8: Quality Management and Operations Improvement

Question 1

Achieving conformance to customer expectations

Answer 1

1. Define quality characteristics.
2. Decide how to measure each of the quality characteristics.
3. Set quality standards for each characteristic.
4. Control quality against these standards.
5. Find the correct cause of poor quality.
6. Continue to make improvements.

Question 2

Making judgements based on sampling can lead to what type of errors?

Answer 2

Type 1 and type 2 errors.

Question 3

Statistical Process Control (SPC)

Answer 3

Using control charts to track the performance of one or more quality characteristics of the operation.
Control limits are set based on the variation of the processes’ common cause and processes assignable.
Control limits allow managers to distinguish between when the variation of the process is ‘normal’ or ‘out of control’.

Question 4

Total Quality Management (TQM)

Answer 4

Fosters continuous improvement in an organisation.
TQM stresses systematic, integrated, consistent, organisation-wide perspective involving all the processes and resources.
Managing quality of services is more difficult than managing quality of products.
TQM includes EVERYTHING in an organisation.
With TQM, quality is strategic.

Question 5

Cost of quality:

Answer 5

Cost of achieving good quality - cost of quality assurance.

Cost of not conforming to expectations - internal and external failure costs.

Question 6

Quality improvement tools

Answer 6

Cause-effect (Ishikawa) diagram.
Pareto diagram.
5 ‘whys’ or root cause analysis
Quality circles (plan, do, check, act)

Question 7

4 broad approaches to managing improvement

Answer 7

1. Business Process Re-engineering (BPR).
2. TQM
3. Lean operations
4. Six sigma - disciplined methodology of improving every product, process and transaction.

Question 8

Kaizen

Answer 8

Japanese for ‘continuous improvement’.
Change should be gradual and ongoing instead of major and one-off.
Relies on the full commitment of the workforce.
Positive culture in the workplace.
Long-term commitment from management.
Requires little investment but great effort.
Seeks to maintain and improve any breakthrough made by innovation.
Seeks to consolidate any gains made before they are lost.
Sense of urgency - no room for complacency.
Perfection hardly ever achievable but worth striving for.

Question 9

Business Process Re-engineering (BPR)

Answer 9

Fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service and speed.
Customer-oriented viewpoint
BPR often enabled by new IT capabilities.

Question 10

One way of process redesigning

Answer 10

Develop new business strategy,
Identify key processes,
Analyse existing processes,
Re-design processes,
Implement, monitor, improve.

Question 11

Barriers to effective implementation

Answer 11

Misunderstanding the concept.
Misapplication of the term.
Lack of proper strategy.
Unrealistic objectives.
Management failure to change.
Failing to recognise the importance of people.