Understanding Quality Management in Facilities Management - Assignment Example

Facility Management By [Name] [Tutor] [City] [Institution] 1. Understand the principles of quality management and apply them in a facilities management context The quality management principles are aimed at making the customers more satisfied and their needs met irrespective of the situation present. The management aims at doing an excess of what is expected by their clients. 1.1 Describe the principles of quality management Customer Focus This approach emphasizes on the major need to treasure the customers who are highly depended upon for the survival of any organization. The organization management should be in a position to understand the current as well as the future needs that their clients’ needs to be met promptly uninterrupted. The management should be very active to meet all the requirements and at times exceed the customer’s expectation and give better goods and services on a timely manner. This approach allows the management to maintain the old clients and get more new customers through referrals from the well served customers. This increases the credibility of the organization (CFM, K.O.R. and CFM, R.P.P., 2009). Involving People Most people have diversified thinking and innovations that if integrated to the organization would lift the performance if well regulated. All the people must be considered and their relevance evaluated by the management. If the offered ideas are found viable and some applied in the organization. It is also good to acknowledge the frontiers who coined the ideas. This way the organization performance is raised to fit the customer’s requirements. The general people involvement presents a platform where their abilities are used by the firm for their own benefit (Pitt and Tucker, 2008). The Process of Approach When the resources and activities are managed in a procedural manner, the desired result is easily attained with in the time frame set by the management. The efficiency to reach the set objectives becomes more achievable if the resources are coordinated in a process manner to allow each resource to be used exhaustively. This allows the maximum production of products using the available resources without depleting them. Therefore, this principal is vital for it helps the management with easier way to achieve the activities without an extra total cost and everything is conclusively done within the time frame (Reinhardt, 2000. The System Approach This approach is where the processes identified above are made to correlate and work through a system to achieve a given target. The management must understand, manage, and understand the interrelated processes to ensure that the system is at harmony and performs towards attaining the objectives pf the company. When this system is harmonized, the effectiveness of the company is boosted and the efficiency increases significantly helping to reach the daily targets of every organization. Therefore, the system approach of the organization management is one that cannot be ignored by the managers (Amaratunga and Baldry, 2002). Mutual Benefits for the Supplier and Organization The organization’s survival is also largely dependent on the credibility of the suppliers. To ensure that this relationship grows, there should exist a mutual relationship between the suppliers and the organization since they are interdependent and the action of each affects the other significantly. Therefore, each should benefit in due course to ensure that the costs and resources are optimized and the value of the organization grows significantly. The suppliers should be updated of the market changes to enable them not to produce out of date fashion while the organization did not alert them not to for instance (Smit et al., 2011). 1.2 Describe the benefits that quality management can bring to facilities management Products Consistency The quality management allows the organization to be able to attain and adopt a consistent facility activities that allows for the effective and improved time and resources management. The products are always consistent and they are delivered on time compared to when the facility is managed without the presence of the quality management (Luen and Al-Hawamdeh, 2001). Implementing the best practice and processes The quality management comes with the implementation of the best principles that are aimed at making the facility more efficient and well managed. The quality management presents a scenario where the processes are improved and it is used to help in maintaining the consistency, increase productivity, and reduce the high expenditures meant to maintain the facility and keep it running. The best practices brought about by the quality management system allows the application of more current manufacturing techniques and other innovations (Dale et al., 2007). Customer Satisfaction Quality management assures the customer satisfaction since all their requirements are met in the stipulated time frame. The quality management is proven to be a tool that makes the clients to always come back or refer their friends due to the completeness and satisfaction. The facility is said to be more successful when it has attained the customer satisfaction expected. This as a result increases the market share as well as the expansion of its customer trust (Gil, et al., 2001). Internal communication improvement The quality management advocates for sufficient communication among the workers in the facility. The issues communicated are vital towards the general output of the facilities and hence quality management is a greater step towards the success of the organization. The communication allows the coordination of the departments that are related, the team work, and encourages harmony within the facility. As a result, the quality and customer satisfaction is greatly improved making the facility to meet its goals and objectives (Amaratunga and Baldry, 2001). 