What contribution can 'Lean Thinking' make to the contemporary challenges of public service delivery - Essay Example

Total quality management Every business or organization boasts of having the capa to deliver productsor services in time and in top quality condition. The delivery of products or services in a high quality manner is always a plus for any business or organization because this practice largely translates into the uplift of the image of this particular organization (Isaksson, 1). However, sometimes you find that once businesses hits the quality mark at the onset stages of production, they tend to relax and things slow down, making the delivery slip back into the low quality conditions. This is an undesirable phenomenon especially in the competitive business world of the century we live in. As a result of businesses losing their clients because of slackness in the quality level of their products and services, most have resorted to affecting the total quality management concept. The concept presents a number of underlying advantages to the businesses and organizations that run it. The concept of total quality management (TQM) an al the underlying sub-concepts of this process will be analyzed in full in the next discourse. Here, the definition of TQM and the philosophy underling the TQM will be carried out. Also, the elements of TQM, benefits, effectiveness as well as the TQM frame work will be looked into. Lastly, the paper will close by discussing the quality standards and offering the universally acceptable quality of standards. Definition and philosophy of TQM Hawkes and Adams define the TQM as the practice of integrating the various components of the various inputs that are used in the production of high quality products or services that are designed to meet or even surpass the expectations of the clients (32). According to Tari, being in agreement of this definition, TQM also encompasses the issue of involvement of all the various components that make this delivery of quality products or services to be enabled (182). For the delivery of quality products, the management team of the company, the employees, the different levels of contact between the management and the employees such as the suppliers as well as the customer are all involved. Each person or level of involvement plays a very keen role in ensuring that the quality of the product or services, measured using certain pre-ordained measurements is not compromised. To keep the notation of TQM constant, the concept operates under a certain philosophy. This is the philosophy that guides the level of involvement of the various components that translates to the delivery of quality products and services. The philosophy of TQM states that if quality is maintained and upheld in all areas of the production process at all times, there is no doubt that this builds up an organizational culture that is largely responsible for meeting the various needs of the customer. In other words, the philosophy of TQM employs the use of effective management to develop a constant habit that allows for constant and consistent production of various products and services of a company (Petersen, 468). Elements of a quality management system For the TQM process to be successful, a number of elements have to be employed in such a combination that allows for easy and effective application. These processes offer a guideline onto how the TQM will be appraised once a certain organization decides to operate under this concept. The recognized elements under TQM will be analysed in the following discussion. There are eight elements of TQM as shall be noted herein. The first element of TQM is the element of ethics. Ethics, by definition, is the a code of ethics prescribed in an organization that largely governs the way employees in a certain organization behave or relate with each other inside their organization as well as with other people outside the organization (Zink, 394). Different organizations have different rules and regulations that govern their employees. As a result, the behavior of employees in one organization could be quite distinct and different from the others in a rival organization. The way employees behave and interact with each other within the organization as well as with others outside the organization could be among one of the major reasons for the success or failure of the organization’s products and services. The clients need to view the organization in a positive way resulting from the positive manner through which the employees of the organizations interact with them and also within the organization itself. The element of integrity goes a long way in the uplifting of the brand of the company and customers will always want to appreciate and favor a strong brand. The other element of TQM is the element of integrity. A customer will feel great and confident when he or she is served by a person who is said to be having very high standards of morality, honesty, fairness and sincerity. Sometimes it is very difficult to win the confidence of a client. However, once this confidence is earned, the organization is guaranteed of good business. The clients who require the services or products of a certain company expect the company to serve him or her in such a way that the values of honesty and fairness are achieved. The customers expect the organization to be sincere about its products. This is one area which is very sensitive to the clients. If a customer buys a product from a company, for example, and then finds that the product is not up to the standards that have been described in the specific product, he or she feels duped and robbed of his or her money. The customer loses the much needed confidence in the product and in general the brand. Trust is also another element that is closely related to integrity in the TQM practice. For an organization to win the trust of the client, it must have passed through some test parameters. The organization must have already attained and upheld the element of integrity as well as the element of ethics. Winning the trust of the customers forms the foundation upon which the TQM practices are laid. The organization or company must strive to ensure that the trust of the clients has been won and maintained. To do so, on requires a very high level of interaction with the client. The management of the organization must come up with certain measures and parameters that allow the clients to gain trust in the products and services of the company as well as the brand of the company. To ensure that those employees of the organization are up to par so that this could be easily achieved, the organizations invest heavily in the training and retraining of the employees. With the dynamics of customer service in the world today, companies are faced with the threat of adapting fast to the changing