Business Issues and Quality Management - Assignment Example

Running Head: Business Issues and Quality Management Case Study University Name: Task One a) ABC p/c quality policy is its unlimited commitment in provision of products that are of higher quality and offering would class status to its clients this is every much in line with corporate mission of ABC p/c which is achieving prolonged market growth through high quality products that are competitive in cost and are supported by excellence in customer service. Through its unending commitment in high quality provision the policy wholly supports the company’s corporate mission. Quality services in the much competitive industry with considerable growth year after the other an idea that is fully backed by the mission statement. b) Total quality management are necessary measures that are put in place by a company in order to ensure clients satisfaction through availing enough quality goods at their disposal. This also involves regulating prices to make sure that they are sensitive to the prevailing market prices of similar products i.e. prices are not too high but the prices set should not compromise with the quality. Total quality management imply that products manufactured attain global status in levies of quality with efforts being employed year after the other to ensure non fading quality of products. It encompasses new innovations aimed at continuous quality improvement. All the business stakeholders must take part in ensuring that the initiative of continued improvement is met with new inputs and research collections based on how to adequately improve quality on services & products. To achieve these workers are very helpful in the production of goods and services issuance with the management personnel being very resourceful and market research is undertaken as well as provision of funds to cater for the improvement initiatives. Customers are equally important since they give the feedback to the company about the services offered helping the company to make adjustment where necessary through process measurements. The quality management will help in identifying any problem whatsoever thus offering continuous problems identification and solutions to any arising anomalies. c) To achieve the stated policy it is important that ABC p/c employee undergo some training on efficiency. This should bee in regular intervals through the year where the company should send some employees for training through external training e.g. participation in external seminars or internal training conducted through seminars workshops and symposiums within the company. Employees should be well remunerated so as to adequately motivate them in their duty of quality provision this should include offering presents to the most hardworking. The management should recognize any initiatives for the employees aimed at high quality production and such moves should be highly encouraged and applauded. The company should assist the employees in setting goals, providing goals achieving techniques, allocate well demonstrated guidelines on achieving goals and rewarding each employee according to his/ her goal attainment level. 2 a) ABC p/c can adopt a method of surveying it customers over specified intervals i.e. quarterly or monthly. While conducting the survey the company will ask how customers about their products. ABC p/c can perform product specific surveys which will involve talking to a customer of a particular product at anytime from ninety to a year after its purchase. The company can also call its consumers within ninety to a hundred and twenty days after the launch of its products. However, the customer contact should be very different from specific surveys. The company can then adopt a closed – up process aimed at responding to customer’s complaints. Information gathered from the complaints can later be put into the company’s customer management database. ABC should ensure that its marketing team conducts a win/ loss analysis for every competitive bid. The management can form council and focus groups, bringing in present and potential customers to discuss their requirement. These meetings should be held annually for worldwide clients and every 3 months for regional focus groups. Consequently the company should set aside a competitive analysis team whose work will be buying, using and studying competitors’ products. These will go along with validating all the information from the customers with independent survey and double blind surveys conducted by its marketing clue. Finally the company should sum up customer dissatisfaction and satisfaction from a variety of sources thus determining necessary measures to undertake. b) Steps necessary for ABC to benchmark with another company includes: i. ABC p/c should decide what to benchmark. The company should identify best possible practices that will enable it in achieving positive customer results. ii. Planning the benchmarking project Here ABC p/c should lay out goals and objectives that should be worked for. It should take a manageable scope with its key players being sensitive with the available resources. Success factors that are critical for the company’s growth should be addressed adequately. iii. Understanding own performance The company should have a good knowledge on its performance so as to know the best practices to be adopted. iv. Study others This will involve establishing the modus operandi of other companies through buying, using and evaluating competitors products. This will assist the management on the necessary actions to improve its operations while eliminating unnecessary processes. v. Learn from the data Data sourced from different companies will be very resourceful to the company since it will adequately prepare ABC p/c in meeting its customer’s requirements. vi. Use the findings The company should employ the collected findings so as to help it in revealing strengths as well as weaknesses of significant activities, operations and technologies. This will also help in understanding business threats that the company would be facing and coming up with ways of averting the same. Task Two 1a).The existing culture at Boggle p/c is a very unpleasant one since there appears to be no harmony between the values, rules, customs among others that are set in the company. It is a dictatorial culture characterized with conflicts among the above virtuals. A god