1.3 Explain how a Facilities Manager can apply quality management principles to initiate improvements The management principles can be applied by the facility managers by using each of the principle for the better performance of the organizations. The customer focus is one of the quality management principle that highly depends on how the facility handles its customers. Therefore, the manager should develop a culture where the customers are in the forefront when making decisions that are directly related to the clients that the facility serves. The manager should clearly define the customer requirement to the organization members to ensure that they are met wholly (Alexander, 2013). The manager is at the apex of ensuring quality management and application of the principles. The managers should be in a position to successfully help execute the quality management by offering the necessary executive management, support the facility management, adequate provision of leadership support, and they should oversee the full dispensation of the quality polices, as well as the development of measurable goals. The manager should arrange for the refreshing training of the staff members to equip them with necessary skills that are changing with time. This will enable them to meet the client’s requirement without much fuss (Malhotra and Temponi, 2010). The manager should also make the system to be a tactical tool that is tailored and intended to help manage the staffs towards achieving the facility’s goals and objectives. The facility should be always evaluated to see that the efficiency, quality, and usefulness of each applied principles. This would help the manager to be able to meet all the requirements and be in a position to modify the current quality methods and adopt the more effective quality management principles. The manager should also embrace the mutual benefiting of the suppliers and the firm to ensure the good will and success of the facility towards satisfying the customers and market expansion (Bourne, 2016). 2. Understand quality standards and accreditation schemes 2.1 Describe quality standards and accreditation schemes applicable to facilities management The quality standards are meant to ensure that the facilities have the competencies and the ability to execute some of the standards that are required in a particular facility. The standards are also used to evaluate the attitude, mix of skills and knowledge that is used in the facilities. These ensure that the facility workers are competent enough to perform the designated jobs and tasks that are assigned to them. These accreditation schemes proves that the management of the facilities is a wide sector that is diverse and needs competence and regulation to perform its task completely. The BIFM competences are diverse for they are meant to advocate for all the principles and vices that make the workplace neat and conducive for workers (Donaldson and Gooler, 2003). Among the accreditation schemes that are applicable in the facility management is the OHSAS 18001, which is executed to regulate the human resource and occupational challenges in the facility work places. The ISO 14001, is the one that advocates for a good environment in the facility and its surrounding to ensure that there is no pollution around the company and within it. The accreditation ISO 50001 stands for the energy management in the facilities. The energy is a vital resource that needs much attention and effective use to ensure its efficiency. The energy is what makes an organization run and therefore, the management must have the department that has to oversee the good use of the resource to ensure maximum production without additional costs for the organization. Finally, there is the ISO 5500, asset management; ISO 26000, CSR & Environmental performance; and ISO/TC 267 FM, which are all aimed at making the management and running of the facilities to be more smooth and successful. There is also the Six Sigma that is aimed to analyse the financial status of the facilities and help eliminate any other defects that may have been incurred during the operations and computations. The accreditation also requires the application of the European management excellence model that is used as a tool for helping the organizations to establish a quality manageable system for all the facilities (Donaldson and Gooler, 2003). It measures the instances where the managers are on the path of success and helps them to comprehend any gaps that may hinder the stimulation of solutions, improved performances, and innovativeness. The mentioned International Standards Organizations are meant to ascertain that the products or services that are offered in a particular facility are safe and healthy, good quality and reliable for consumer consumption. These are also the tools that are used to regulate the costs that is achieved by minimizing errors while boosting the facility productivity. The ISO is composed of eight clauses: Scope, product realization; terms and definition; improvement, measurement and analysis; management responsibility; quality management; and resource management. These standards are used to define the much that is required to lead, manage, and sustain people to ensure sustainable facility results as expected. 