OVERVIEW

Today, the quality management of any organization, public or private, manufacturing or service, small or large, local or multinational, industrial or academic, is an absolutely transversal theme that will be inevitably encountered during anyone's professional life.

The present teaching, now in its twentieth edition, has represented over the years a positive opportunity for Materials Science students to acquire multidisciplinary knowledge, which prepares them to face the real world of work and enrich their personal curriculum.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

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 related 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 pf analytical data, uncertainty assessment and validation of test methods are discussed with reference to the ISO/IEC 17025 standard.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

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:

• Are considered marginal or completely outside their sphere of interest;
• In the medium term, such aspects turn out to be existential factors for the development and even the existence of organizations (both industrial and scientific);
• Represent elements of enrichment and professional growth ("curriculum lines") at an individual level in an increasingly multidisciplinary context.

To place quality standards and certification in the current context of organizations belonging to different sectors, such as:

• Industry and research facilities;
• Private companies and public bodies;
• Small/medium enterprises and multinationals.

To develop the aspects of quality and certification as expressions of knowledge management and as elements for the construction of the organization's management system, through:

• Knowledge creation and management;
• Process management and process improvement;
•  Adoption of international standards;
• Compliance with the applicable legislation..

To introduce the technical aspects of quality and some operational tools related to statistical process control:

• How to represent processes;
• How to ensure the quality of the process/product;
• How to obtain the maximum information with the minimum number of measurements;
• How to ensure the quality of analytical data.

The learning outcomes can be summarized in the following points:

• Awareness of the importance of quality management both in industrial activities and services, as well as in the teaching and research environment;
• Ability to read, decode and implement management system standards, with specific reference to ISO 9001 and ISO/IEC 17025;
• Acquisition of the basic principles of statistical process control and statistical quality control;
• Understanding and ability to present and discuss all the topics on which the course is structured, as detailed in the section Syllabus/Content..

PREREQUISITES

No particular prerequisites are necessary, in terms of specific knowledge, to follow the teaching in question.

However, an openness to topics that are not strictly technical/scientific, and therefore a willingness to deal with multidisciplinary aspects is a useful predisposition to better understand the topics covered.

TEACHING METHODS

Teaching delivery methods:

• Traditional / Online (in case of specific needs and circumstances).

Organization of teaching

• Classroom (and/or online) lectures, with continuous examples taken from real experiences gained both in industrial and in research environments.
• Continual verification of the level of learning and maturation of skills with discussion in the classroom during the presentation of each thematic module.
• Stimulus to face, independently and/or in small groups, exercises based on practical cases encountered or that can be encountered in the real world.
• Sessions for recovery and review of the topics presented.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The teaching program is divided into specific thematic modules, which fall into two broad categories of equivalent consistency and duration: the organizational aspects of quality management and the technical aspects of quality assurance and control, with specific reference to statistical process control (SPC).
There are nine thematic modules, plus an introductory and a conclusive module:

0. Presentation, planning and organization of the course.

1. Quality Management
    Reasons and context (why and where)

2. Quality and Certification
    The European Quality System

3. The organizational management System and principles of Process Management
    Elements of analysis, mapping and re-engineering of processes

4. The ISO 9001:2015 standard
    The role of a certified Management System as a current organizational paradigm

5. Statistical tools for quality management (5a)
    Control cards (5b)

6. Natural Tolerance and Machine and Process Capability Indices

7. Dixon test
    Identification of anomalous data in a series of neasurments

8. Statistical Process Control (SPC)
    Elements of basic statistics and use of the Bbinomial, Poisson and Gauss distributions

9. Validation of Test Methods
      The ISO/IEC 17025 standard

10. Summary and conclusions

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Power Point presenation for all didactic modules.
Supporting documents for specific topics.

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

MAURO ZAMBELLI (President)

MARCELLA PANI

LUCA VATTUONE (President Substitute)

LESSONS

LESSONS START

For the lessons calendar you are invited to refer to the following link:

https://corsi.unige.it/corsi/11634/studenti-orario

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

Oral exam over three questions, respectively relevant to the organizational/philosophical aspects of quality management, to the comment of a clauseof 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 will experience later in his professional life, when 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 course (presentations and supporting documents) as well as her/his own notes .

ASSESSMENT METHODS

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.

FURTHER INFORMATION

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.