Contemporary Elements of Quality Management System in the Metallurgical Enterprise

The concept of quality – appearing for the first time in the thoughts of Plato, Cicero or Aristotle – has been used in numerous areas of human activity, from the quality of material goods and services, the processes related to processing, exchange, management, to those related to human living in general 1 . Definitions of quality are proposed currently in the literature on the subject (Joseph M. Juran, W. Edwards Deming, Armand V. Feigenbaum, Philip B. Crosby, Robert L. Flood), which, notwithstanding the great variety of formulations, have one underlying idea in common – that quality means the satisfaction of the customer’s requirements 2 . Thus, quality has become one of the fundamental and essential elements for building or sustaining competitive advantage in the market. In improving their management systems, business entities more and more often compete for various quality awards, thus striving to distinguish their market identity. Contemporary trends in environmental protection and the European Union’s requirements make companies give more consideration to pro-ecological activities. An increasing number of enterprises, wishing to create their image, will be interested in using not only quality standards, but also environmental management systems, or Health and Safety and Industrial Hygiene management systems 1 . The integration of these areas is not a new idea, as already Gemichi Taguchi believed that the quality of product is a loss transferred by the product to society, starting from the time of shipping that product. He assumed therefore that each product delivered to the user causes a loss, which is the lower, the higher the quality of that product is. These losses are commonly understood as the contamination of the natural environment and associated diseases resulting from the progress of civilization, occupational health and safety, but also the consumer’s dissatisfaction or the manufacturer’s losses caused by the disadvantageous image of the organization, which result in a loss of selling markets in the long term 3 . Understanding both the present and future needs of the customer, meeting the customer’s requirements, the loss function – all these terms enable quality systems to encompass areas that have not been previously associated with the concept of quality.