pressure vessel and suggesting corrective actions for future such situations, or, on the other end of the spectrum, it could be as thorough as a full-blown incident investigation of a big FEMI event to determine all of the root causes and contributing causes that must be corrected to make sure nothing like that happens again.

To begin, Figure 1 shows a Venn diagram of how FEMI QA/QC and TQM are intimately involved. Clearly, both QA and QC are essential programs for the overall FEMI quality process. Both are important and necessary activities in FEMI TQM, but they differ in their focus, approach, and when they occur in the FEMI process. The generally accepted differences are that FEMI QA is the proactive (preventative) part, while QC follow-up is the reactive (detective) part. Then, enveloping the entire FEMI QA/QC process, comes the look-back process of FEMI TQM which provides the continuous improvement system that envelops the entire FEMI QA/QC program.

As shown in Figure 1, excellent systems, processes, procedures, and standards for FEMI QA are key to preventing any LOC and LPO that might be caused by less than adequate FEMI. Likewise, as shown in Figure 1, FEMI QC provides for detecting any flaws, defects, or in-service damage mechanisms that might have resulted from inadequate QA or failing to follow all the necessary and/or recommended QA procedures and standards. The outer circle labeled TQM in Figure 1 envelops the entire FEMI QA/QC system by providing a means for making needed improvements through failure investigations, learning from incidents (LFI), implementing corrective actions, and auditing the effectiveness of the QA/QC processes.

In this Reynolds Wrap Up, I have chosen to include not only those inspection and testing activities for new construction and maintenance/repairs, which everyone knows form the basis of the primary FEMI QC function, but also to include all the examination and testing activities associated with in-service inspections looking for flaws and defects caused by damage mechanisms that might require repairs or replacements. I realize that including in-service QC activities may be slightly different than most common thinking about what QC includes. But in my mind, QC also includes in-service inspection, examination, and testing as it is similar to and very much as important as the inspection, examination, and testing during fabrication, construction, and repair activities. As such, in-service QC provides a measurement of the adequacy of our overall in-service QA program, just as inspection, examination, and testing QC provides a measurement of the adequacy of our fabrication, construction, and repair QA program.