2.2 Explain how quality standards and accreditation schemes impact on facilities management The quality standards are the ones that have been used to ensure that the people in the facilities are well managed and the resources are effectively used. The standards are used to demonstrate the requirements for leading and supporting the workers for ascertained sustainable results with no more extra cost being incurred. The standards allows the investors to be underpinned by the rigorous methodology for assessment by the framework that is used to reflect the workplace trends, as well as effective structures and efficient skills that are required to outperform in any exercised facility. The accreditation and quality standards may have both negative and positive feedback on the facility management (Desai, 2006). Negative: There are charges of the cost that is incurred when trying to gain all the accreditation required by the law. Also the fee for the initial auditing can be a neck breaking endeavour for the infant facilities and its management. Also, the maintenance of the accreditation requires cost input that is ongoing and it remains constant and demanding even long after the accreditation. The resources meant to maintain the accreditation and the staff time is always considerably higher and at times it outweighs the initial set up cost for the same purpose. Positive: The accreditation acts as a booster for setting up an efficient system, procedures, and policies that are vital to the general facility management and business thriving. The quality standards helps the management to be able to hike the soft and hard services that include the CSR, maintenance, customer services, and statutory compliance among others. However, the accreditation may have some charges to acquire and maintain, it leads to the possible higher savings from the efficiencies that are brought about in the facility, there are possible increment in the profits and oncomes, and the business growth is paramount and other innovativeness. Therefore, the positive impact is much more advantageous annihilating the negative feedback. This indicates for the reason why the managers are always advised to seek accreditation before they can commence the business. The accreditation installs confidence on the customers helping the managers to apply all the eight principles, one of them being the customer focus. The accreditation also helps the management to be able to seek further ideas from including the people in the management process to help them figure out the best way forward for the organization. Therefore, the accreditation schemes are vital for the facility management (Emiliani and Stec, 2004). 3. Understand how to implement a quality standard 3.1 Describe the steps to implement a known quality standard in the context of facilities management The implementation basically follows the basic principles of Act, Plan, Check, and Do. The management then is supposed to seek the help of the board or senior management commitment which is initially secured to have the commencement of the facility management by the use of the quality standards. The managers also is tasked to ensure that all the members of the whole organization are committed and engaged for the execution of the quality standards through a viable communication methods that are effective for the facility management. Communication is a vital bridge between the management, board, and other ordinary staffs towards realization of the quality standards that are laid out in the accreditation schemes. Therefore, everybody is vital in the system development of exercising the standards that are set for a particular facility organization. The quality standards can also be implemented through comparing the current quality systems, the activities, and procedures with the proposed quality management standards to be able to highlight the differences and the description of the next course of action. The comparison may bring out the mistakes and weaknesses that the current system have and help to resolve and replace the old tactics with new ones fit for the modern facility management. The management also should be open to suggestions by the customers, as well as the suppliers to ensure the establishment of mutual benefiting from the current quality management. Also, this interaction may bring about better ideas that are aimed to making the facility management easier and secure for the managers and staff. The customer focus principle must be considered to be in a position to meet their requirements, an act that is deemed to attract more customers as the facility maintains the current customers without an extra cost (Veleva and Ellenbecker, 2001). The manager can also device a team that is tasked with ensuring that the quality standards are rolled out progressively in the facility by offering the staff the tutorials and seminars that are meant to enlighten them more on the necessity of having a balanced quality system for both the facility, suppliers, and customers. The task force should establish the roles and the responsibilities that each person has and the timescales all the activities should last. Finally, the members of the staff should be negotiated to see the reasons why their inclusion in QM is vital to the organization. The link between QM standards with the FM strategic goals should be laid out well and every staff encouraged to exercise. This way, the quality standards will be simple for its implementation and its efficiency review to monitor the overall progress. 