consumer needs in a bid to retain their trust and confidence in the brand of the company. A company which loses its brand identity loses customers. As such, it spends a lot on training of the employees, research and even team work. Another element recognized here is the element of communication. Communication is a very important element in that it could form the basis upon which the customers interact with the organization. This is the basic form that is recognized in this context. However, it has been found that communication occurs in almost every direction and manner. For instance, the organization needs to have open channels of communication with the suppliers of their products and within the corporate structures of the company. This means that at every level of interaction, there must be some form of communication. The way the organization as a whole relates and communicates to the customer is a key factor in the determination of whether this client will continue buying the products of that company or will move on o another company. If a customer is well treated and spoken to in a manner that is appealing, chances are that this customer will never go away or shy from buying the products of this company. The customer needs to feel appreciated. When the customers have a problem, they tend to complain. The way the management of the company deals with issues that customers raise is important in that it allows them to gauge the position of the company from a direct source. If customer issues a complaint, it is important that the complaint is worked upon very fast and professionalism retained all the way. This regains the confidence of the customer and consolidates the future of business with the customer. Communication can also be between the employees and others of their own caliber or between the employees and the management of the employees themselves. If the internal communication is good, then it is most possible that the production of high quality products will also be continued. Recognition is also an important element in the TQM concept. Recognition occurs on two platforms; the recognition of the customer as an important entity in business as well as the recognition of the employees themselves as the major contributors towards the success of a certain venture in business. The customer needs to feel appreciated and recognized as being part of a team. In other words, the customer needs to have a sense of belonging to the company. This is made possible through the process of recognition. Recognition could be a simple gesture that serves to show the client that there is a special bondage between the customer and the business. A good way of bringing about these issues of customer recognition for instance is by sending loyal customers seasonal greeting cards, offering them shopping vouchers and giving them discounted rates. The customer will feel that the business needs him or her and that the business’ continuity is largely dependent this customer. Among the employees, recognition is also an important factor in the TQM delivery. Since it is these employees who have made it possible for the conduct of business to be carried out between the company and the employees, it is also important that these employees be recognized so that they could achieve a sense of belonging. Employees could be recognized using a number of incentives and appraisals such as cash bonuses, bonus to the best employee of the month and trips to foster team work. Training is also another key concept of TQM. A poorly equipped workforce is incapable of delivery of quality products. Training is one of the best ways of making sure that the employees of a certain organization are up to the industry standards. Re-training of employees is also equally important. Re-training ensures that the employees are up to date with the facts in the market. This avoids redundancy that could seriously undermine the performance of these employees. When employees are well trained, they are equipped with the power and the capacity to handle customers in a professional manner and this contributes towards TQM (Honeycutt, 5). Team work is also another vital element of TQM. Delivery of a particular product or service to the client in a professional manner and with good quality is an effort of a team. Sometimes, it is practically impossible especially in big organizations for companies to deliver quality product through a single person or departments. The delivery of quality products involves the work of a collusion of different departments in the organization. When team work is applied in the organization, the missions and visions of the company are easily achieved. This goes a long way in ensuring that TQM is attained. The last but equally important element is the element of leadership. Leaders in a certain organization are important in the sense that they are the ones tasked with the duty of making sure that the TQM concept is successfully applied in the company. Leaders in a company are the ones who make sure that all the other elements as has been described above are in cohesion for maximum exploitation of the available TQM resources and customer satisfaction. The concept of quality Quality is a concept that is wide and deep rooted. However, on a basic scale, it is applied to mean superiority in production. In other words, quality implies that a certain product is superior in market value when it is compared to other products. There are various ways which are used to measure the value of quality in an organization. However, these measures depend and vary from one organization and one industry to the other. Some of the recognized measure is discussed here. Reliability is one of the quality measurement parameter. Here, a product is analysed to prove whether it is capable of being replicated over time. It shows the degree or extent to which a certain product could be used to satisfy a particular want over and over again. A customer needs to know that when faced with a certain problem, condition or want; he or she could resort to using a particular product to satisfy this want. The customer relates quality to the ability of the product to satisfy him or her perfectly every time. Another measure upon quality is the sustainability factor. Here, a product is weighted by the capacity of the product to retain its original quality for a long time. If the product’s quality is not compromised over time, then the product is said to be in a stable state. Maintainability of the quality of a product is also another qualitative measure. Here, the product is weighted by the capacity to be maintained over time. In other words, it measures whether the product is capable of maintaining its quality when matched with the costs. If the cost of maintaining the quality of the product is too high in the future, there is a high probability that this