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Quality Management

Spring 2012

Master of Business Administration – MBA Semester 3
QM0010 – Foundations of Quality Management
(4 credits)
(Book ID: B1240)
ASSIGNMENT- Set 1
Marks 60
Note: Each Question carries 10 marks. Answer all the questions.
1. What are the dimensions of Quality?
1 Dimensions of quality
Before we consider quality control, let us see what quality means. Quality is inherent in the product or service that is rendered to the customer. Since we are attempting to measure the same, we will look into those aspects of quality called dimensions of quality. (See Figure 6.1 for Dimensions of quality)
1. Quality of Design: A product is designed keeping in view of the customers’ requirement. For designing a product the manufacturer or service provider should be aware of the specifications of different features required to incorporate in the product. Some of the features to be known for designing a product include — material, dimensions, and characteristics. The quality of the product is introduced by the design of these features. Inspection of the manufacturing processes is of utmost importance in ensuring quality of performance.
2. Conformance to Design: Conformance to design is the degree to which the manufactured product or delivered service meets the parameters that have been incorporated in the design. It verifies that the variability in the process is within acceptable limits so as not to compromise the functionalities that the designer wanted.
3. Utilization Conditions: Utilizations conditions refer to the necessity of the customer being informed / trained so that the purpose for which the product was made is realised by the customer in total, thus enhancing his satisfaction. Instructions, manuals, help-lines, and on-site training by the manufacturers’ personnel improve the perception of quality.
4. After Sales Service: There are so many reasons why products do not function to the expected levels. It may be improper use, unexpected or additional demands, improper assembly or even manufacturing defects. There is a need to rectify these and make products or services perform up to the expected standard. The firm should put in place a system by which these possibilities are anticipated and attended to give customer satisfaction. This is an important, but often neglected dimension of quality.

2. Write a brief note on the concept of Total Quality Management.

Introduction to TQM
TQM is viewed from many angles — as a philosophy, as an approach and as a journey towards excellence. The main thrust is to achieve customer satisfaction by involving everybody in the organisation, across all functions with continuous improvement driving all activities. TQM systems are designed to prevent poor quality from occurring. The following steps are implemented to achieve Total Quality.
a) Take all measures to know what the customer wants. Develop methods that generate facts which can be used for decision making. Do not ignore the internal customer which means the next person in the process.
b) Convert the wants into design specifications, which meet or exceed customer expectations.
c) Design processes so that they facilitate doing the job right the first time. Incorporate elements that make it impossible to make mistakes. It is called fail-safing or fool-proofing. The Japanese call it Pokayoke.
d) Keep records of all occurrences, procedures followed, and consequences. They help in validating the processes so that continuous improvement becomes possible. More importantly any gaps can be seen and rectified immediately.
TQM helps to improvise every aspect of the business process such as finance and operations management. Search must be continuous to find ways and means to improve the business. Complacency should never be allowed to creep in at any time. In this aspect, culture plays an important role. All these require commitment from top management.
Approaches to TQM
Being practiced worldwide by different organisations, TQM has different approaches towards its achievement. The basic thrust of each of these is realising excellence. All the approaches have a lot in common, but the emphasis shifts from one other. Needless to say, each organisation will use any of these or even a combination to suit its structure, culture, and need. Some emphasise on the philosophy of TQM and the role of management and employees in being aware, committed and active. Some expect us to use statistics more intensely. Some give us an ‘integrated approach’.
1 Deming wheel
Deming’s TQM helps organisations to improve the quality of the products and services they offer. Deming’s approach is summarised in his 14 points.
1. Constancy of purpose for continuous improvement
2. Adopt the TQM philosophy for economic purposes
3. Do not depend on inspection to deliver quality
4. Do not award any business based on price alone
5. Improve the system of production and service constantly
6. Conduct meaningful training on the job
7. Adopt modern methods of supervision and leadership
8. Remove fear from the minds of everyone connected with the organisation
9. Remove barriers between departments and people
10. Do not exhort, repeat slogans, and put up posters
11. Do not set-up numerical quotas and work standards
12. Give pride of workmanship to the workmen
13. Education and training to be given vigorously
14. State and exhibit top management’s commitment for quality and productivity
Using the above principles, Deming gave a four step approach to ensure a purposeful journey of TQM (See Figure 6.7 for Deming Wheel). The slope is shown to indicate that if efforts are let up the programme will roll back.
– Plan means that a problem is identified, processes are determined and relevant theories are checked out.
– Do means that the plan is implemented on a trial basis. All inputs are correctly measured and recorded.
– Check means that the trials taken according to the plan are in accordance with the expected results.
– Act means when all the above steps are satisfactory regular production is started so that quality outcomes are assured.

Figure : Deming wheel
2. Juran’s quality triology
Juran uses his famous Universal Breakthrough Sequence to implement quality programmes. The universal breakthrough sequences are:
– Proof of need: There should be a compelling need to make changes.
– Project identification: Here what is to be changed is identified. Specific projects with time frames and the resource allocation are decided.
– Top management commitment: Commitment of the top management is to assign people and fix responsibilities to complete the project
– Diagnostic journey: Each team will determine whether the problems result from systemic causes or are random or are deliberately caused. Root causes are ascertained with utmost certainty.
– Remedial action: This is the stage when changes are introduced. Inspection, testing, and validation are also included at this point.
– Holding on to the gains: The above steps result in beneficiary results. Having records or all actions and consequences will help in further improvements. The actions that result in the benefits derived should be the norm for establishing standards.
Juran has categorised cost of quality into four categories:
1. Failure costs – Internal: These are costs of rejections, repairs in terms of materials, labour, machine time and loss of morale.
2. Failure costs – External: These are costs of replacement, on-site rework including spare parts and expenses of the personnel, warranty costs and loss of goodwill.
3. Appraisal costs: These are costs of inspection, including maintenance of records, certification, segregation costs, and others.
4. Prevention costs: Prevention cost is the sequence of three sets of activities, Quality Planning, Quality Control, and Quality Improvement, forming the triology to achieve Total Quality Management.
Juran’s argument says that:
– Quality is the result of good planning considering the needs of both internal and external customers and develops processes to meet them. The processes are also planned to meet them. (See Figure 6.8 for Juran’s quality triology)
– Quality is built into the system of manufacture, inputs and processes that are on stream like raw material, spare parts, labour, machine maintenance, training, warehousing, inspection procedures, packaging, and others. All these have to follow standards and control exercises to make sure that mistake do not occur often and that if mistakes do occur then they are corrected at the source. (See Figure 6.8 for Juran’s quality triology)
– Quality improvement measures are essential to keep the quality culture alive. Newer methods will be found, some operations can be eliminated, improved technology available. In short, as experience is gained things can always be done better. It is for the management to take the initiative and encourage the employees to be on the lookout for opportunities for improvement.
3 . Crosby’s absolutes of quality
Like Deming, Crosby also lays emphasis on top management commitment and responsibility for designing the system so that defects are not inevitable. He urged that there be no restriction on spending for achieving quality. In the long run, maintaining quality is more economical than compromising on its achievement. His absolutes can be listed as under:
– Quality is conformance to requirements, not ‘goodness’
– Prevention, not appraisal, is the path to quality
– Quality is measured as the price paid for non-conformance and as indices
– Quality originates in all factions. There are no quality problems. It is the people, designs, and processes that create problems
Crosby also has given 14 points similar to those of Deming. His approach emphasises on measurement of quality, increasing awareness, corrective action, error cause removal and continuously reinforcing the system, so that advantages derived are not lost over time. He opined that the quality management regimen should improve the overall health of the organisation and prescribed a vaccine. The ingredients are:
1) Integrity: Honesty and commitment help in producing everything right first time, every time
2) Communication: Flow of information between departments, suppliers, customers helps in identifying opportunities
3) Systems and operations: These should bring in a quality environment so that nobody is comfortable with anything less than the best
4. Taguchi’s quality loss function
Taguchi’s contention is that quality comes from design. He advocated a wide use of Design of Experiments for experimentation on variables and obtains specifications which will result in high quality of the product. It helps in bringing cost effective improvements in quality. He believed that designers should make robust designs so that product can withstand the variability which tends to be persistent and give quality for longer periods. His objective in giving the loss function is to make manufacturers realise that it is the target value of the specification that should be sought to be achieved and not the permissible deviations. The loss caused is the square of the deviation multiplied by a cost constant.

Where,
L = Total loss
C= Cost constant
X = Average value of the quality characteristic
T = Target value of the characteristic
Taguchi also talks about losses to society because of a dent in quality – both the manufacturers and users in society will have to endure the consequences of reduced performance as long as the product is used.
3. Explain “quality economic approach” and “quality environmental approach”.

