Quality improvement tool “poka yoke”

ABSTRACT


The dictionary has many definitions for quality. A short definition, that is widely accepted is Quality is customer satisfaction. Quality is a relative term generally used with reference to the end use of the product. According to Edward Deming Quality should aim at customer need both present and future. The increasing need for quality resulted in formation of quality management systems (QMS) .When international organizations of standards (ISO) which comprises of National standard bodies of 95 countries put forward some quality standards for operation of quality management systems known as ISO standards. Latest ISO 9001 standards gives much importance of taking preventive actions in an organization to avoid problems related to non conformance and other unintentional mistakes . POKA YOKE or mistake proofing is quality improvement tool which avoids the occurrences of unintentional errors in a system. This concept was formulated by Dr. Shigeo Shingo, a famous Japanese manufacturing engineer. Shingo is well-known for his evolutionary work at Toyota and other Japanese companies, where he developed entire production systems focused on achieving zero defects in production.