TQM Fundamentals: Learner Log Book - Assignment Example

TQM Fundamentals Learner Log Book I. INSTRUCTIONS The purpose of the Learners Log Book (LLB) is to document the achievements of the learner in a central repository that will be considered as evidence of the effectiveness of the learning process. It is a monitoring tool that e-tutors use to report on individual learners progress and it is a way of ensuring that learners: are engaged in their learning process; are experimenting by doing the tasks subscribed to them by the e-tutor; avoid plagiarism because learners have to be engaged on a continuous basis and the informal assessment can therefore be used to ensure consistency with the main formal assessment; provide e-tutors with the opportunity to get to know the learners evaluate them and mentor them properly; have templates which will reflect whether learners read, understand, assimilate knowledge, develop inquiry ability, and have the potential to generate critical thinking and reflect on the knowledge accumulated by relating to real situations. The onus is mainly on learners to furnish the required information in the templates after each unit based on the Read and Analyze Activity. After filling the information in the template they need to e-mail it back to the e-Tutor. e-Tutor will then comment on the work done and the involvement that takes place and give overall impressions on the learners at the end of the module. II. GENERAL INFORMATION Learner’s Name: ID Number: Course Title: Article Title: Date of Submission: Date of Feedback Received: ------------------------------------------------ III. SUMMARY (In one page) Provide a summary in your own words of the article you have been requested to read and analyze in the following space. Summary: Quality in the modern business world can be considered as the key sole mantra to competitiveness and success. This article discusses the work on “quality” of different scholars referred as Gurus from both sides of the world, i.e. Japan and North America. The article discusses how in the post second world war era, the Japanese firms applied the concept of quality in their organizations and reaped its benefits. Deming a well known Guru of quality introduced the concept of PDCA in Japan in 1950’s. The PDCA demonstrated how an organization can implement quality within its different processes and products. Dr Joseph Juran also discusses how management often oversees and does not give adequate attention to quality related cost. Dr Armand Feigenbaum who is the originator of total quality control, suggests that there are four types of cost associated with quality, these are preventive costs, appraisal cost, internal failure and external failure cost and often most organizations overlooked external and internal failure cost and their lost term consequences. Dr Ishikawa a Japanese guru in quality management suggests that to achieve “quality”, in general and in customer management in particular, it is important to empower employees, obtain feedback from customers and positively reward employees, to ensure that quality of service being provided is improved. Other two worth mentioning scholars from Japan in the field of quality are, Dr Genichi Taguchi and Shigeo Shingo. Moreover Shigeo Shingo created the concept which is now being used worldwide, that the production design should be created in such a way that it suspends production when a defective unit is produced or the defective unit produce at stage 1 should not be accepted at stage 2 of the process. Hence he introduced the concept of 100% quality. Therefore in a Nut shell it can be summarized that all the different scholars in the article have identified different way of achieving quality with an organization, to improve its product/service standards. Nonetheless, the commonality among all of them is that, management must be technically competent and willing to create a culture of quality first within the organization, and design an organizational structure which facilitates quality in every process. IV. KEY LEARNING POINTS a) What are the main points of the assigned article “TQM Gurus”? (in ½ page) There are number of important points within the article, however some of the most critical points discussed within the article are briefly summarized here. The main points of the article are that, quality in the current and future business environment will be the most critical factor for an organization’s success. The competitiveness of the global market means that organizations that are not able to reform themselves to embed quality within their business process might become extinct. Moreover the work carried out by different scholars such as, Deming, Juran and Feigenbaum, from the west and Dr Ishikawa, Dr Genichi Taguchi and Shigeo Shingo in Japan all have demonstrated in their research and findings that quality does not only bring cost saving to an organization but it also makes it makes it more competitive and responsive. Further the actual financial losses which an organization incurs due to lack of quality are not only limited to failure cost/replacement cost/warranties/compensations rather it is also related to customer cost and how customers are turned away from a particular product when it fails to deliver the result which they expect from it. An organization must embed quality in its every process, on an organization wide basis to maximize its competiveness and reduce its costs. Different tools and techniques such as Deming’s improvement cycle, Dr Ishikawa cause and effect diagram all prove that if management is competent and willing it can implement quality within any organization process or product. b) Explain the following Deming point? (in ½ page) “Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality; eliminate the need for mass inspection by building quality into the product”. The above quotation is the third point of Deming’s 14 points for management. The point emphasizes one of the most critical aspects of quality that it must be embedded in every organizational process and it should not be confined to limited application. In the modern business world and in the past also, most organization have maintained inspections departments on which they spend a large sums of money and the purpose of these departments is to inspect the products after they are manufactured for any error or incompleteness which might affect their utility to the customer. Therefore the above quotation of Deming echoes that instead of wasting large sums on inspecting products which are already manufactured, with labor, material and overhead cost already being incurred it is better to prevent defective units from being produced on the first place by, reviewing the production process. Including type of material being used skills and competence of the labor force and the use of machinery. Therefore by embedding quality into every organizational process, defective unit production can be nipped in the bud. c) Explain the difference between the following two Deming’s points? (in ½ page) Point 6: Institute training on the job. Point 13: Institute a vigorous education and self-improvement program. The both points mentioned above in their literal meaning very similar however intrinsically they discuss two different aspects. Though to an extent both point refer to the process of improving the performance of employees at work place, but they consider two different options in which this can be achieved. The point 6 emphasizes the use of training on the job as a method to improve performance to reduce error rate/variation in performance by building employees core competencies and facilitate the employees to understand their roles in a broader way through systematic provision of training. On the contrary point 13 emphasizes that employee productivity and performance can be improved through educating them academically/practically. This will broaden their understanding of working and allow them to think critically and not be reliant on the organizational management to create a path for them to improve their productivity, rather they can critically think on their own and constructs ways in which performance can be improved. Hence though both point relate to improving employee productivity and quality of work, but they consider different methods to achieve the this particular purpose. The point 6 looks at training and point 13 looks at education and creating awareness in employees to achieve self driven improvement. d) List the four types of quality costs and give three examples on each type? (in ½ page) There are four types of cost related to quality these are discussed below with three examples for each type of cost. Prevention costs: These costs are incurred to prevent defective units from being produced on the first place. Example of these costs are: 1. workers training- training workers to prevent them from making errors. 