Quality Economic Approach
Business conditions are changing and evolving so as the economic environment. In this competitive environment, organization requires new approaches to survive. Quality is becoming prime priority for most of the organizations and implementing a quality system requires management commitment to develop a quality assurance program. This embraces a variety of activities designed to ensure reliability in the first place, specific quality control measures to monitor quality on a routine basis.
The goal of quality system should be to avoid errors rather than to detect them. The reduction of correction costs is recognized as a benefit which can be offset against the cost of the system.
The quality economical approach is to provide quality product or service at competitive prices while reducing wastage, decreasing cost, providing high customer satisfaction, gaining competitive advantage, provide a vibrant economy that affects in terms of taxation, government spending, general demand, interest rates, exchange rates, and overall development and growth.
Following are some of the quality economical aspects:
Reduce Cost
Cost is an important concern for organization, in fierce competitive market, organization are struggling to provide quality at lesser cost to gain competitive edge. Quality helps an organization to reduce wastage and come up with quality product or service at competitive price.
Now the question arises as how to reduce cost and get quality?
The quality costs are the cost of not doing the right things right first time or the cost incurred because failure is possible
Philip Crosby published in his book “Quality is free”, stressed upon the removal of defects which is in built cost in running any business. There are various costs associated, with the quality negligence.
Crosby suggested that by eliminating all the errors and reaching zero defects, it will not only reduce the cost but also satisfy the customers.
By reducing complexity and installing failure-prevention measures, there will be less spending on failure detection and correction. After initial investment made, in long term customer requirement can be meet by spending less. Low cost can result from high productivity and high capacity utilization. Improvement in quality leads to improvement in productivity, which in turn lower the costs. Lower costs is also a result of innovation in product design and process technology, as it reduces the cost of production. Many Japanese companies adopted product innovation and process technologies, they refined the designs and manufacturing processes to produce high quality products at low cost, resulting in higher competitive advantage than before.
As high defective rates lead to high cost and vice versa. Organization need to control its defectives, errors and damage rate to control its cost factor and improve its quality substantially. High defectives increase not only the cost of production bust as well as customer perception. To survive and gain competitive advantage organizations need to work on its processing structure and improve its quality.

Fig. 2.2

Fig. 2.3
Reduce wastage
The wastage increases the cost and lead to high pricing and in the competitive scenario it is difficult for organization to survive with high cost products. Quality approach provides the elimination of wastage at every process. Wastages are due to mistakes and wrong process, Like Poka yoke — (mistake proofing) — a method that concentrates on elimination of mistakes to avoid wastage.
Gain Competitive advantage
Quality has become a key issue for companies. Competitive advantage denotes a firm ability to achieve market superiority. To sustain in the competitive market an organization needs to perform above average. Organizations which are capable to satisfy the customers need and provide value to them, can gain competitive advantage over their competitors. It requires a lot of resources and utilization of them to gain maximum advantage and satisfy customers need better than others.
An organization absolute goal should be gaining competitive advantage through customer satisfaction. A quality system designed on people centric approach is viable, and other important thing is the ability of an organization to win or retain customers, its image or credibility, and the staff morale.
These are various tools to gain competitive advantage:
– Creativity and innovation
Creativity is essential for continuous improvement in an organization. According to the Webster’s dictionary creativity means,’ to produce through artistic or imaginative effort‘s and innovation means doing something new or unusual ‘together they mean doing or producing ‘something new or unusual through imaginative efforts’ creativity and innovation help organization to think out of box and bring out new solutions to various problems. Now a day’s organizations are concentrating on breakthrough thinking and encouraging bringing out quality in every dimension through new ideas and innovations. Creativity is considered as an important tool to gain competitive advantage.
– Poka Yoke (mistake proofing)
This method helps to avoid common human errors; this is simple mistake — proofing process which focuses on two aspects such as predicting and recognizing that a defect is about to occur, and then providing signals and warning or by detecting and recognizing the error after it has occurred and then stopping the process so that no further errors can be done, with the application of Poka Yoke method mistakes can be avoided and this helps to reduce wastage and enhance quality.
Just in Time:
Toyota Motor Co. in Japan has developed this Just in Time (JIT) or lean concept to improve the quality and performance in production and manufacturing.
The concept is based on three essential elements
– Optimal standardization with everything measured and under control.
– Workflow optimization
– Pull production
These are some of the other tools to gain competitive advantage
– Kaizen
– Zero defects program
– Benchmarking
– Business Process Re-engineering
– Six sigma
Face Competition: Business organizations do not want competition, though facing competition is inevitable for most of them, as the market is changing all the time, customers need and want are changing, new competitors and technologies are entering market. The competition depends on market in which the business operates. It can be from many small or large rival business or from the rapidly changing market , or from the technology which is being developed very quickly, previously, it was considered that high quality-high price. But now, customers are accessible to high quality at low prices. Due to high competition, an organization needs to reduce its internal costs of (sorting, inspection, and rework scrap) for providing a quality product. Business could survive and gain competitive edge by providing quality, reducing price and cutting cost .
Right Pricing:
Price is important characteristic of product. People are attracted and price conscious. Reduction of costs and wastage leads to right pricing.
Increase Market share: In a competitive business scenario gaining maximum market share is not easy. Organization performance depends upon their customer satisfaction. To gain competitive advantage and gain market shares, organization needs to concentrate on the quality.
Satisfy stakeholders, expectations: The quality approach emphasis on quality, gaining competitive advantage, making profits and satisfying customer expectations.
Provide overall economic growth: Quality provide a vibrant economy that affects in terms of taxation, government spending, general demand, interest rates, exchange rates and global economic factors.
Quality Environmental Approach
Industrial and economic development have led to faster depletion of natural resources, forestry, water, coal, and petroleum etc have given impetus to growth and now with the fast depletion of resources the crisis is approaching. Pollution, carbon and gaseous emission, are adding to crisis. Large scale usage of natural resources is not only causing depletion but also leading to wide spread air, water and noise pollution that is again leading to hazardous health problem and severe consequences. Emission of hazardous gases are depleting the ozone layer in the atmosphere and disturbing ecological imbalance. The consequences have alarmed the society, organization and various other institutions. Now organizations are aware of their environmental and social responsibility and are taking various measures to safeguard environment.
Social responsibility of business organization is to keep check on issues pertaining to environment. To discharge the responsibility organizations need to accomplish “Environmental Quality policy”. Total quality management provides a model for business excellence by advocating on environment management as a key business process to create eco-friendly environment and built premises of secure environment and better working condition.
Quality management concentrates on the activity that lead to environment pollution directly or indirectly and causes harm to environment and health, hygiene of people in an around the business. It checks the problem and consequences of the environmental issues and concentrates on the following areas:
1. Generation and discharge of pollutants to the environment, namely air, waste or excessive noise
2. Industrial energy management
3. Management of industrial health, hygiene and safety
4. Management of ecology and forestry[2]
Quality management to check environmental issues

Fig. 2.5
Following are the steps to check the environmental issues:
– Identification of environmental issues
– Area need to focus to solve the issue
– Measures the action to achieve the results
The outcry to save environment, leads business organizations to take serious initiative to manage environment and design mode and process to achieve eco friendly system. Tata Group of Industries is one of the examples that follows eco governance, the township of Jamshedpur and surrounding is model of eco governance. This group has marked eco governance for superior business performance.
The quality environmental approach emphasis organization to take accountability to society and check environmental issues by taking various steps, such as, making employees aware of the need to control and improve environment and make them understand the management commitment, for environment up gradation, and to feel them motivated and inspired to act.
Organizations need to identify areas that require attention and monitor it to discharge, air polluting units, waste disposal operation etc. Proper planning and documentation is required to manage the environment quality in the company — such as, what is to be done, how and by whom. Facilities and capabilities is to be developed for measuring controlling and improving all environment related activities and processes by setting up effluent testing laboratories, disposal tanks and treatment plants, installation of pollution controlling equipment and instruments. People should be trained empowered and encouraged to take initiative and come up with the innovative ideas to deal with the environmental issues and improvements. Measuring, controlling the environment as per planning and reviewing for continuous improvement and dealing with the side effects of it.
Proper documentation, record keeping and data control system, are required for implementing and developing a quality environment system.

4. Explain the importance of customer satisfaction with an example. How do you measure customer satisfaction?

The best way for an enterprise to understand a customer and his importance is to note the following, to be obsessed with quality: practice it at all levels ruthlessly and as a constant reminder, frame it at all places.
“Customer is the most important visitor to our premises. He is not an interruption to our work. He is the purpose of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity to do so”-Mahatma Gandhi:
“A customer is the most important person over in this office in person or mail”:
A customer is not dependent on us: we are dependent on him:
A customer is not an interruption of our work; he is the purpose of it:
We are not doing a favour by serving him; he is doing a favour by giving the opportunity to do so:
A customer is a person who brings us his wants; it is our job to handle them profitably to him and ourselves.
Customer Service — A Few Basics
A customer is a person who brings us his wants; it is our job to handle them profitably to him and ourselves. On this premises there can be no doubt or dispute. But the vital question is how to take a lead over the equals? For instance, there are any number of comparable brands of consumer utilities, consumer durables and industrial hardware. But only a few enjoy commanding heights in the market place. How? The reasons are not far to seek. They lie in customers’ perception of quality and total, customer service they get from an enterprise. A number of studies on customer behavior, customer service and product quality have indicated the following few key-points which can be of immense value in formulating a pragmatic approach to customer service and achieve customer satisfaction.
(a) Customer service improves bottom-line results.
Enterprises with a good record of customer service
– Can charge 8-9% more for their goods:
– Grow much faster than the ones at the lower end of the service scale:
– Can improve their market share by 5-6% per year.
(b) Customers do not seek redressal, but they desert
– 95-97% of the customers do not complain:
– They do not complain as they are convinced that no purpose would be served by complaining:
– 90% of those who complain will not come back:
– Dissatisfied customer will tell on an average 10 of his associates/ friends about his bad experience.
(c) Dissatisfied customer can be won back.
– 80-90% of dissatisfied customers can be won backIf their complaints are resolved thoughtfully and in time.
(d) Priority for retaining the present customers satisfied.
– Concentrate on retaining the existing clients’/customers satisfied. Repeat customers are an asset.
– By their word-of-mouth, good message spreads around and it brings in first-time-users.
– Get first-time users by not neglecting the existing customers.
(e) Performance to out-strip promise.
– Make realistic promises and perform better than the promises made.

