Integration of Quality and Knowledge Management in Indian R&D Organizations

Integration of Quality and Knowledge Management in Indian R&D Organizations

Parvesh Kumar1, Sandeep Singhal2*, Jimmy Kansal3#

1PG Student, Department of Mechanical Engineering, NIT Kurukshetra, Kurukshetra, Haryana, India,()

2*Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, NIT Kurukshetra, Kurukshetra, Haryana, India, ()

3#Phd Scholar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, NIT Kurukshetra, Kurukshetra, Haryana, India, Scientist, Snow & Avalanche Study Establishment, DRDO Chandigarh, ()

Abstract: Quality management systems have been successfully designed and implemented for manufacturing and service functions; but so far the quality principles and systems have been difficult to translate to the R&D function. A quality management system is the system including activities in an enterprise which affect ‘Quality’. In this paper, a model that combines knowledge management and quality management approaches is presented. Essential concepts are provided about what must be considered in establishing a quality system for an institution, company or group that is dedicated to Research and Development (R&D) activities and that needs to fulfill the ISO9001: 2008 standard to obtain certification. The paper describes how certain principles of knowledge management and the requirements of the ISO9001 standard can be aligned with the objectives of an R&D organization and what aspects should be considered in fulfilling the standard. The model and the comments provided will help to an R&D organization to become ISO9001 certified with a minimum of additional effort as compared with its operation without adhering to the standard.This study was undertaken to throw more light on this new development and its impact on the management systems in the Indian Defence R&D organization.

Keywords: Quality Management System, KnowledgeManagement, Research and Development, ISO 9001: 2008.

1. Introduction

Globalization of R&D has accelerated significantly since last two decades. Much of this activity continues to take place among major industrial economies. Developing countries are, however, also playing increasingly important roles. India and China are rapidly emerging as major powers in this century, both in terms of the size of their markets and in a wide range of science and technology developments. India is predicted to become one of the world’s leading economic powers. This poses new challenges for international firms and others willing to take advantage of India’s development. A wide range of indicators point to India’s potential for catching up in economic, technology and social development. The country’s adult literacy rate, for example, has increased the number of engineering students, education level per se has increased and the proportion of poor people has decreased substantially over the last few decades.The potential for cost savings and access to technical competency and markets are among the most important factors underlying the drive for multinational companies to expand their production and R&D operations in India. The principal factors pointing to India’s potential to be a major R&D power are the size of its educated workforce, entrepreneurial traditions and a significant existing R&D-related institutional infrastructure. On the whole India has made major advancement in all of these areas in the past decades.

Research and Development has been recognized as most important for future competitiveness to survive in this competitive and highly turbulent environment. A huge amount of money and other resources are being deployed in R&D by government as well as private organization. A major consideration is required on performance improvement that needs to continuously evaluate the performance of R&D in line with vision and strategy of the organization.

In India, R&D in the various fields related to defence isprimarily undertaken by Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO). DRDO is one of the premier R&D National Level Organizations of India under Central Government, Ministry of Defence. The Department of Defence R&D executes various R&D programmes and projects through a network of more than 50 laboratories/establishments of the DRDO located all over India. DRDO is working for indigenous development of weapons, sensors & platforms required by the Armed Forces. To fulfill this mandate, DRDO is closely working with academic institutions, R&D Centres and production agencies of Science and Technology Departments including Defence Public Sector Undertakings & Ordnance Factories.

Knowledge management is the process of capturing a company’s collective expertise wherever it resides – in databases, on paper, or in people’s heads – anddistributing it to wherever it can help produce the biggest payoff (Hibbard, 1997). Knowledge was required to implement quality processes and is required to improve and update them.Knowledge for R&D projects (processes) changes rapidly as a result of technological, scientific developments and changing economic relationships.

We propose that some aspects of a KMS be integrated as essential components of a Quality Management System (QMS) for R&D organizations. Our QMS is implemented as an Intranet system, which supports the processes in which knowledge is developed and distributed to those who need it. Knowledge is made accessible both for current use in the whole organization and for the future.

Knowledge is included in the definition and establishment of processes related to the requirements of the ISO9001: 2000. Two kinds of processes were identified and implemented: business processes which are the projects, and additional “quality” processes necessary to comply with the requirements of standard that are not directly related to the products of the projects.

1. A Knowledge Management and Quality Model for R&D

Quality management systems have been successfully designed and implemented for manufacturing and service functions; but so far the quality principles and systems have been difficult to translate to the R&D function. The accepted practice when carrying out R&D is to define a project. Roughly, the project is documented divided in sections that may contain, for example, the antecedents and motivations for the investigation, the objectives, the specification of the product, prospective benefits, work schedules, human resources and necessary materials for the realization of the project.The model presented in this paper, complies with the standard and is described using an approach centered on the project life cycle, which is an appropriate language for an R&D group, company or institution. The additional knowledge used to comply with the standard requirements is minimal as compared with the knowledge for operation without adhering to the standard.

