Quality management in any organization, public or private, both in the manufacturing and service sectors, either small or large, local or multinational, industrial or academic, is today an absolutely transversal topic that represents an essential know-how in the professional life of anyone.
The present teaching, now in its twenty-first edition, has represented over the years and continues to represent a positive opportunity for Materials Science Students to acquire knowledge, specifically transversal, that prepares them to face the real world of work and enriches their personal curriculum.
The teaching aims at introducing the reasons and the importance of Quality and Certification in various fields, with specific reference to knowledge management in the training and research environment. The reasons and importance of the process approach in managing organizations is presented and critically discussed, rationalizing the relevant concepts. The fundamentals of managing, monitoring and improving processes are developed. The conceptual elements of the ISO 9001:2015 standard are presented, providing the appropriate interpretation keys. The basic elements of statistical process control are introduced, with presentation of some specific techniques. The principles of quality of analytical data, uncertainty assessment and validation of test methods are discussed with reference to the ISO/IEC 17025 standard.
The educational objectives of the present teaching can be detailed as follows:
To introduce and discuss aspects relating to the Professional Life of Technicians and Scientists, which usually:
To correctly place quality standards and certification aspects in the current context of organizations belonging to different sectors, such as:
To develop the aspects of quality and certification as expressions of knowledge management and as elements for the implementation of the organization's management system, through:
To introduce the technical aspects of quality and some operational tools belonging to statistical process control:
The learning outcomes can be summarized in the following points:
No particular prerequisites are necessary, in terms of specific knowledge, to follow the present teaching.
However, a mind openness to topics that are not strictly technical/scientific, and therefore a willingness to deal with multidisciplinary aspects is a useful predisposition to better accept and understand the topics covered.
Teaching delivery methods:
Organization of teaching
The teaching program is arranged into specific thematic modules, which fall into two main categories of equivalent consistency and duration: the organizational aspects of quality management and the technical aspects of quality assurance and quality control, with specific reference to statistical process control (SPC).
Eleven thematic modules are planned, together with an introductory module (0) and a final one (12):
0. Presentation, schedule and organization of teaching.
1. Quality Management The motivations and the context
2. Historical evolution of quality: At the he roots of Total Quality Management
3 Quality and Certification The Italian Quality System
4. Quality, Market, and Management System
5. Management System and Management by Processes Elements of analysis, mapping and re-engineering of processes
6. The ISO 9001:2015 Standard The role of the Management System as a current organizational paradigm
7. Statistical tools of quality (7a) Control charts (7b)
8. Natural Tolerance and Machine and Process Capability Indices
9. Dixon Test Search for aberrant values
10. Statistical Process Control (SPC) Elements of basic statistics (Binomial, Poisson and Gauss distributions)
11. Validation of Test Methods The ISO/IEC 17025 Standard
12. Summary and conclusions
Power Point presenations for all didactic modules. Supporting documents for specific aspects/topics presented and discussed..
Ricevimento: Students can contact the teacher any time, by email, telephone,Teams, Zoom. The teacher is available for personalized or small groups meetings for students (e.g., workers) who are not able to follow all the lectures. In any case, during the semester, sessions of recovery, resumption and review of the topics covered are regularly scheduled.
MAURO ZAMBELLI (President)
MARCELLA PANI
LUCA VATTUONE (President Substitute)
For the lessons calendar you are invited to refer to the following link:
https://corsi.unige.it/corsi/11634/studenti-orario
The exam is held in oral mode over three questions, respectively relevant to the organizational/general aspects of quality management, to the comment of a clause of the ISO 9001 standard and to a method/problem characteristic of the technical aspects of quality assurance/control and statistical process control.
The exam modalities want to simulate real situations that the Student can encounter later in his professional life, when she/he will have to explain the topics in question both to expert colleagues and to an inexpert audience. Therefore, during the exam the Student is requested to use all the teaching material provided during the lectures (presentations and supporting documents) as well as her/his own notes.
In the spirit of simulating real situations in which the Student will find him/herself in his/her professional life, the ability to explain the arguments proposed by the Commission in relation to the three aspects mentioned above will be evaluated, in terms of capability to master the concepts and clarity and completeness of the exposure.
The evaluation is therefore based not on the ability to memorize the different topics, but on the deepness of understanding of the concepts developed during the teaching and the consequent ability to communicate them to an audience.
A maximum of 10 points will be assigned to each of the three topics covered, which added together will provide the vote out of thirty.
References to specific quality aspects encountered in Material Science are made whenever possible and applicable, in order to provide evidence of the importance of quality management in the future professional life of today's Students.