5. Explain Kaizen Approach to Problem Solving, with an example.
Fast and Intense: Kaizen Approach to Problem Solving
Often it was an awareness of how hard it is for people to concentrate on improvement when they keep thinking about getting their work done. To some extent it was a matter of their innate respect for the people who do the work. For all these reasons, years ago the Japanese inventors of the Lean improvement systems came up with a different improvement model they called Kaizen.
Kaizens (or blitzes, as they are sometimes called) are improvement events where people work only on improvement for a few days, up to a full week. In a traditional Kaizen project, the people from a particular work area come together with a few experts for four or five days straight and complete most or all of a DMAIC cycle on a narrowly targeted high-priority issue. (“We need to process loan applications faster.”) The model has been so successful that this basic approach has been adapted to other uses such as service design sessions.
Example of a Bank’s Use of Kaizen
A major national bank started using the five-day Kaizen approach whenever it wanted to attack process speed and efficiency problems. The bank’s Kaizen events all share four characteristics:
– The purpose is to take a cross-functional view of the process or work area.
– Participants are people who are directly involved in, and usually responsible for, various parts of the process. The team is cross-functional.
– Participants are pulled off their jobs for several days at a time.
– The project is well-defined going in because there is not time to redefine the purpose or scope.
A Typical Kaizen Schedule
Here is a sample agenda which the bank uses for the five days:
Day 1 is an afternoon spent training participants on topics that cover basic concepts related to the goals of the project. This could include teaching relevant Lean or Six Sigma concepts and reviewing relevant data.
Day 2 is spent looking at the process with new eyes. Participants do a “unit walk,” a tour of operations affected by the problem or situation being studied where they simulate being a work item flowing through the process. The group visits each portion of the process, where, because there is cross-functional representation, they have the opportunity to hear insights from someone who works in that area. The group creates a value stream map
(a picture of the “as-is” situation) that captures the basic process steps, such as cycle times, number of steps, rework loops, queuing delays, work in progress (WIP) and transportation time.
Day 3 is designed around clarifying problems and brainstorming solutions. The team re-organizes the value stream (on paper) or creates a “should” map that depicts how the process would need to function to solve the identified problems. The outcome includes developing action plans for implementing solutions or trial simulations for the next day.
Day 4 is used to test the solutions, conducting a simulation within the operations if possible. The group quantifies the improvement if the proposed changes are implemented, using estimates of reductions in travel time, queuing time, work in process, number of steps, number of forms, and so on.
Day 5 is when participants prepare and present their findings to the sponsor in a formal report-out session.
Making It Work and the Results
The bank makes this model work by having its internal consultants (equivalent to Master Black Belts) partner with the manager/sponsor to pick problems that are extremely high priority, not only for that work area but also for the business as whole. This makes it much easier to justify taking people off their regular jobs. Also, the goal of the event is a little more modest than a traditional Kaizen. Instead of having solutions up and running full-bore after five days, teams are expected only to get through the simulation and piloting of solution ideas. The internal consultant will then assist the team with full-scale implementation.
In the many Kaizens this bank has run, it has achieved results such as:
Cycle-time improvements have ranged from 30 percent faster to nearly
95 percent faster, measured sometimes in minutes and other times in days. One administrative process went from 20 minutes to 12 minutes, and a complaint resolution process dropped from 30 days to 8 days.
Fiscal indicators have all been positive. One high-level project has allowed the bank to start charging for a service that previously was offered free to customers. New revenues are expected to total between $6 million to $9 million per year. Other projects have led to cost reductions or loss avoidance in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
An Alternative Kaizen Format
While consecutive days of intense work is the ideal, some companies have found it impossible to pull an entire work group, or even a subset of a work group, off the job for the better part of a week.
One company worked around this issue by using the following structure:
– The team was brought together for a brief meeting where the problem was explained and people brainstormed what they would need to know and understand in order to find solutions.
– The team leader, a Black Belt, and one team member then worked offline during a period of several weeks to gather data and refine the problem definition.
– The team was brought together for a day to rapidly analyze the problem and come up with complete action plans — not just ideas — for improvement.
– Since the changes likely would affect the everyday work of the team members, they and others were involved in making the changes real-time on the job, and establishing a control plan.
This alternative Kaizen structure works well in this company because:
– The company is still relying on the knowledge of the people who actually do the work.
– It is data-based decision making.
– The company starts with a narrowly defined problem or opportunity statement — often the participants may be examining how they can implement a Lean principle to their process, such as “How can we make information flow better?”
– The company takes steps to verify that the target is likely to bring important, measurable results. Random or “drive by” Kaizens, chosen with little forethought, may, at best, lead to local improvements, but will not contribute to significant value stream gains.
Conclusion: Concentrating on Creativity
Kaizen events are a powerful improvement tool because people are isolated from their day-to-day responsibilities and allowed to concentrate all their creativity and time on problem-solving and improvement. Companies which use Kaizens have found they generate energy among those who work in the area being improved, and produce immediate gains in productivity and quality.

6. What is “Cost of Quality”? Differentiate between external failure cost and internal failure cost.

Cost of Quality
Cost accounting is a most important function in many companies. All organizations measure and report costs as a basis for control and improvement. This is true for both types of organizations — For profit and Not for profit.
The concept of cost of Quality (COQ) has emerged in 1950s. The concept of Quality Costs is a means to quantify the total cost of Quality related efforts and deficiencies. This was first described by Armand V. Feigenbaum.
Generally, the people have the perception that higher quality involves higher costs, either for buying better raw materials or machines or by hiring expensive skills. Further more, while cost accounting had evolved to categorize the financial transactions in to revenues, expenses, overheads, it had not attempted to categorize the costs related to quality. Management is well served if the Quality related costs are segregated and reported so that the data can be evaluated to understand the impact of investments on quality related activities and focus better on the quality improvement activities to reduce the overall costs and enhance the profitability.
External Failure Costs
External failure costs are associated with deficiencies that are found after the customer receives the product. This also includes the lost opportunities for sales revenue. This cost will automatically disappear in the absence of the deficiencies.
Examples of this category:
– Warranty charges — Costs involved in repairs or making repairs to products that are still within the warranty period.
– Complaints — The cost of investigation and price adjustments that needs to be made in case the complaints are attributed to defective products or installation.
– Field returns — The costs associated with receipt and replacement of defective products received from the field.
– Penalties for poor quality : Damages to be paid to the customer
– Re-grading / down grading of the product: The cost of concessions made to the customer due to products supplied which are not fully compliant to the requirements, but accepted by the customer as re-grade / down grade.
Lost opportunities for sales revenue:
Customer lost: profits from the potential customers who have shifted to competitors.
Loss of new customers due to inefficient processes: profits lost from the potential customers because of in adequate processes to meet customer needs.
Internal Failure costs:
These are the costs of deficiencies discovered before delivery. These are associated with the failures to meet the requirements of customers (both explicit and implicit). These costs include avoidable process losses and process inefficiencies. Internal failure costs are broadly classified as
a) Costs of failures to meet customer requirements
b) Costs of Inefficient processes.
Examples of costs of failures to meet customer requirements:
– Rework — correcting defects in physical products or errors in services.
– Increased inspection — Finding defective units in a production lots that contain unacceptably high level of defectives.
– Re-inspection / re-test — Re inspection and re-test of products that has been reworked or modified.
– Scrap — The defective product that can not be repaired.
– Failure analysis — cost of analysis of defective products or services to determine causes.
– Down grading — Reduction in price because of poor quality
– Change in processes — cost of modifying manufacturing or service delivery process as part of corrective actions.
– Redesign in hard ware and soft ware — cost of changes in designs of hard ware and software to correct deficiencies.
Examples of Costs of Inefficient processes:
– Cost of unplanned down time of machines and equipments.
– Variation in the product characteristics from the specifications (variation within specification)
– Variations in process characteristics from the “best practices”
– Non-value added activities — like redundant operations, sorting operations.

Master of Business Administration – MBA Semester 3
QM0010 – Foundations of Quality Management
(4 credits)
(Book ID: B1240)
ASSIGNMENT- Set 2
Marks 60
Note: Each Question carries 10 marks
1. Differentiate between Quality control and Quality assurance.

Quality Assurance
Quality Assurancerefers to planned and systematic production processes that provide confidence in a product’s suitability for its intended purpose. It is a set of activities intended to ensure that products (goods and/or services) satisfy customer requirements in a systematic, reliable fashion. Quality assurance covers all activities from design, development, production, installation, servicing and other associated activities. This introduces the rule ”Right first time”. PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) approach is the most widely used concept in Quality Assurance. Quality Assurance is about improving and stabilizing the production and associated processes to eliminate or limit the defects from occurring, while the Quality Control is about inspection and testing and preventing the defects from getting delivered to the customers. However, QA does not necessarily eliminate the requirement for Quality control in terms of inspection and testing. An enterprise cannot produce all its input materials, and hence, has to depend on its vendor. An enterprise can make firm commitments to its suppliers with respect to quantity, quality and time of delivery, on the strength of the confidence it has in its vendors to keep up the commitment of their suppliers in respect of quality, quality and time of delivery. This role will rise in its importance and intensity especially when delivery of products and services earlier and faster than the competitors is a crucial factor in the economic survival of an enterprise.
Supplier’ quality affects the cost of manufacture. For example; it has been assessed in the light engineering industry that nearly 50% of the quality failures are traceable to components and sub-assemblies of outside suppliers. Likewise many avoidable add-on operations are undertaken to overcome quality deficiencies. Typical examples from a chemical industry are rewashing, grinding or recrystallization. In addition to the above mentioned conditions the following situations also exist:
(a) Dependence on ‘niche characteristics’ in some of the products.
(b) Dependence on proprietary items.
(c) Items from monopolistic sources.
(d) Items with exacting quality standards but their requirements per year being low and hence unattractive business wise.
All these reflect the challenges involved in ensuring a supply of right quality materials in the required quantity at the specified time.It should also be recognized that enterprises of world order who have attained their present day pre-eminent position in product quality and customer service, owe their position in no small measure to their esteemed and valuable suppliers. It has been possible to achieve this through a thoughtful and consistent approach to procurement of quality.
The following example indicates the near state-of-art trend and it relates to smaller subcontractors of the small subcontractors of Hitachi.
“There’s a Japanese maker of high precision dies that serves the burgeoning consumer electronics industry. The company’s name will not ring a bell. Over the past five years this small company has organized itself around an electronic network linking it to such giant electronics companies as Hitachi, and to a highly specialized family of suppliers (that is, sub-subcontractors). Designers at Hitachi sketch new part and send it by fax to the die maker. Die engineers review the sketch and, using computer-aided design, which is CAD systems; generate the specs, for a new die in a matter of hours. The sub-contract then decides whether to make the die itself or to sub-contract it to one of its suppliers (Sub-subcontractors), all of whose skills, current capacities and work-in-process have been logged into the electronic system. As often as not, the subcontractor chooses a supplier (sub-subcontractor), sends the specs along to them by fax, along with supplementary information about materials and stresses. The supplier, using advanced numerical control tools, makes the die, also in a matter of hours. It is not uncommon for Hitachi to get the die back for some parts in one day”.

