The Problems Encountered by DOH - Case Study Example

INTRODUCTION: DOH is a family run firm that has been in business for very long. It supplies various supplies parts for local car manufacturers. For the last 3 decades, DOH has maintained quality of its manufacturing processes by hiring a quality control inspector for every 40 workers. The work of quality control inspector is to sample out completed batches, ensure that the defective parts have been removed and then the order is dispatched. The report revolves around the quality control issues that DOH is currently facing, ways in which they can be countered and taken care of. PROBLEMs: Not too long ago, DOH was compelled to subcontract a batch of work to another firm so that it could make it to new delivery deadlines. DOH’s managing director had a lot of fears and reservations regarding this move. His primary fear was the quality of subcontracted work. He felt that the quality of the work would suffer and it would be of an inferior standard. However this fear was removed when no defects were found in the sub contracted batch. On the other hand, DOH ‘s main customer is not happy with the services being offered and the quality of batches that are being delivered to him. He insists that any further quality failures in future because of defective parts would lead to strict penalty charges like cost of labor etc involved in removing the part from the vehicle. This is a grave concern for the management of DOH. They do not want these fears to rise and turn into a general impression in the industry. The quality concerns have to be taken care off with immediate effect or else DOH might lose out on a lot of key contracts and accounts with various customers. The problems encountered by DOH can be categorized into two broad categories. These are: 1. Hard problems 2. Soft problems Hard problems are problems which can be quantified i.e. they can be measured where as soft problems are those problems which cannot be measured. They are qualitative in nature. The hard problems that the company can monitor are the number of defected parts being sent per month, the amount of loss being incurred, which site is producing more defected batches of work and what is the difference in quality if a bigger quality assurance team is in place. On the other hand some of the soft problems that DOH is facing include the co-ordination between different teams, quality control instructions have not been clearly communicated to the workers, strict check on quality throughout the process instead of just a last minute audit. There are a lot of middle managers which has wrecked a lot of havoc in the hierarchy of the workforce. Secondly there is little or no regard for team work. Workers are more focused on their own agendas and targets. In order to resolve these issues the management at the helm arranged a meeting with the senior managers. The agenda of the meeting was to analyze all quality problems within DOH. It was made clear that a long standing approach is needed to encounter the challenges that DOH faces. After a lot of discussion a plan was put forward by the management to bring about the change and to implement. The aim of the plan is “Putting quality first’. The programme aims to drive up quality standards through training , improved teamwork and a review of roles within DOH , Particularly quality control inspectors and middle managers. If successful, he believes the programme will bring lasting improvements and longer term, increased customer satisfaction and reduced costs. Senior managers support the programme but have warned that it needs to be both “sold” to the workforce and carefully implemented. SOLUTIONS: Given these problems and circumstances the management at DOH is worried about quality. The managing director has had a word about these Quality problems with the advisor at the government funded regional trade and industry office and evaluated the situation at DOH based on his feedback and his understanding of the work flow at DOH. I feel that Total Quality management model would best serve the cause of the company and would take care of all its quality related issues. Total quality management is a 360 degree solution for improving the quality of products and processes. It is an integrative well rounded philosophy of management. The basic premise of Total Quality Management is that the quality of products and processes is not the responsibility of any individual. It is the complete responsibility of everyone involved with the company. This means that at DOH everyone from the scratch to finish has to be involved with the final product that is delivered to the customer. This includes: 1. Involvement of management 2. Workforce 3. Vendors 4. Customers 5. Quality Assurance team At different levels of management the company needs to involve all its workforce to ensure that eventually the product delivered is of sound quality. The nine common TQM practices that need to be implemented by the management are: 1. Cross functional product design: When DOH is finalizing on a spare part it needs to incorporate input by all portfolios of the company. In this way the final product will have all nitty gritties taken care of. 2. Supplier Quality Management: Raw materials and machinery taken from the supplier needs to be audited. A complete evaluation of the suppliers in hand needs to be done and it needs to be ensured that the best suppliers at the best prices is delivering. The problems encountered could also have been from the supplier’s end 3. Customer involvement: The QC team and the management needs to take customer input at different levels of the management. In this way the customer will be kept in loop about the progress and his feedback/views will be incorporated accordingly. This will avoid any resultant disagreement on customer’s end. 4. Information and feedback: continuous information and feedback needs to be provided to the workers. They need to be consistently monitored to keep a tab of quality. 5. Committed leadership: The leadership at DOH is very committed. It just needs to increase and improve on its co-ordination. Evaluation: The managing director did have a word about the issues encountered by DOH with an advisor at the government funded regional trade and industry officer. The adviser helped him in negotiating access for him and in seeing how other manufacturers are improving quality in the same industry. The lessons learnt by the managing director of DOH were very valuable and all those have been incorporated in the total quality management plan. The plan suggests total team work within the work force, restructuring of hierarchy of the company and a more focused approach on quality. The plan also addresses both hard and soft problems discussed earlier in this report. References:  Deming, W. Edwards. Out of the Crisis (1986)  Ishikawa, Kaoru. What is Total Quality Control? The Japanese Way (1985)  Feigenbaum, A.V. Total Quality Control (1991)  Juran, J.M. Juran on Leadership for Quality: An Executive Handbook (1989)  Crosby, Philip B. (January 1989). Let's Talk Quality: 96 Questions You Always Wanted to ask Phil Crosby  Ahire, S. L. 1997. Management Science- Total Quality Management interfaces: An integrative framework. Interfaces 27 (6) 91-105.  ^Cua, K. O., K. E. McKone, and R. G. Schroeder. 2001. Relationships between implementation of TQM, JIT, and TPM and manufacturing performance. Journal of Operations Management 19 (6) 675-694.  ^ Anand, G., P. T. Ward, and M. V. Tatikonda. 2010. Role of explicit and tacit knowledge in six sigma projects: An empirical examination of differential project success. Journal of Operations Management 28 (4) 303-315. Read More