3.2 Explain the methods to monitor and review the successful implementation of the quality standard The definition of quality control will suffice for the explanation of the methods that can be applied. This is the effective system that is meant for coordinating the maintenance of the quality standards and its improvement. The process is rejuvenated and cooperated by several groups that have various tasks in the organization. This allows for the production at economical levels that allow for customer satisfaction wholly. There are several ways how the implementation can be monitored for the quality standards: The bench marking is on of mostly used methods for monitoring. This is a proactive and a more positive process that measures and changes the operations that are structured to attain a certain level of performance superiority. The bench marking requires the comparison of the performance of an organization against a ‘benchmark’ that can either be an internal quality standards performance or another one from the external competitors who are doing better than the facility in question. As well, the bench marking can be done against the benchmark set by the QM systems to compare the facility’s quality standards among the accreditation schemes (Young, 2007). The benchmarking involves the planning, gathering data, analysing it, taking the action, reviewing the results, and finally refining and reiterating the results to better the facility performance. There are four major areas of measuring, which includes the customers, development (growth), internal processes, and financials. The benchmarking is characterized by focusing on the current and the future activities and not basically on the past. Finally, the monitoring can be done through auditing the facility against the standards and it can be carried out both externally and internally. The internal auditing is done on the competent staff against the QM standards among other action plans. The external auditing can be done by an external body or rather the BM bodies, where the facility is measured against the standards and the action plans that were raised from the previous external audit. This can result to either the loss of the accreditation, maintaining, or achieving it (Porter and Tanner, 2012). 4. Understand the concepts of continuous improvement 4.1 Explain what is meant by continuous improvement and its equal importance to the facilities management function and the core business of an organisation Continuous improvement can be generally defined basing on the Plan, Act, Do, and Check. This is an ongoing method used for improving a service, product, or a process through the incremental junctures for a long period of time or mainly through breakthrough stages for a designated short period. The diagram below displaying the Continuous Improvement Cycle. The continuous improvement can be explained as an active business goals that has to be achieved through a well set up of management in the facility management setting. The continuous improvement model provides the facility with flexibility to be able to bias the processes in the organization in a bid to meet the objectives with in shortest time possible without an extra total cost. It gives access to the ability to nurture new ideas and opportunities presented in the facility from the suppliers, staff, and customers. The continuous improvements helps the facility management to have swift improved performances as the time goes by. This method of improvement has also being noted that it helps the organization to adapt the fluctuating market new situation without much adjustments and loss of time (Porter and Tanner, 2012). The continuous improvement helps the FM to gain the ability to adapt the new requirements and needs of the new customers, and new management in the organization. The facility management gets the ability to offer competitive solution to the challenges that faces the organization among other services. This model presents effective and smarter work opportunities that are aimed at reducing the total costs of the overall FM operations. Therefore, this is a vital vice that is well embraced the facility management can take a new form to ensure that the customers are wholly satisfied and product meets the quality standards set by the accreditation schemes. The improvement cycle serves to eliminate the challenges that may be encountered during development of the facility such as the time lag, outdated skills, and lack of information regarding a new venture and new product requirement from the customers. This cycle harmonizes the supplier, management, and customer’s relationship ensuring a mutual beneficial correlation. 4.2 Describe the principles, tools and techniques used to evaluate performance The principles mentioned earlier, the techniques and tools are used to evaluate the facility’s performance against the quality standards that are set by the FM. Among the majorly used tools of evaluation is the LEAN tool, which basically implies the idea of maximizing the customers’ value without compromising the call for minimizing the waste materials. The tool offers the solution to the questions raised regarding the purpose of the facility. The facility must be in a position to elaborate the problems that it aims to solve and the purpose to be achieved in their prosperity. The facility should also be able to evaluate the processes they intend to use to achieve the set objectives, and deduce the significance of every step in the process and the impact it will bring to the organization. Every step of the process must be valuable, levelling, capable, flexible, and adequate. The processes also should be intertwined by flow and pulling together. The manager should also be sure of the staff’s responsibility to ensure that every process is not interrupted, and that each follows the lean process and it continually improves giving a positive results after the overall