2. What is Customer relationship management? Explain.

Berry defines CRM as “attracting, maintaining and — in multi-service organizations — enhancing customer relationships.”
Berry and Parasuraman define CRM as “attracting, developing and retaining customer relationships.”
In Industrial Marketing, Jackson defines CRM as “marketing oriented toward strong, lasting relationships with individual accounts.”
Doyle and Roth define CRMS as “the goal of relationship selling is to earn the position of preferred supplier by developing trust in key accounts over a period of time.”
The sequence of activities for performing relationship marketing would include developing core services to build customer relationship, customization of relationship, augmenting core services with extra benefits, and enhancing customer loyalty and fine-tuning internal marketing to promote external marketing success.
Christopher considers relationship marketing as “a tool to turn current and new customers into regularly purchasing clients and then progressively moving them through being strong supporters of the company and its products to finally being active and vocal advocates for the company.”
Relationship marketing is in essence “selling by using psychological rather than economic inducements to attract and retain customers. It seeks to personalize and appeal to the hearts, minds and purses of the mass consumers.”- James J. Lynch
Thus, “Customer Relationship Management is about acquiring, developing and retaining satisfied loyal customers; achieving profitable growth, and creating economic value in company’s brand,”
From the above definitions, it could be concluded that Customer Relationship Management refers to all marketing activities directed towards establishing, developing, and sustaining long lasting, trusting, win-win, beneficial and successful relational exchanges between the focal firm and all its supporting key stakeholders.
CRM is not a new concept but an age-old practice, which is on the rise because of the benefits it offers, especially in the present marketing scenario. So, CRM today is a discipline as well as a set of discrete software and technology which focuses on automating and improving the business process associated with managing customer relationships in the area of sales, marketing, customer service and support. CRM helps companies understand, establish and nurture long-term relationships with clients as well as in retaining current customers. The most important step that an organization has to take in the direction of CRM is to create an interdisciplinary team to review how the organization interacts with each customer and determine how to improve and extend the relationship.
Forms of Relationship Management
An extensive review of literature reveals ten different but interrelated forms of relationship marketing as mentioned below:
1. The partnering involved in relational exchanges between manufacturers and their external goods suppliers.
2. Relational exchanges involving service providers, as between advertising or marketing research agencies and their respective clients.
3. Strategic alliances between firms and their competitors, as in technology alliances; co-marketing alliances and global strategic alliances.
4. Alliances between a firm and non-profit organizations, as in public-purpose partnerships.
5. Partnerships for joint research and development, as between firms and local, state, or national governments.
6. Long-term exchanges between firms and ultimate customers, as particularly recommended in the services marketing area.
7. Relational exchanges of working partnerships as in channels of distribution.
8. Exchanges involving functional departments within a firm.
9. Exchanges between a firm and its employees, as in internal marketing.
10. Within firm, relational exchanges involving such business units as subsidiaries, divisions or strategic business units.
These different forms of relationship marketing both jointly and severally influence the emergence and growth of enduring long-term dyadic, triadic network, and web of relationships between the focal firm and its supporting key stakeholders.
Significance of Customer Relationship Management
– Reduction in customer recruitment cost.
– Generation of more loyal customers.
– Expansion of customer base.
– Reduction in advertisement and other sales promotion expenses.
– Increase in the number of profitable customers.
– Easy introduction of new products.
– Easy business expansion possibilities.
– Increase in customer partnering.
The customers are also benefited by relationship marketing in terms of improved service quality, personalized care, reduction of customer stress, increased value for money, customer empowerment, etc.
In today’s highly competitive business world, CRM is becoming the ultimate solution for both customers as well as organizations. Any organization must have a clear idea as to why it loses its customers. This would help informing proactive and reactive measures to minimize or avoid the same. This chapter mainly focuses on the causes responsible for losing customers and deals at length with the various strategies that can be employed to build and maintain long term relationship with customers, enabling a reader to consolidate relevant strategies suitable to his business context.
Traditional Organizational Chart Vs Modern Customer — Oriented Company Organization Chart

Many managers who believe that the customer is the key to profitability considered the traditional organization chart as in fig. (a) — a pyramid with the president at the top, management in the middle, and front-line people (sales and service people, telephone operators, receptionists) and customers at the bottom — to be obsolete. Master marketing companies know better; they invert the chart, as shown in fig. (b) above. At the top of the organization are the customers. Next in importance are the front-line people who meet, serve, and satisfy the customers. Under them are the middle managers, whose job is to support the front-line people so they can serve the customers well. Finally, at the base is top management whose job is to support the middle managers. We have added customers along the sides of Fig. (b) to indicate that all the company’s managers are personally involved in knowing, meeting, and serving customers.
Broadening the concept of Relationship Marketing Companies should realize that there are multiple constituencies important to organizational success other than customers. The stakeholders of an organization would include: investors, the financial community, vendors and suppliers, employees, competitors, the media, neighbors and community leaders, special interest groups, and government agencies. These stakeholders can affect and be affected by a company’s marketing programme. Adopting an integrated view of multiple constituencies has bottom-line implications. Kotler and Heskett (1992) found that firms that emphasized the interests of three constituencies—customers, employees and stakeholders outperformed those that emphasized only one or two.

Integration of Soft and Hard Versions of Relationship Marketing
At this juncture, it is necessary to clarify and elaborate the ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ versions of relationship marketing. Soft version of relationship marketing is more reminiscent of ‘humanistic relationship development’, whereas the hard version reflects a ‘utilitarian instrumentalism’. The soft version lays stress on the term ‘relationship’, thus conjuring up echoes of the relationship management, because it strongly advocates that all management is basically relationship management and all managers are relationship managers. It invariably focuses on ‘developmental humanism’ as a foundation to build and nurture enduring relationships in marketing exchanges. On the other hand, the hard version puts the stress on the idea of ‘marketing’, that is something to be used dispassionately and in a formally rational manner.

3. What is meant by Quality Audit? Explain the importance of Quality Audit.

Quality Audit – Meaning
The quality audit is a management tool used to evaluate, confirm or verify activities related to quality. A properly conducted quality audit is a positive and constructive process. It helps to prevent problems
A quality audit is necessary in order to
– Provide objective evaluation of compliance with the established procedures;
– Determine the adequacy of the exiting quality systems and procedures in
– Verify implementation of corrective action measures;
– Assess the progress on different tasks related to quality programme in the enterprise.
ISO 8402 (1986) defines quality audit. It is referred to as a systematic and independent examination to determine whether quality activities and related results company with planned arrangements and whether these are implemented effectively and are suitable to achieve objectives.
Quality Audit-Dimensions
Following are the three dimensions of quality audit:
a) Are the quality systems and procedures by themselves free from congenital that go counter to the concepts of quality?
b) Are the existing quality systems and procedures capable of achieving and maintaining the standards of quality chosen by the enterprise for a product or class of products? This need arises quite often and they are normally imposed by special market requirements: important major customer or regulatory agencies.
c) Are the systems and procedures being adhered to and complied with, in day-to-day work?
All these aspects of quality audit need to be taken up together. This process naturally covers the product and the process also, apart from the systems already referred to. Thus for example, quality audit while evaluating an inspection/test activity is not concerned with the type of decision-acceptance or rejection arrived at but on the soundness of the procedure adopted for inspection/test: ability of the very inspection/test method to help in reaching the correct decision.
Planning for Audit
The general guidelines for carrying out a quality assurance audit exercise are as follows:
a) Formulate a check-list of the deficiencies likely to be found in each area.
b) Conducted the assurance—evaluation on the spot where the activity is and through available data, documents, analysis, discussions with all concerned etc. to arrive at the right conclusions.
c) Peruse the quality crisis, if any, encountered by the company and the manner in which it sorted out the crisis. This gives important clues and ideas to improve quality measures.
d) Nominating the auditors.
e) Maintain proper human-relations to get the best possible information and create a congenial environment to receive the findings of the evaluation-exercise well.
f) Discuss the findings and suggestions with key personnel prior to submission of the report.
Audit Report and Follow-Up
Audit reports are normally written in standard formats. Prior to writing the reports, the audit team/auditor explains the findings/observations to the concerned functional heads and area personnel. Whenever a corrective action is being taken on the spot during the course of the audit, they are also recorded.
The audit funding sheet itself provides for the auditee to respond to the audit finding. Indicating what is the corrective action that is already taken or processed to be taken. Observations necessitating corrective actions from part of the audit report. The final report should contain the area audited, dates of audit, persons contacted, commendable features and recommendations.
Management must initiate appropriate action for correcting the shortcomings brought out in the report and implement the corrective actions suggested by the auditor. As a rule, every time an audit is carried out, its report must contain the status of implementation of the various pending corrective measures as per the previous reports.
Current Trend
Standards for quality management are brought out by many countries. The series of International Standards ISO 9000 to 9004 embodies a rationalization of many national standards for quality management system. The corresponding Indian Standards are IS 14000-14004.
As a first steps for an enterprise to become global, it is essential to have accreditation under ISO 9000 and then excel the equals through product differentiation and better customer service. Adequacy of meeting the requirements of ISO 9000 series can be evaluated first by in-house audit. After taking corrective measures and tuning the systems as well as the activities, the audit-accreditation as per ISO 9000 by any nominated agency can be taken up.