1. Quality Processes

A document that specifies the processes of a QMS (including the processes to complete the product) and the resources that should be applied to a product, project or specific contract can be denominated as quality plan.The model presented here is a summary of the quality plan or quality manual for R&D Laboratory and indicates how the organization fulfills the standard during its daily processes operation. The model includes the processes of an organization dedicated to R&D dividing them into two groups of activities related by the exchange of documents:

• The project life cycle activities grouped by development phases or stages, and
• The support activities to complete the compliance of the requirements of the norm.

To fulfill the norm, it is necessary to execute the activities included in the model and to fill the corresponding records as evidence of their realization. These activities are only carried out if they are part of the specific project that is being executing.

1. Project Life Cycle Processes

The typical life cycle of a project is composed of the following four phases:

1. Planning and definition,
2. Execution,
3. Delivery, and
4. Evaluation.

Each phase is composed of one or several activities depending on the nature of the project. Figure. 1 shows a “Project life cycle model” of a research project or process. The top rectangle represents the “controlled conditions” under which the project is executed. The four “pentagon arrows” (a classical representation for processes) represent the four phases of a project.

Figure 1. Project life cycle model

A research project shares most of the characteristics of a factory process, for example, a project has objectives and capacity to produce results. A project is also monitored and measured by using a periodic follow-up report that can include the status of schedule and expenses. Other type of measurements can be used depending on the nature of the project (software and new product development).As a process, a project can also be analyzed after measurements are taken and it can be improved. Then, the Deming cycle of “Do, Measure, Analyze, and Improve” applies to a research project.

4.1Planning and Definition of a Project

The objectives of the planning and definition phase of a project are to obtain:

1. The project proposal (reference terms, specifications or requirements) or a contract authorized by a client (internal or external) to fulfill the standard section 7.2 (client related processes),

1. The quality plan for the project that includes conformity actions to verify the quality of the products of the project and partially fulfill the standard section 7.1 (planning of product realization).

A proposal or contract contains “the requirements specified by the client, including the requirements for the delivery activities”.The quality plan of a project includes the necessary “controlled conditions” (including documents, procedures, information, appropriate measurement equipment, etc.) so that the activities of the project can be executed.

In a factory of material goods, typically the procedures are written in such detail that it is not possible to achieve when procedures are developed for a research team. The difference can be appreciated because procedures for factories contain all the necessary knowledge to build a product and they hardly allow creativity. Also, they are usually adequate for mass production (many copies of the same product). Changes to these procedures are not made during their execution, but during quality revisions.

The procedures for R&D projects are documents that explain general methods, methodologies, guides or manuals, sometimes elaborated by the team or found in textbooks, articles, manuals or another type of document. These documents provide the necessary “controlled conditions” for the development of a project and they have the characteristic of promoting creativity and the production of new knowledge that is recorded in documents, codes or prototypes. Additionally, the developers have, in their mind, previous non-written knowledge, experience, empiric rules, intuition, values and beliefs.

In R&D environments, knowledge management is useful because the “procedures” used to work do not contain the specific knowledge to build the products of a project. The products are new knowledge created during the execution of the project. The products are unique and they are not mass-produced during the project, and they have to satisfy the client or project sponsor. The quality plan includes references to previous knowledge that the researchers found about the products of a project but not the knowledge that they are going to generate as a result of the project execution.

The provision of resources “to enhance customer satisfaction by meeting customer requirements” is made in this planning and definition phase and they are specified in the project quality plan.The conformity activities to “monitor and measure” the products of a project to assure their quality such as revisions, inspections, tests, verifications, validations or others where the conformity of the product is determined with respect to those characteristics specified in the project proposal or contract.

The standard requirement is fulfilled in this phase if the proposal or contract specifies the product requirements to be satisfied by the project.In this phase, diverse activities can be carried out to achieve effective communication with the client. To show evidence of these interaction activities, a register in minute or another document is necessary to comply with the standard.The planning and definition of projects is a good of practice that helps to eliminate the uncertainties in the execution of the projects.

4.2Project Execution

In this phase, the products specified in the proposal and in the quality plan are obtained, and the records show evidence that the products agree with the explicit or implicit specifications of the client.