evaluation. The figure below shows the lean process of evaluation (Bryson, 2011). Leans process involves 5 steps which are the 1) identify value 2) mapping the stream 3) creating flow 4) establishing the pull, and 5) seeking the perfection. The identification is done by specifying the value depending on the standpoint of the final customer by use of the product family. The manager then realizes the streams and processes that have value from the family products. At this time is when the processes that do not create value are discarded to allow the thriving of the most beneficial ones. The next step is to ensure there is flow and sequence of the product towards the customers in a timely manner. The fourth step allows the customers to pull the value of the product through their input and suggestions that are meant to pull the value to the next stream activity. The next action is to perfect the streams to ensure that the wasted streams are scrapped off and the flow maintained to make the cycle from the supplier to the customer smoother. The pull and flow are perfected at this stage, which marks the end of the LEAN tool is evaluation of the facility management (Porter and Tanner, 2012). 4.3 Demonstrate the methods of collecting and assessing information on performance The data used for the analysis may be hectic to correct. The figure above displays some of the ways through which viable data may be corrected and analysed to come up with final results that can be used to deduce the progress of the facility management. There are tools that are used to do the analysis of the information performance such as the Tucker’s model that is used for the stepwise analysis of the processes used in the survey. The tool is also used as the continuous improvement assessor tool. The tool explains the use of the present methods giving detailed reasons for their use and why they are picked against the others. The tool also highlights the challenge that is set to be investigated to be amended or removed from the value stream before reaching the customer. The improvement options are then laid out to help the facility managers to have an overview of what they should do to ensure a smooth continuous improvement. It is upon the management to select the best suggestions and actuate them to better the standards of the facilities as stipulated by the FMQS. The people who expected to participate in the process are also highlighted where the customers are included in the valuation process since they are the centre of the focus (Bryson, 2011). 4.4 Use the findings to identify areas for continuous improvement The data corrected is finally analysed through the selected models such as that of Tucker’s. The presented method is the major re-evaluation step where the initial improvements are highlighted and analysed. This step is the main checker of the implemented continuous improvement. The next significant step is where the management has to identify the successes and other drawbacks that are present in the facilities using the quality standards and they are acted upon to make them flow and pull together towards value of the product before being delivered to the customer. The improvement stage drawbacks are realized and the viable solutions identified to counter the shortcoming through planning on how to maintain the continual improvement through the management setting. Finally, the most beneficial modes of eradicating the loopholes and sealing them completely are adopted and executed through a designated action plan a process known as do of the full continued improvement (Lindgreen et al., 2006). 4.5 Explain how the programme of continuous improvement benefits an organisation, its customers and other key stakeholders. Benefits of other stakeholders – staff from the continuous improvement They develop the ability to nurture new ideas and other unique ways of doing work and handling challenges that come on their way during the running of the facilities. They experience an improved relation and interaction with the customers, stakeholders, employers, and suppliers in general. The stakeholders have a taste for new status making them feel honoured and as a result deliver more than expect. There is increased recognition and beefed up self-esteem and, therefore, guaranteed better services delivery. There is chances of improved jab satisfaction from the workers and the customers equally. They are benefited by the greater involvement, as well as the greater consultations within the departments of the facility. They are also associated with the product and quality brand and hence recognition. They result into increased rewards that attracts more zeal for the greater returns from the huge investments. Customer’s benefits: Greater value for money Improved goods / services Establishment of better communication cannels There is greater confidence on the management service delivery Assured reliability due to quality products The organization benefits by: The organization gains more confidence in the market as its share improves. There is improved communication with in the management and institution as a whole. The process alteration becomes swifter to meet the demand from the customers. There is reduction in the wastage f time and resources due to improved relations between the staff and other workers. Guaranteed profitability and improved cost reduction. Bibliography Amaratunga, D. and Baldry, D., 2002. Moving from performance measurement to performance management. Facilities, 20(5/6), pp.217-223. Alexander, K., 2013. Facilities management: theory and practice. Routledge. Amaratunga, D. and Baldry, D., 2001. 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