4. Write a note on the ISO 9000 series of Quality Standards and Malcolm Baldrige Criteria for Business Performance Excellence.

ISO 9000, ISO 14000 and COPC 2000
1. ISO 9000
ISO 9000 this is a series of international quality standards which serves as a guidance to suppliers and purchasers about the minimum requirements of a quality system. The first edition of ISO 9000 standards was completed in 1986 by ISO Technical Committee 176 and it was published in 1987. Ralli Wolf was the first company in India to get ISO 9001 certified in the year 1988 by BSI, UK. The number of ISO 9000 certified organizations in India was 554 in 2001, 8110 in 2002, 10,198 in 2003 (out of which 8367 were ISO 9000: 2000 certified) and presently approximately 12,000.The total number of ISO 9000 certified organizations throughout the world till end of 2003 were 5,67,985 .
The basic principle behind ISO 9000 is stated in Section 1-scope and Field of Application, which states: “The requirements specified are aimed primarily at achieving customer satisfaction by preventing non-conformity at all stages from design through servicing”
Three types of certifications are there in ISO 9000 depending upon the activities of the organization seeking the certification.
ISO 9001 this is the most comprehensive of the certificates for an organization engaging in development/design, production, installation, and servicing.
ISO 9002 this certification is provided to organization engaging in development/design, production, installation and servicing.
ISO 9003 this certification is provided to organizations involved only in final inspection and testing.
Two documents are provided by ISO as guidance to organizations for understanding various aspects of a good quality system. They are:
ISO 9000 this document explains principle concepts and applications and guide to selection and use.
ISO 9004 this document explains principle concepts and applications, guide to quality management and quality system elements.
2. Benefits of ISO 9000 Certifications:
A survey .conducted in 1997 with a sample randomly drawn from 2,000 ISO registered companies and a matched sample (size, industry, and scales) of non- ISO companies.
3. ISO and TQM
As a quality management methodology, how does ISO 9000 stack up against TQM and other methods? It is rudimentary. To put it another way, it is a first step, but it is the right first step. A company that truly wants to transform through quality management would do well to begin with ISO 9000. It meant in two senses. First, adopting ISO 9000 will be the equivalent of the first year of a TQM initiative. Second, adopting ISO 9000 requires a company to establish clear quality requirements and procedures, which is an essential step in preparation for the application of statistics to quality problems. In one way, ISO 9000 does move in a direction that is different from TQM. The emphasis on auditing — both internal and external — is greater. On one level, this simply reflects the fact that, in going for ISO 9000 registration, a company is setting out to prove that it has an effective quality system in place, rather than just allowing its products and customer service to demonstrate that to customers in the marketplace. On another level, it could reflect a deeper issue of corporate culture. In TQM, the way a culture of quality spreads through a company is through the influence and guidance of leadership. This is supported by high levels of training and by recruitment and indoctrination practices that select people who fit in well with corporate culture and values. This fits very well with Theory Y management. ISO 9000 is possibly more compatible with Theory X management. It relies more on independent validation proving that good work is being done, and less on influencing each worker to evoke a commitment to quality. It puts more resources into independent checking, and less into training. ISO 9000 can certainly be adapted to a TQM company at reasonable cost, because any TQM quality engineer can easily qualify to be an ISO 9000 quality auditor, and then offer services to other departments. But, if a company is in a situation where, due to culture or other factors, it cannot influence its entire company to accept TQM, then ISO 9000 might actually be preferable. For example, if a company uses consultants or brings in new employees or short-term project work, then ensuring quality through the ISO 9000 audit approach might be more effective than providing a lot of TQM training to people who will only be with the company for a relatively short time. Or if a company is organized as a loose cluster of acquired companies, it might be easier for the highest executive level to require ISO 9000 and support other initiatives, but allow the relatively independent operating groups leeway in choosing when and how to move quality beyond ISO 9000 to a total approach.
4. ISO 14000
ISO 14000 is a generic standard primarily concerned with ‘environmental management’. This refers to the steps an organization takes to minimize harmful effects on the environment caused by its activities and to continually improve its environmental performance. The number of ISO 14001 certified organizations in India were 400 in 2001, 605 in 2002, 879 in 2003 and presently approximately 1,100 which is way behind Japan and China. The total number of ISO 14001 certified organizations throughout the world till the end of 2003 were 66,070 Fig. 5.9 shows the top ten countries for ISO 14001 certificates (2003). Bureau of Indian standards (BIS) had formulated a standard called IS13967: 1993 on the environment management system (EMS) before ISO 14001 came into existence. The Indian Constitution contains provisions for environmental protection through its articles 48 A and 51A.
5. COPC-2000
COPC – 200 is a certification mark of Customer Operations Performance Centre Inc. USA and this standard was created in 1995-1996. World majors such as Microsoft, Compaq (now a part of Hewlett Packard), Intel, Novell, Dell, American Express, L L Bean, and Motorola were among the development team of this standard for improving the level of service provided by the customer serve providers (CPSs). This standard is based upon the United States’ Malcolm Baldrige National Quality award. However, a few changes were incorporated keeping in view the unique requirements of this industry. The CSP industry is composed by inbound and outbound customer contact centers (popularly known as ‘Call Centers”) that interact with customers using telephone, email, web text massing, or traditional mail or fax for providing services such as technical support, reservations, operator services etc.) fulfillment centers (providing services such as warehousing, light assembly, picking, packaging , and shipping) remittance processing Centre processing centers (providing credit card payment services), field service operations (dispatching service personnel to customer locations for repairing or replacing products covered under warranty/service contracts) and collection/recovery services. The certification process typically takes 9 to 18 months to complete an involves a rigorous audit by COPS to determine how well a CSP organization meets its client obligations as well as the requirements of the COPC 2000 standard. The Gold version of this standard is slightly more advanced compared to its Base version as it contains some extra sub-clauses that have raised compared to its Base version as it contains some extra sub-clauses that have raised the performance bar for the CSP organizations keeping in view the rising internal competition.
ICICI one source, one of India’s leading third-party BPO service providers and a member company of ICICI Bank, India’s largest private sector bank became the world’s first BPO service provider to achieve COPC-2000 CSP Certification for back-office processing. In addition to back-office processing services, ICICI One Source also received full (COPC) customer Operations Performance Centre Certification for its inbound customer contact Centre services.
Malcolm Baldrige Criteria for Business Performance Excellence
Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) is an annual award presented by the President of US to US organizations in recognition of their performance excellence in Quality. It promotes a) awareness of quality as an increasingly important element in competitiveness b) a clear understanding of the requirements for the quality excellence and
c) encourages sharing of information of their success stories for the benefit of other organizations.
Even just the process of competing for the award has helped many companies to define what the quality means to them. Many organizations who have competed but did not win, have realized that by practicing the seven categories of the award and its evaluation system as a technique to measure their Total Quality Management [TQM] efforts have paid the rich dividends and efforts did not go as waste. They also learnt about their organizational strength and weaknesses and acted upon to improve operations.
Various TQM models are available to industry such as MBNQA, Deming Application award, European Quality award, etc. While their approaches are different, each of them is concerned with the proper adoption of TQM principles for organizational synergy. MBNQA, which is most popular and widely used world over, as it provides an integrated system of seven category’s of processes of TQM and has been a bench mark standard for total quality.
This type of Benchmarking and performance against other leading performers who have won the award in their area of operations, has helped improve the performance practices and capabilities, Facilitated communication and sharing of best practices information among US organizations, and Served as a working tool for understanding and managing performance, planning, training and assessment.
Criteria of various awards including this MBNQA, provide additional resource, beyond ISO9000, for implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM) in an organization
1. Objectives
The following are the objectives of MBNQA:
– To establish guidelines that can be used by all agencies in evaluating Quality improvement efforts
– To help American companies to attain excellence in quality and productivity
– To improve company’s performance capabilities & their competitiveness
– To make organizations to focus on the market and offer ever-improving value to customers
– To Guide organization through its values, vision, mission, and set goals
– To Change the organization from function focused to customer focused.
– To make organizations to believe in continuous improvement
– To encourage and empower people to work in teams
– To promote a transparent leadership process for achieving excellence
– To gather information from the winners about the quality improvement actions and results etc. and provide them as rewarding guidelines to other organizations.
2. Categories Considered For Awards
A maximum of two awards can be given each year in each of the categories. Two new categories namely health care and education were added to the Baldrige award program. This addition shows the growing recognition and the importance shown for managing quality in service sectors.
– Awards are made annually in the following five categories:
– Manufacturing companies
– Service companies
– Small businesses
– Health Care
– Education
3. Criteria for Performance Excellence
The result oriented goals of performance excellence are designed to achieve improved value to customers apart from improving the organizational capability. These are derived from the following set of core values and concepts.
– Focus on Customer driven quality
– Leadership to address core values and empower employees for performance excellence
– Continuous Learning process and improvement
– Employee participation and development in each area of operations
– Fast response to change and results
– Design for quality and prevention of deficiencies
– Long-range view of the future to sustain & compete
– Corporate responsibility and citizenship
– Result orientation
4. Key Result Areas of Business Performance
Each of the seven criteria is directed towards results in the following seven key areas of business performance.
1. Customer satisfaction/ retention.
2. New market development. and its market share
3. Product and service quality
4. Productivity and operational effectiveness.
5. Human resource performance
6. Supplier development and performance
7. Public responsibility / Corporate-citizenship.
The result oriented goals of performance excellence are designed to achieve improved value to customers apart from improving the organizational capability. These are derived from the following set of core values and concepts.
1) Focus on Customer driven quality
2) Leadership to address core values and empower employees for performance excellence
3) Continuous Learning process and improvement
4) Employee participation and development in each area of operations
5) Fast response to change and results
6) Design for quality and prevention of deficiencies
7) Long-range view of the future to sustain & compete
Corporate responsibility and citizenship
9) Result orientation
MBNQA provides a plan to keep improving all operations continuously. It is also a well-recognized system to measure these improvements accurately. Bench marks are used to compare the organizational performance with the world’s best and to establish competitive goals. Performance excellence in their area of operations by using appropriately adopting all the seven criteria into their operations is the ultimate goal for the corporate leaders. A close partnership with suppliers and customers is required for improvements in the operations. Management from top to bottom is committed to improving quality and work for the long lasting relationship with the customers so that their wants are translated into products and services. Preventing mistakes and looking for improvement opportunities is required to be built into the culture. There is a major investment in human resources by means of training, motivation and empowerment. According to Dr. Juran who studied the winners of the award, the gains reckoned by the companies in terms of performance excellence, which includes quality, productivity and cycle time are remarkable and this is achieved across large and small US organizations and by US workers.