No matter what the nature or type of the specified products, the project should fulfill the norm (production and service) that are commented in the following paragraphs.The norm requires the “control of production and service” that is fulfilled when the resources (documents, documents, equipment, etc.) indicated in the quality plan are available and are used during the execution of the activities of the project.To properly identify the products the project number is simply used to “identification and trace ability” for research projects.The execution of the conformity activities and the evidence record of them fulfill the “monitoring and measurement of product”. For the “monitoring and measurement of processes” the literature related to R&D proposes dozens of measurements, metrics and indexes to quantify the performance of this type of groups.DRDO uses a minimum set of metrics and statistics, and has procedures to capture the appropriate data and to analyze it. These metrics should apply to all projects independently of the nature of the products. The statistics used are the schedule and cost performance indexes, the cost efficiency, the gained value, the number of changes to the specifications during the development and the number of complains after the products are delivered.

4.3Product Delivery

In a research project, where the product is knowledge, and where its handling, packing and delivery are not a big problem, since it can be sent to the client in diskettes, by e-mail, or possibly in paper. The knowledge or content, once created, neither deteriorates nor breaks down; however, it can be eliminated or erased from the media where it resides. Appropriate measures should be established for effective knowledge preservation.

4.4Evaluation

The client's satisfaction is confirmed along the project execution with conformity activities where the client participates. Additionally, an evaluation questionnaire is sent to the client at the end of each project so that he/she manifests his/her degree of satisfaction.

1. Management Support Processes

The management support activities are executed to comply with the sections of the standard that are not included explicitly in the life cycle activities of the projects.The researchers participate providing the documents and the necessary collaboration so that the support activities are carried out with success.

1. Management Responsibility

The customer focusis achieved, as we have seen, in the life cycle phases of the project.A quality mission and vision must be issued to fulfill the requirement of the norm, see the following example:

“The organization is recognized for its technological leadership and its experience in systems development, quality products and services with high technological innovation value that fulfill the expectations of its clients; in a pleasant and assertive work environment, with positive attitudes and a wide vision of the new technological tendencies that allow to carry out research activities focused to the development of new customized products”.The quality objectives are partially fulfilled in the definition phase of a project where the requirements of the products are established. Also quality objectives for the group must be issued and should be coherent with the quality mission, for example, to increase the degree of the clients' satisfaction, to reduce the number of failures per project, to deliver the products on time according to the work plan agreed with the client, to increase registrations of patents, to increase the number of publications, to reduce the number of non-conformities in internal and external audits, etc.The management of a research group achieves the planning of the quality management system carrying out what it is indicated in its quality manual and plan.The responsibility, authority and communication should be established in an organizational manual that can be part of the quality manual.The revisions of the quality management system should be scheduled periodically or when important events happen. Revisions are to propose modifications to the system or the life cycle of the projects to improve their performance.

1. Resource Management

Resource managementrequires the provision of resources to implement and to maintain the quality system. This is fulfilled with an organization description where the personnel's responsibilities assigned to these tasks are explicitly indicated.The human resources (section 6.2) should be competent “on the basis of education, training, skills and experience” for the projects where they participate. To guarantee “the necessary competence” of the personnel that participates in the projects, an R&D organization can follow several alternatives. On the one hand, each project involves implicit or explicit training, and additionally, the project participants will learn the details of the domain of the application and will train on the supporting tools for the research.Additionally, annual training plans for each individual can include general application topics for project support, for example, project cost estimation, leadership, strategic planning, marketing and collaborative work.To assure the researchers competitive level, it is suggested to continually maintain the creative capacity of the brains with training or equivalent so that they stay updated. This is important, since knowledge evolves quickly in science and industry, where there are always new products, new ideas and new knowledge. Additionally, the process capacity of the brains is increased with empowering technologies of knowledge management to easy the exchange of ideas, and with a motivational work atmosphere (section 6.4).The infrastructure (section 6.3) necessary for R&D projects varies very much, for example, for software development it should not be very expensive compared with the personnel's cost. Mainly personal computers are included, development software, Intranet and Internet, and collaborative software.

1. Internal Audits

Activities have to be executed to comply with section 8.2.2 (internal audits) of the norm. It will be necessary to schedule and register the internal audits where the effectiveness of the quality system is determined. In an audit, each one of the requirements of the norm is analyzed and how it is fulfilled.

1. Improvement

The improvement activities are oriented to fulfill section 8.5 (improvement) of the norm. The corrective and preventive actions are “to continually improve the effectiveness of the quality system.” There are corrective and preventive actions during the execution of a project or when the project is finished.The improvement activities refer to actions to attend customer complaints when the project has already been delivered, and also to attend to new project initiatives. Preventive actions, in general, are to improve the quality system. For example, the analysis actions and corrections of non-conformities that arise in the audits, the measurement and the evaluation of the projects can originate preventive actions to update procedures or to propose the establishment of new measurements and statistical techniques.