example is the suspiciousness from the floor operatives regarding any new initiative in the company. This is a bad culture that requires necessary adjustments. b) The culture may bring various problems to any attempts aimed at introducing formal quality systems at the company. Some of them include:- the management interferences from the son’s of the original owner. The dictatorial environment cannot favour any new initiatives directed towards improving the company since it will always raise suspicion. Poor coordination that is well exhibited with this culture will not favour any new infections to the company’s operations. When various staff under different management level fails to work in harmony then it becomes very hard for such a company to achieve any progress. The culture does not offer any room for identification of the employees training needs. This implies that workers do not posses necessary knowledge, attitude and skills thus making it hard to achieve formal quality systems at Boggle. The poor relationships among employees and directors of the company as a result of the dictatorial culture will bring more problems in the attainment or systems introduction in the company. 2a).Three major ways of communicating the quality initiative to the company’s employees Downward vertical communication Upward vertical communication Horizontal communications b) Horizontal communication is the most appropriate method for communicating the quality initiative to employees at Boggle. This is because horizontal communication advocates for information sharing a thing that will bring together all the employees. The method will allow easy and successful co- ordination of tasks among the many employees in the company. The method highlights problem solving techniques a thing that will be very beneficial to the company specially with its current culture. This will help their company in understanding ways of solving problems whenever they arise in the entire company. It also creates room for conflict resolution such that any interdepartmental conflicts or conflicts from individual employees will be addressed adequately. c) Feedback will be achieved through perpetual and regular evaluation of each and every employee. The appraisal will help the managing director in noting any achievement made towards the quality initiative. The evaluation will include direct interviewing of the employees to acquire first hand information 3a) General consideration by the production manager before delegating The production manager should ensure that the subordinates possess the required knowledge before delegating. The production manager should establish the training needs of his employees before delegating. The manager should ensure that he has more task than he cannot handle before choosing to delegate. b) Steps to a successful delegation 1) Specifying the requirement of each task- The production manager should formulate well defined goals to be followed by the subordinates. 2) Specifying the delegated authority - The production manager should consider delegating task to these subordinates according to their experience i.e. those with a wide range of experience should be accorded more authority and assigned more tasks as opposed to those with not experiences. 3) Ganging understanding level At this step the production manager must ensure that each subordinate comprehends his delegated tasks and duties. This he can do through assessment of individual subordinates concerning the delegated tasks, for example, the production manager might require the subordinate to explain to him the importance of a given task and how to perform it. 4) Control points establishments The production manager may order for regular reports on the delegated tasks from the subordinate which will assist him in establishing whether the delegated duties are carried out in the right manner. Stepping back - After task delegation, the production manager should leave the subordinate in control and independent Offering support - The production manager should avail any help that this subordinate may require. This will help the entire company in achieving quality through well accomplished tasks Review - Once the assigned task is completed the production manager should ensure that he goes through the task in order to make necessary adjustments. 4a) Advantages of training 1) Through training the company will be able to supply high quality products. Trained staff will pump in new knowledge and ideas that will help improve service and products quality. 2) Training will help in increasing overall productivity in the company. This will go in line with reduced production costs a thing that will interpret into increased profitability. 3) For those employees who keep alternating departments training will help them in attaining immediate adjustment regarding the social and economic status in the new set up. 4) The newly trained employees will demonstrate skills and knowledge competence hence giving them more confidence in accomplishing their duties. 5) Training will enhance integration within the departments of the company thus fostering unity. b) The training cycle c) The management of Boggle p/c is supposed to provide necessary training to its employees in order to achieve stipulated growth. The training needs that the employees require are: - - Knowledge and - Attitudes Every employee in every department of the company must possess adequate knowledge on the kind of tasks that he performs to his employees through proper training. Once workers are well trained they will be able to import the knowledge gained and inject it to the company’s operation a thing that will lead to improved quality production, higher productivity and increased profitability. This will include training employees on the latest technology which is more efficient and cuts costs through keeping in line with the latest computer advancement the company will achieve necessary progress. The company employees should be trained on attitude application this will be very importance since the employees will be able to keep pace with the company’s changing attitudes thus creating a harmonious integration. Task Three 1a) Quality Policy Pitman and sons is working towards the provision of high quality products so as to attain continued improvement in customers services. The company is working towards obtaining overall customer satisfaction through