5. Describe the various tasks which help to build a healthy association and partnership with the suppliers.

Following are some of the concepts and tasks which help to build a healthy association and partnership with the suppliers:
– Togetherness
– Vender development
– Ex-employees as vendors
– Vendor control
– Vendor incentive
– Vendor rating
– Vendor selection and capability
1. Togetherness
This is a concept of establishing an emotional bond on sound ethical business lines to promote understanding, cooperativeness and long-term interests of the enterprise and its suppliers instead of the commonly found adversarial, legal/litigant types.
A spirit of togetherness is built through the following:
(a) Manual respect between the enterprise and its suppliers free from “big brother” attitude;
(b) Mutual recognition of the need for each other free from a “patronizing” approach;
(c) Fair and open dealings;
(d) Reasonable price; mutually acceptable terms and condition linked to quantity, service.
Instead of attempting to prepare such a vendor policy, it is better to implement it straight away for all to see and fall in line. The real test of the existence of a policy of ‘togetherness’ comprises of the following:
– To be a vendor on the list of vendors of an enterprise is equivalent to having won recognition, honour and prestige.
– Likewise the enterprise must also take pride in looking upon the suppliers as knowledgeable and helpful business associates, no matter how small they are in terms of their investment and turnover.
– No mushrooming of several suppliers for one class of product but only a few, well-know suppliers in their field of specialty.
– Suppliers have a long association with the enterprise.
– Suppliers deem it as an honour to have on its road, a senior executive of the enterprise and vice-versa.
2 Vendor development
Vendor development is a familiar route of acquainting the potential candidate with all the details about the product to be supplied right from its material of construction to all its specifications, and their relative importance; placing a trial order after critical evaluation of initial samples; de-bugging followed by repeat trial order or semi-commercial order; and after successful execution, qualifying for commercial order. The concern at each of these stages should be one wanting to develop the potential candidate as a vendor for the enterprise.
This concern should be such that if a potential candidate were to fail to quality himself to become a vendor he should himself feel convinced that he was not up to the mark in spite of all the help given to him by the enterprise.
3. Ex-employees as vendors
Over a period of time an enterprise would have on its roll a number of employees under the category ‘solid-citizens’ who are competent and capable with proven track record, good as entrepreneurs, deserve to be promoted but cannot be, due to organizational limitations and due to drawback of the employee. One of the effective ways to handle this situation is to provide opportunities to the entrepreneurial solid-citizens to become ‘vendors’ of the enterprise. If this principle is accepted many proposals and schemes can be formulated in implementing the principle and infact many schemes are readily available for the purpose.
Many advantages are there in this in this approach. The sense of ‘togetherness’ that is already there would get further reinforced; time and effort needed to assess the capability and develop the vendor are not required and the chances of having a reliable source are very high. There have been quite a large number of instances of ex-employees turning out to be reliable vendors with advantage to the enterprise.
4. Vendor control
This is the most important and crucial phase in the assurance of procurement quality.
The principle of control is the one already discussed ‘self-control’. In the present context, it is the control by vendor himself instead of controlling him for conformance to supplying as per the terms of quality, quality and delivery schedule.
The purpose of control is primarily the following:
– to do away with re-inspection/ evaluation of materials at the enterprise:
– to straightaway accept materials supplied on the basis of certification of quality given by the vendor:
– to ultimately attain a stage, whereby materials reach in time to facilitate their being used up immediately without having to reinsert, store, re-issue with all the attendant documentation at different points of transaction. This is the familiar concept of Japanese JIT (just-in-Time).
The means of control need to be nurtured on right lines. Some of the key-points to be taken note are as follows:
(i) Vendor being made fully aware of the product that he would supply.
(ii) Being assured that the vendor has been made aware of:
a. Product specifications fully
b. Importance of the specifications in terms of the way they affect quality of the end-product
c. How his product is going to be used. What role it is going to play and how important are the various parameters of the product of his supply as stipulated in the specifications
d. Method of inspection/evaluation of product with respect to each of its specifications
e. Recommended processing method
f. Quality practices and procedures recommended for his use to prevent defects at source avoid rejections and ensure conformance to specification during manufacture at his plant.
g. Method of component identification batch wise so that re-call and tracing at a later stage, if need be, are easy
h. Type of quality data required to b furnished y the vendor with each supply including special certification like metallurgical analysis, source of material used etc. and
i. Formats for furnishing quality data.
(iii) In depth joint evaluation and analysis on the assessment that processes employed and their capability are in fact adequate to meet the product specification. In case they do not, provide alternative processes to be adopted, and if such a rout is not possible, laying down clear cut procedures for classifying the product stream into acceptable and not acceptable at the vendor’s plant and ensuring dispatch of only the acceptable stream.
Clearly laying down beforehand the rules on ‘permitted’ down —grading of product; repairs and salvage operations and also the ones not permitted; fool proofing procedures to ensure that these requirements are in fact adopted by the vendor. This is primarily to meet any ‘emergent’ or ‘crisis’ situation and not as a matter of routine activity.
5. Vendor incentive
Vendors need to be given encouragement. It takes different forms. The important requirements for operating the different incentives are that they must be given to the deserving ones: and the recipient must also feel its need and derive benefit through them. The different incentives commonly practiced are:
– Increasing the order quantity
– Favorable terms of payment
– Bonus for the good and consistent overall performance on quarterly or half-yearly basis
– Extending the business to other items
– Recommending to other organizations
– Lending of instruments/gauges: providing technical help
– Providing ‘expert’ services not necessarily connected with ‘items of supply’ but on such matters like advice on IR matters, running of canteen, welfare measures etc.
– Extending financial support through financing and/or as guarantor
– Extending assistance in getting technology support for up gradation or a new one through collaboration
The emerging vender incentive trend is one wherein a substantial portion of an order is earmarked to the ones who have won national recognition/ awards in quality achievement.
6. Vendor rating
Objectivity and fairness are the bedrock on which a lasting relationship with suppliers needs o the built. Vendor rating is a quantification exercise that provides a basis for establishing objectivity and fairness. Objective evaluation of the vendors’ performance on regular order is required not only as a feedback but also for review of approved vender lists. For these purpose, vender rating is useful. Vendor rating is a means to arrive at a composite score covering price, quality and service associated with the product supplied. The maximum score one can get is 100. Rating close to 100 indicates that the supplier has performed well on all the three scales of the rating. Vendor rating of different suppliers with respect to the same or similar class of products bring out the relative distances at which they are placed between themselves and also from ideal score of 100.
It is to be noted that vendor performance rating (VPR) is different from product rating.VPR is not meant to be used for acceptance of material, but to review, compare and select vendor. It helps in identifying vendors who may have to be dropped from approved lists or those who need assistance for improving their performance. Thus VPR provides a basis for objective comparison. This apart it indicates the ‘area’ of improvement by each supplier.
7. Vendor selection and capability
Unless the vendor is basically capable of achieving the desired quality standards, his supplies are bound to be deficient in quality with inevitable consequences. This aspect has not received much attention. Considerations which prevail most often are low quotations, misplaced faith on source inspection, convenience of procurement e.g. through stockiest or traders, achieving import substitution targets etc. Even where approved vender lists are followed, in the process of approval, the concern for quality and service are casual. No attempt is made to assess the venders’ capability to meet the required quality standards on a continuous basis during regular order.
It is necessary to restrict purchases to qualified and approved venders only. The qualification process should assess the vendor’s quality capability through some or all of the following means:
a) Information supplied by or available on the vendor
b) Vendor plant survey.
c) Trial order/sample.
Where data banks on vendors are available, information can be pooled for several vendors. Such pooling can be done by;
1. Several division of a large company such as BHEL, HMT, TISO, TELCO, TVS etc.
2. Governmental agency e.g. on behalf of all big Public Sector Plants.
3. Several companies within one industry.
Capability has to be assessed with care, caution and thoroughness. Apart from the usual parameters like financial stability, economic performance, business standing in the society etc., the following need to be considered for purpose of reliability of quality suppliers.
– Technical competence and skills available.
– Responsiveness and adaptability to meet the changing needs.
– Technology available; process followed and their proven capability to the meet product specifications.
– Measurement and gauging support.
– Quality system and procedures followed.