2. production process review- Using consultants to review the production process to identify loopholes leading to lack of quality/defective units. 3. Using quality supplies- bearing extra cost to ensure material quality is high enough to eliminate the chances of producing faulty units. Appraisal costs These are the cost incurred by an organization while appraising the product for their quality. Examples of these costs are: 1. Inspection cost- cost incurred while inspecting a product batch to identify faulty units 2. Inventory deterioration- the cost incurred while some inventory is rendered useless after the inspection process 3. Inspection machine maintenance cost- an organization might incur cost to acquire and maintain machines and equipment used for appraising product quality. Internal failure costs Internal failure cost represents those costs which an organization incurs due to production of faulty defective units. 1. Material and labour cost- since the defective units do need yield any economic returns hence the labour cost and material cost spent on those units is a loss. 2. Re work cost- since the defectives units have no economic value, often these defective units needs to go through the production process again hence it requires re-work cost. 3. Failure analysis- an organization must carry out a detailed analysis to evaluate the cause of defective units which requires administrative expenses to be incurred. External failure costs – External failure costs are those costs which an organization incurs externally, when it produces faulty/defective units. Examples of these costs are: Warranties- often new products are sold with warranty and hence defective units when returned are exchanged with a new unit hence it result in warranty related cost. Product re call cost- most organization in today’s competitive business environment have arrangements where they organize faulty product to be recalled which incurs transportation and administrative cost. Loss on future sales- the cost of external failure results in an organization’s sale declining in future which has economic cost for an organization also. V. CRITICAL ANALYSIS (in one page) In your opinion, are the Gurus principles applicable in the MENA region? Why? The Gurus principles are universal principles applicable to every region of the world, irrespective of its geographical location. The principles are simple management guidelines which convey the message that for any organization to grow and prosper as a national or multinational organization, it must embed quality in its management. Focus on reducing cost through quality, focus on winning new customers and clients through quality and most importantly focus on quality to achieve market competitiveness. Moreover the Gurus principles discussed within the article provide a roadmap for an organization on how to implement quality and how to monitor its progress towards implementing quality. The Middle East and North African region is a very large region but, unfortunately its competiveness as a manufacturing region is far behind its true potential, in particular when we compare its competitiveness to developed world. Middle east and north Africa is a resource rich region with easy availability of factors of production, such as labor and energy but the lack of economic expansion in these regions is a testimony to the fact that managers and public officials have not created many organizations in middle east and north Africa which demonstrate an example to the rest of the world about the true quality potential which this region has to offer. Therefore it can be said with conformity that these principles are applicable in the Middle East and north Africa, as these principle are simple in their application yet very productive and commercially viable. Nonetheless their application will require a change of attitude in the management and employees of the MENA region. Hence once quality is embedded in the top hierarchy of the organization’s in this region then it can be safe to say that “quality management” has a bright future in this region due to the hard working nature of the employees in this region. VI. Practical Implications (in one page) Based on your experience at your work place, explain how the improvement cycle can be applied? The improvement cycle can be applied to any organization, to improve its process. However in the paragraphs below, using my workplace as a sample organization, illustration of how improvement cycle can be applied will be demonstrated. From my experience, I can infer that improvement cycle can be applied to any organization, provided it has a competent core of managers and strong internal controls, able to firstly identify problem areas and later develop solution to rectify those problems. Below is a summary of how from my experience the working cycle can be applied in a manufacturing organization. Step 1 Plan: The first part of the improvement cycle is to find a purpose or objective of change which the organization wants to pursue. In some organization the purpose may be very obvious and in others a detailed analysis may be required to identify areas of improvement. Nonetheless the manufacturing organization where I have worked, was suffering from production delays, therefore the core purpose of creating a quality team will be to make desirable change to avoid production delays. The quality team should analyze the data as to what are the major reasons for delays, and at my workplace, it was often due to inventory shortage or machines being down with regular or often irregular maintenance work. The next step will be to decide desirable changes, these could include using a different inventory management system such as (economic order quantity) and buying new machine to evaluate whether the capital investment in new machine is worth it, if it allows the organization to avoid production delays and compensation payments to the clients. Step 2 Do: The organization in step two can implement the improvement cycle by carrying out the desirable change on a smaller scale, with part of production being done on the new machinery using EOQ method to manage inventory. Step 3 Check: The organization should then carry out an analysis and observe the difference in productivity and cost before and after the implementing of change. Step 4 Action: In step 4 the management should evaluate the result, extrapolate the result using future projection models and evaluate the long term cost benefit analysis of machine up gradation and using EOQ model which will involve storing more inventory than at current, requiring a bigger premise’s to be acquired for inventory storage. Moreover at this stage it will also be possible to carry out a long term analysis to evaluate the benefits of updating to new machinery and using EOQ with probable cost associated with it. Bibliography: Tony Bendell, Roger Penson, Samantha Carr, (1995),"The quality gurus - their approaches described and considered", Managing Service Quality, Vol. 5 Iss: 6 pp. 44 - 48 VII. e-FACULTY COMMENTS AND FEEDBACK Marks: Read More