high quality production that will also ensure reduced cost. Priority With Pitman’s & sons customers are the kings in our business and are accorded first priority with fair treatment all the time. This we do through the provision of high quality products, quality services and training our employees so that they obtain necessary knowledge & skills in customer service. This remains our priority and we will be undertaking continuous survey to establish whenever we are going wrong so as to rectify Objectives Pitman’s & Sons objectives are as follows: - To supply product of high quality To stick to the best manufacturers of our products. To cut business costs All the objectives above are aimed towards customer satisfaction. The company is guided by employees’ commitment and effective relationship in working towards the set objectives Vision To be the leading company in the supply of high quality blank CD and DVD disks across the globe. Pitman & Sons has a number of clients who must be served to their satisfaction. This can only be achieved through supplying high quality CD and DVD a thing that will help in realizing our vision. These should include switching to be a better manufacturer of CD and DVD so as to help in cutting costs thus attaining a huge another base. 2) Two ways in communicating TQM initiative - Upward vertical communication - Horizontal communication Horizontal communication method is the best method to be applied in Pitman’s since it will adequately assist the company in its bid to remain competitive through improved coordination of duties amongst the employees. The method will be beneficial in problems solving where the company’s biggest problem of increased cost due to poor quality products will be attended to. b) To obtain feedback from the company employees I will develop a survey aimed at undertaking personal interviews to the employees so that I can get to hear from the horse’s mouth on the progress of total quality management. This will be done under specified intervals so as to collect vivid data on the feedback I will also decide to make personal observation on the general management techniques, the sales patterns and the rate of customer satisfaction which I will use in drawing conclusion on the feedback obtained. 3a). To successfully delegate tasks the operations manager should follow the steps below 1) Specify task requirement - This involves setting required duties so that the subordinates can understand them. 2) Specify delegate authority - The step requires that the production manager delegate duties based on the experience possessed by each and every subordinate. The most qualified should be accorded more authority and vice versa. 3) Gauging understanding level - The production manager should establish whether the subordinate understands the requirements on the duties delegated to him. He should adopt methods of obtaining this information from the juniors. 4) Control points establishment - This will involve ordering regular reports on the delegated duties from the juniors which will aid him in establishing the control points. 5) Stepping aside - The production manager should give room for the subordinates to exercise their newly acquired authorities. 6) Offering support - This involves coming into the subordinate rescue whenever they require assistance on carrying out delegated duties 7) Preview - Soon after the completion of assigned tasks by the juniors. The production manager should carry out an analysis to establish whether the assigned duties were carried out effectively 4a) Training cycle b) Training needs for the employees can be established through proper determination on what skill the company employees will need in achieving the set out strategic quality initiative. This can also be done through conducting periodic needs assessment to identify the areas to be addressed based on recent evaluations and other data necessary in achieving focus on bringing training to those who may require training. Training needs can be established using continuous needs identification process for instance, evaluation of coursers completed by the employees and gathering suggestions from the business units in the company and the senior management personnel. This can also be achieved through benchmarking other companies within the industry to find out what and how they do things. This will involve an appraisal of their training programs. Once the needs are established employees can be put under training programs so as to attain the required knowledge and skills. 5) The Juran’s quality improvement programme will assist the chief executive at Pitman’s in realizing the quality trilogy (quality control, quality planning and quality improvement). This will help him in employing key strategic planning elements which will include identification of customers and their needs, improved market share via continued reports, rates reduction among others. The CEO will learn how to establish goals for the company, necessary planning in goals achievement techniques, assigning clear responsibilities that will need for basing rewards according to the results achieved by every employee, departments etc Once the company has established its goals it will work towards attaining them resulting into acquired success. The CEO will have a way of realizing clear responsibilities to assign duties and this will definitely ensure that tasks are delegated to the right employees who possess the necessary knowledge and skills thereby ensuring that duties are well done translating into overall quality services in the company a major step in its growth and development. The CEO will come up with a programme in which the highly effective and most industrious personnel will be rewarded. This will increase morale among the employees. The highly motivated employees will work towards achieving high productivity targets. The programme will also assist the company in identifying its customer needs. This will mean that products supplied by Pitman’s will be as per the customers needs therefore ensuring customer satisfaction. Once the customers are able to draw satisfaction from the company the firm will be assured of continued growth and expansion. Attained profitability will be clear indication that the company leaps much from the TQM improvement strategy that was suggested by Juran’s. Reference Internet source at http://www.siwaksolutions.com/unitc1/ Read More