product may be compromised now. Benefits of Quality management There are a number of benefits that result from quality management as described in the following discourse. The immediate benefit would be the benefit of customer satisfaction. When a customer gets good and quality products or services, he or she is fully satisfied with the product. Satisfaction allows the customer to keep on coming back and this brings in another benefit. The organization gains more revenue from this repetitive use of the products from the company. Customers who get satisfied with the products or services of a company will always come back for more. At the same time, they also bring in other customers to the business. The customers become loyal to the business as they believe that they have been well treated. On the employee’s part, quality production gives them sense of pride and belongingness. This improves their job satisfaction levels. Quality systems effectiveness For a system to be considered effective, it must fulfill a number of elements. These elements are consistency, time and timelessness, courtesy, completeness, accessibility and convenience, accuracy and responsiveness. Consistency implies that the system should give in the specific same output data for same input data fed into the machine over and over again without deviation. The system should also be capable of withstanding the test of time. The system should be complete to accommodate all the proponents of the organization. Convenience and accessibility go hand in hand with accuracy. The system should be trusted to provide accurate information every time. Quality assurance framework A Quality assurance framework is a framework that guarantees delivery by making sure that the set out activities are done in the right manner and at the right time. Quality assurance framework is a frame work that defines the objectives of a process, the accuracy of the process as well as the provision of the relevant management information to assist in the mitigation of risks that are inherent to a business or organization (Madjid et al, 512). Stakeholders in a quality frame work Stakeholders in a quality framework are the various people for whom this frame work exists and the people who create this framework. The products and services that are developed are meant for sale. This makes the customer become the most important stakeholders of this framework because were it not for him or her, the framework would not be in existence in the first place. The other stakeholders re the employees of the organization and the management of the organization that is charged with the implementation of the total quality management plan. Costs and benefits of the TQM The costs involved in TQM are the costs of making sure that the product is at par with the precedent quality. These are costs that occur as a result of the consistent and insistence on the maintenance and upholding of the quality level of the product. Such costs involve the training and re-training of staff costs, team work building costs and the costs of appraising the employees. The cost of designing the frame work is also considered here. The benefits of a TQM framework allows the management team to concentrate on the activities set out in the frame work and complete these activities in time. Since each activity is well set out, following the framework ensures that the activities are all completed in due course. Organizations with a quality framework Practically all manufacturing organizations need to have a frame work. They need to set out their activities in such a manner that allows them to hit their targets and achieve their objectives in time. This way, they can tell from a glance if they are on the right track or not. Impact on quality of a quality framework A quality frame work has a huge impact on quality. It is worth noting again that the main aim of designing the frame work is to ensure that companies have a structured out path that leads to them attaining their goals and their objectives. For this reason therefore, it becomes important that a quality assurance framework be designed in a manner that is easy to implement. Convergence of quality framework In a large institution, there are many departments and units; each department is governed by specific rules. In this context, each department has its own objectives set out for it. The department tends to try and fulfill these objectives and contribute to the general objective holding the whole company together (Miller &. Cangemi, 1). The same applies for another department in the company. The convergence point occurs where the two frameworks of the departments mix up in a bid to fulfill the overall objective. Quality standards and excellence awards Quality standards are the recognitions that a certain product or service that a company offers after they have passed through stringent tests measures. It should be noted that the test measures vary from one nation to another. Once the product has passed the quality test and is considered to be of quality, an excellence mark is given to the manufacturer. A good example is the worldwide ISO certification and the diamond mark of quality. Conclusion From the discourse offered above, TQM has been portrayed as the cornerstone supporting the business organization. No rational customer would go to buy products from a company that I deemed to offer low quality products. It has also been shown that the process of quality improvement and maintenance is a rigorous and continuous process. The customer, as the king, must be pleased, and to please him, companies need to offer only the best quality possible. Works cited Hawkes, Lindsay & Adams, Michael B. "Total quality management and the internal audit: empirical evidence." Managerial Auditing Journal 10.1 (1995): 31 – 6.Print. Honeycutt, Alan. "Total Quality Management at TRW." Journal of Management Development 12.5 (1993): 3 – 11. Print. Isaksson, Raine. "Total quality management for sustainable development: Process based system Models." Business Process Management Journal 12. 5 (2006): 632 – 45. Print. Madjid et al "Total quality index: a benchmarking tool for total quality management."Benchmarking: An International Journal 10.6 (2003): 507 – 27. Print. Miller, Richard &. Cangemi, Joseph P. "Why Total Quality Management Fails: Perspective of Top Management." Journal of Management Development 12.7 (1993): 40 – 50. Print. Petersen, Peter P. "Total quality management and the Deming approach to quality management." Journal of Management History 5.8 (1999): 468 – 88. Print. Tari, Juan J. “Components of successful total quality management.” The TQM Magazine 17.2 (2005): 182-94. Print. Zink, Klaus G. "From total quality management to corporate sustainability based on a stakeholder management." Journal of Management History 13. 4 (2007): 394 – 401. Print. Read More