6. Assume that you are a Quality manager in a large manufacturing company and you are thinking of implementing TQM in your Company. What are the various barriers you may face for such initiative? List out such barriers to Quality. How do you plan to overcome such barriers?
Barriers / Obstacles to Quality
– The barriers/obstacles to implement TQM seem endless. The barriers are found never-ending with plenty of issues. In fact it starts from top management itself and flows down to all working levels. This is so in all business sectors, whether they are manufacturing, services, government and even education.
– The question is: Is there any way to adopt TQM and finally overcome these barriers? Therefore, it is important for organizations to understand these barriers first and avoid them both before and during the TQM implementation.
Main Groups of barriers: The barriers to quality could be grouped under four:
Physical: (Processes, Tools, & Structures, Organization design & Management perspectives)
Infrastructure: (Strategy, Measurements, Rewards, Systems & Procedures)
Behavioural (What groups or individual do)
Cultural: (Deeply held Assumptions, Values, Beliefs, & Norms. attitudes, values and beliefs
– The above four groups with inclusive elements are shown in the following figure

Fig. 10.1: Four Organizational Levels and Its Elements
– The Barriers/obstacles of the groups are discussed with feasible actions to overcome such hindrance factors. While many such obstacles are interrelated, it and may be difficult to categorise them exactly to any one specifically.
Physical/ Management Perspectives
– Some of the attributes that may pose threat as barriers, which requires positive actions from the management, are listed below.
1. Lack of management commitment/lack of leadership
2. Inability to change the mind set (paradigms) of top management
3. Inability to maintain momentum for the transformation
4. Lack of uniform management style
5. Lack of long term Corporate directions
6. Inability to change the culture of an organization
7. Lack of effective communication
8. Lack of discipline require to transform
9. Incompatible Organizational Structure
10. Isolated Individuals and Departments
11. Who’s responsible? Inadequate Empowerment and Teamwork
12. Setting Priorities
13. Paying Inadequate Attention to Internal and External Customers
14. Ineffective Measurements, Lack of Access to Data & Results
15. Organizational Politics
16. Lack of time
– The above barriers along with proposed/feasible solutions to overcome them are highlighted side by side
Lack of Management commitment & good leadership:
– Lack of management commitment will stop quality management efforts. Impeding quality management create a situation called the ‘slow death’. The slow death is similar to a plant whose parts like leaves, branches and the trunk has natural inclination to grow, but the gardener neglects and allow that plant to have a slow death. Therefore the gardener (top management) must create and direct energy necessary to transform an organization.
– When management commitment is missing, organizations will experience low employee’s participation in TQM programs.
– There are two sources for energy, ‘a crisis or a vision’. Certain companies begin a program of QM as a reaction to the crisis, which may reflect on the organization’s inability to be competitive due to low quality and productivity, etc.
– Top management can uncover and bring to the forefront the real or potential crisis through a probing question in a brain storming session to make their employees to understand the real crisis and ask them commit for quality, productivity etc. Top management should develop a transformation plan.
– Another method is to transform via a vision. A vision can stimulate top management to expend energy needed to transform & as a rallying point for the creation of quality. A vision should inspire people to take action to transform their organization and should have long term purpose. The top management should initiate action via a crisis and or a vision process, synthesize the study and digest the crisis being faced and then formulate and articulate the vision of the organization, thus promoting commitment to transformation.
– Next issue is the Leader of the team. Is he committed to quality? Without a good leadership, quality success is likely to be doomed. Lack of evidence of this commitment at the leader level may result in damaging results.
Lack of communication:
– Eliminating communication barriers between management can improve production and increase product and service quality.
– Communication barriers can prove detrimental particularly those that isolate departments and individuals can prove detrimental.
– Both Employees and management need to know “what’s going on” to be effective. So also customers and suppliers need to be involved.
– Communication being a management responsibility and one of the major barriers to quality, top management should answer certain questions like:
– Does the organization design support or inhibit quality achievement?
– Is quality recognized as a problem?
– Is the focus right for achieving quality?
– Is the mindset holistic or reductionist?
– What is the relative health of organization’s Quality improvement initiative?
– What are the areas of strength, “assets” that support & reinforce quality improvement efforts?
– In which areas they failing in sustaining its quality improvement philosophy
– Are you seeing the Quality results you had hoped for?
– Top management’s commitment, support to total quality management program and proper communication will soften the barriers and promote team work
– Removing barriers will increase employee’s perception of organization. Work satisfaction will improve as employees will make better use of their resources.
Incompatible Organizational Structure
– Autocratic organizational structure and policies can lead to implementation problems. If organizational structure is a problem and incompatible, then it should be restructured for the expected outcomes.
Isolated Individuals & Departments
– Teamwork is an essential part of the TQM environment. When TQM principles are used, the isolation of individuals and departments will dissolve over time. Team work for problem solving by using SQC tools will analyse the root cause and easily solve them, thus taking advantage of their teamwork efforts.
Ineffective Measurement Techniques, Lack of Data and Results
– Ineffective measurement techniques or the absence of a measurement process, maintaining inaccurate data, and lack of access to data may run as counter measure to TQM principles. Hence, quick, easy access to data is important; data retrieval must be efficient, not time-consuming or labour-intensive.
– Further, decision makers must also receive training in data analysis and interpretation so that the measurement system will serve its intended purpose.
Paying Inadequate Attention to Internal and External Customers
– Organizations must pay attention to both their internal and external customers and understand their needs and expectations. Managers may assume about customer needs and expectations, resulting in misdirected efforts and investments. This brings in customer dissatisfaction and labour mistrust.
Not defining the ‘Quality’ properly:
Many companies are confused in defining quality. A specified definition by the management will help others to understand the meaning of quality and work for it.
Focus on quick fix:
– Management is under constant pressure to find and fix problems quickly, with immediate results. Instead, they must provide a long-term focus and look towards the future. Organizational should focus on quality problems & solution.
Who’s responsible?
– The focus is on “who’s responsible” for ‘what’ and “how can we prevent this problem from occurring in the future?” Or can I shift the problem to someone else? In other words, the responsibility on quality aspects must be spelt out and owned rather than passing the buck. This approach is a barrier in itself.
What do you know and don’t know?
– ‘What’ we know and don’t know about people, equipment, processes, products, and services is a barrier. Managers should know ‘what is known and what is unknown’, and plan for the right training. Management must provide employees with the opportunity to really do their job and have pride in their workmanship.
Failure to understand the Skeptism
– People inside have seen the previous programs, have failed and management fails to understand the conviction of a) the need for quality effort b) determination to make efforts a success.
– Any exhortation approach with work may not help as motivational technique and to inspire everyone to do better may not be forthcoming.
Failure to fix a problem
Certain issues/problems with human resource, the management vs. leadership, processes/procedures/systems that are adopted may hinder the quality movement. Treatment should not be on symptoms by overlooking the real problem. The manager’s role is to fix problems properly & solve totally.
Number (output) counting
– In production, looking at output numbers is given the priority. Managers forget the emotions and hearts of the employees. On the other side they should look into value of a satisfied customer/ unhappy customer. Hence management needs to focus on the right numbers, not just numbers they wish to.
Setting Priorities:
– Setting priorities of the work to be accomplished by the associates is the primary responsibility of the manager. This brings in a long run relationship and creates stability. Here too communication plays an important role.
Short and single sightedness:
– Concentrating on issues rather that identifying and removing root causes will not help achieve the desired results
Organizational Politics:
– Internal competition, the “know-all” attitudes from seniors, no pro activeness; ego-clashes, jealousy, fear complex, feeling threatened by competency, looking for power and popularity et al, and such other human resource problems are going to diminish the organizational strength, its culture and the positive growth.
Rigidity:
– Not being flexible and adaptable poses serious problems in implementation.
Infrastructure:
– Here the discussion is on the factors that support or inhibits in pursuit of quality and what are the barrier and how to overcome them. Some of the barriers are
1)Lack of financial and human resources
2)Improper Planning
3)Lack of continuous training and education
4)Education and self improvement requirements for transformation
Lack of an infrastructure for quality:
– Have management successfully planned and provided for all infrastructural facilities for achieving the desired quality of the products or services and delegated the responsibility through an mechanisms with clear quality goals for carrying out the plans, budgets and provision for recognition and rewards etc. Barriers if any, in this vital operational requirement must be totally removed.
Improper Planning
– Lack of clarity in the implementation plan creates another barrier. Failure to promote open dialogue among the participants kills the TQM initiatives.
– Implementation problems can be overcome with proper planning. Say for example of a successful planning of a TQM of a) obtain total commitment; b) communicate vision, mission, goal, about the new focus.
– The plan should remain flexible, however, so that adjustments and improvements can be made as the quality culture evolves.

Education and self improvement requirements for transformation
– Once the organization commits for transformation, its members enter a stage of education and self improvement and hence the top management need to promote and coordinate these for organizational transformation.
– Education and self improvement among its entire human resources will help remove the Management’s fears.
– Educating and promoting self improvement being both an exciting and a frightening process, will make its group members to understand how the system of profound knowledge might affect organizational and personal decision making.
– The salient features of components of the system of profound knowledge are:
a) System theory: involves defining a system, understanding who is responsible for results, understanding the inter dependence among the components of the system and the need to optimize the entire system
b) The theory of variation: understanding causes of variation and knowing responsibility for teach type of variation, capability of a process, and to predict a process’s future output.
c) The theory of knowledge: understanding how to acquire process knowledge, how to develop knowledge on operational requirements
d) Psychology: understanding 1) people 2) the interaction between and people and circumstances, 2) people’s learning in different ways and different speeds and 3) intrinsic and extrinsic motivations.
Lack of Continuous Training and Education
– Training and education is an ongoing process that facilitates continuous quality improvement in any organization. Leaders involved in the TQM implementation should identify the educational needs of the organization and meet those needs efficiently and cost-effectively. Lack of continuous training and education puts up barriers on effective and efficient working of individuals.
Behavioural (What Groups and Individuals Do)
– Behaviour of individuals and groups has to be analysed and barriers if any must be removed and related problems must be resolved quickly. Some of the barriers that may result from the behaviour of individuals and groups is listed below
– Identifying and resolving personal Barriers to transformation.
– Fear of loss of individuality, rigidity, scrutiny by supervisor and the process standardization
– Passive resistance to change
Identifying and resolving personal Barriers to transformation
– Each members of the organization should identify and resolve any issues that create barriers to the transformation. The following beliefs and satisfying them may resolve barriers/obstacles
1) Extrinsic motivators brings the best in people
2) Focusing on improvement of results
3) Effective rational decisions based on majority opinions & visible figures
4) Quantity is inversely related to quality
5) Management’s function is to construct, execute and control plans
6) Competition is superior to cooperation
7) Winners and losers are necessary in any interaction
– Each member should examine his or her opinions/ beliefs; Identify and resolve personal barriers in the transformation process of an organization,
‘One for me’ — Fear syndrome.
Selfish motive, a behaviour aspect, gets priority over good decisions. It may give raise to a symptom of fear of losing a job and other anxieties. This can create deeper problem like lack of teamwork etc. Deming calls this “driving out fear so that everyone can work for the company.”
Inadequate Use of Empowerment and Teamwork
– Ineffective teams that fail to stay focused or complete their tasks in time reflects inefficiency. To be effective, teams need to be trained regarding a mission or purpose, a time frame for completing the project, responsibilities being delegated etc and empower them to take decisions, This sends a positive message to employees about the importance of empowerment and teamwork.
Avoid TQM Barriers by Understanding Them
– Barriers occur to varying degrees and with varying frequency in every organization. Most of the employees can exercise far more creative, responsible self directive and self controlled action in their particular job. This individual behaviour should be optimized in group working
– Awareness of barriers in group working and understanding behaviour of individuals working in groups, will enable quick solution to problems. This brings better understanding of the team improves group behaviour.
Passive Resistance to change, sustain & stabilize:
=> Passive resistance to change to any new suggestions/ideas/practices will always be there with all working in the organization, at different levels to different scales. Change for better is the slogan. Everything on this earth changes, why not people, why not attitudinal changes, why not behavioural changes etc. The required prime mover as ‘change engine’ are to be planned by the management. All the barriers/obstacle that may come in the way of TQM because of attitudinal changes must be removed .
=> Some of the reasons for such resistance by people may be attributed to: a) Some people fear loss b) Some people mistrust those who lead.
c) Some people disagree on the change. d) Some people don’t tolerate change.
=> To Introduce the Change, the following trigger process may help:
– Ask people to solve the “problem.”
– Offer solutions and strategies.
– Work together to co-create a shared change vision.
– Guide people for the positive outcomes.
– Listen to people’s objections, concerns, fears, and acknowledge
– Invite people to offer ideas & realize the benefits.
– Integrate their ideas for improving change.
=> Change Process: After triggering, next process is to create a felt need, so that the workforce will start thinking about the change, as shown in the fig. Below:

Fig. 10.2: Change Process
=> The above said process involves:
1) Identify what needs to be changed and why it must be changed
2) Identify the problem that needs to be solved.
3) Impart them the data of the successes and failures.
4) Identify the consequences of not solving the problem
5) Introduce the Change, ask them to change and solve the problem
=> Leading Change: The figure given below details the process of:
a) Creating a felt need,
b) Introduce change and what are its consequences
c) Finalize the change plan, reconcile differences & Stabilize
d) Reinforce to build/sustain employee’s commitment and ownership
=> The following process will help stabilize and sustain the Change
1) Develop action steps for stabilizing, reinforcing, & sustain change
2) Provide skill and knowledge training
3) Revise job descriptions
4) Develop new reward systems based on performance measures
5) Make adjustments to the change vision and strategy
6) Prepare and Challenge people for the next change.
=> Revise and Finalize the Change with the following action plans’
– Help people identify/explore opportunities
– Define the future of the change for individuals & organization
– Invent creative solutions to the challenges
– Encourage people to find answers to their questions about the change.
– Adjust the change vision, strategy, and plan
Organizational Culture [Is the culture supportive of quality?]
=> The organizational culture is the set of values, beliefs, assumptions, principles, myths, legends, and norms that define how people actually think, decide, and perform in the organization. How these fundamental assumptions and related issues shape in an organization is depicted in the picture below.
Cultural Artefacts:
=> Artefacts are the outward manifestations of the culture and the physical evidence of the powers that drive the organization.
a) Types of artefacts: Behaviours, goals, plans, dress, hours of work, rules, policies, practices, systems, structures, and mechanisms that describe what the culture is and what it is now.
b) Espoused Values — what organization says is important, what it values
c) Tacit Assumptions — the unspoken shared assumptions that define how things really work in the organization
d) A Healthy Culture: A culture is healthy/effective to the extent that it enables an organization to achieve its objectives/goals (especially survival and integration).
e) An Unhealthy Culture: When the external or internal environment demands a change and the prevailing beliefs, assumptions, and norms held by members stifle the innovation, the emergence unhealthy cultures marginalize the challenge and it disables or prevents the organization from achieving its goals.

Fig. 10.3 Cultural Artefacts
Inability To Change Organizational Culture
=> Many have found that changing a company’s culture to reflect TQM is a difficult task and requires enormous time. To bring TQM into a company’s corporate culture, first, the fear of change must be removed, poor labour-management relations must be resolved, and the company’s focus must be beyond the status quo. For an organization’s culture to change, the effort must be continuous and focused. Management must be committed to the program and support all change efforts. They must identify and address inconsistencies in the organization.
10.4 Overcoming Barriers
=> A strong knowledge and awareness in the Leadership coupled with a drive for excellence and growth, proactively, will reap high success to the organization. The manager’s job is to create an environment in which excellent workmanship flows. All the means and ways must be found to overcome any obstacles/barriers/hindrances that may come in the way of progress and growth of the organization
=> Some of the methods/tools, techniques, and best practices to overcome certain types of barriers are discussed and these are in addition to the 10.4 to 10.6 above.
Use of the Drivers of Success to overcome barriers:
=> Some of the drivers that are essentials to achieve success and identified areas for overcoming obstacles/barriers in quality across are discussed below:
– Senior management commitment and involvement.
– Leadership and active commitment to continuous improvement at all levels
– Focusing on the needs of customers and stakeholders.
– Establishing clear and effective measurement and feedback systems.
– Learning from continuous improvement results and capturing and sharing learning throughout the organization.
– Establishing a culture for continuous improvement and high involvement
– Focusing on people-front line and developing employee ownership for quality.
– Focusing on critical processes — including major business processes
– Standardizing achievements & documented quality management system
A Step by Step Approach:
=> To create a sound quality culture across the organization, managers should have their own approach plans. The activities involved shown below, may to some extent fade the barriers. These steps emerged from the company’s experiences in human resource management and adopted as an active approach to quality improvement and remove the obstacles.
1. Show what’s expected and required,
2. Involve people and Encourage employees
3. Take a long-term approach,
4. Focus on teamwork and Train thoroughly,
5. Use problem-solving processes,
6. Communicate and Try different approaches.
Brain storming process:
=> The simplest method to generate ideas is brainstorming process. Given a specific area to improve or problem to solve, as many ideas as possible should come up to solve. This method encourages innovation, invention, and creativity; and it could produce solutions, thus removing the foreseen and unforeseen barriers
The process mapping technique
=> This process Involves creation of flowchart to pinpoint where the problems arises and identify areas that could be improved. Mapping is particularly useful for spotting bottlenecks and to remove unnecessary barriers in the operations.
Kaizen:
=> Kaizen is a Japanese set of techniques which promotes efficiency as a means to higher quality. Any process deemed to be wasteful resources are removed, and the process is refined/improved upon, monitored by the team to ensure that changes are adhered to, transformation happens, removes impediments and continuous improvements takes place. This reduces barriers
Use of QC Tools:
=> It is possible to overcome the barriers by treating symptoms and focusing on a quick fix through a logical problem-solving process. By using QC tools like Cause and Effect Diagrams, and Force Field Analysis, the problems can be broken to manageable pieces, solve, and implement corrective measures.
Involve people
=> People involved in the decision-making process take more responsibility for finding and implementing solutions. A team’ process makes individuals to contribute to the long-term success of a business, thus overcoming barriers. Involving people throughout the organization can help overcome these barriers.
Take a long-term approach
=> Short-term outlook generally creates problems instead of overcoming. A long-term plan is important to success. Of course, answer depends on the situation.
Start …all
The Quality Improvement requires change which can become a barrier if forced upon too many people, too quickly. Limitations should be reckoned.
Focus on teamwork
It is easy to have a group, but more difficult to build a team. Teams need training on aspects of: how people work together, how teams function, what process will be used, and group dynamics. This teamwork help overcome many barriers
Encourage employees
Good leader is an encourager and his role is to involve with people and encourage activities in quality improvement. An effective manager is a positive motivator, who will stop barriers to penetrate further.

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