Culture
Quality culture:
An organizational value system that results in an environment that is conducive to the
establishment and continual improvement of quality. It consists of values, traditions,
procedures and expectations that promote quality.
Traditional:
- Maximizing profits on the short term (cut and run management)
- Manager is boss and gives order
- Organisation looks inward, is focused on its own needs
- Finger pointing
- Adversarial relationship with supplier, pressure to bring down prices and
speed up delivery
Quality:
- Long term focus on customer satisfaction, investing in technology and training
programs.
- Manager is a teamcoach who seeks employee input
- Organisation is customer focused, customer satisfaction is the highest priority
- Focus on identifying the root cause of the problem
- Suppliers are viewed as partners, work together
Implementing total quality necessities cultural change in an organization (can not occur in
hostile environment, it takes time and the past is difficult to forget)
Leadership from the top needs to:
- Be knowledgeable of the need of change
- Be able to articulate vision
- Have a sense of urgency to change
- Be willing to remove obstacles
- Have a history of following through on chance initiatives
- Be willing to empower employees at all levels.
Change can be difficult because resisting change is natural human behavior. In any
organization there will be advocates of change and resistors. Same change can have
different perspectives. So first understand their concerns before changing anything.
Most common reasons to resist change:
Fear, loss of control, uncertainty, more work or disagreement with problem definition.
Emotional transition:
,Strategies to overcome resistance:
- Involve potential resisters
- Avoid surprises
- Move slowly at first
- Start small and be flexible
- Create a positive environment
- Incorporate the change
- Provide a quid pro quo
- Respond quickly and positively
- Work with established leaders
- Treat people with dignity and respect
- Be constructive.
Strategies for establishing a quality culture include the following:
1. Identify the changes needed
2. Put the planned changes in writing
3. Develop a plan for making changes
4. Understand the emotional transition process
5. Identify key people and make them advocates
6. Take a hearts and minds approach
7. Support (draagvlak)
Partnerships
Partnerships may be formed internally (among employees) and externally with suppliers,
customers, and potential competitors.
Examples of partnerships:
- Consortium Buying (cost benefits)
- In-house supplier representatives
- Customer focus groups.
The purpose is to enhance competitiveness, it could be a systematic process involving the
following steps:
1. Identification of potential partners
2. Identification of key decision makers
3. Implementation of partnering briefing
, 4. Implementation of the partnership
Three levels of internal partnering:
- Management to employees
- Team to team
- Employee to employee
Supplier partnerships:
The goal of a supplier partnership is to create and maintain loyal, trusting relationships that
will allow both partners to win while promoting the continuous improvement of quality,
productivity and competitiveness.
Requirements for success:
- Supplier personnel should interact with employees who use their products
- the price-only criteria in the buyer-supplier relationship should be eliminated
- the quality of products delivered should be guaranteed by the supplier
- Supplier should be proficient in JIT
- Both parties should be capable of sharing information electronically
Evolution of supplier partnerships:
1. Uncertainty and tentativeness
2. Short term pressures
3. Need for new approaches
4. Adoption of new paradigms (patterns)
5. Awareness of potential
6. Adoption of new values
7. Mature partnering
Managing quality in the supply chain:
- Supplier evaluations
- Supplier certification
- Third party filters (ISO)
- Supplier audits
- Supplier development programs
Customer partnership:
The rationale for forming customer partnerships is customer satisfaction. The best way to
ensure customer satisfaction is to involve customers as partners in the product development
process. Doing so is, in turn, the best way to defined quality is a fundamental aspect of total
quality.
Competitor partnership:
Partnering with potential competitors makes sense for large corporations.
Score on strategies alliances:
, Education and business partnerships are formed to help organizations continually improve
their people and how well they interact with process technologies. Services provided include
on-site customized training, workshops, seminars, technical assistance and consulting.
Customers
External customer: Is the one referred to in the traditional definition.
Internal customer: is any employee whose work depends on that of employees whose work
precedes his or hers.
In a total quality setting, customers define the quality.
Six-step strategy for identifying customer needs:
1. Speculate about results
2. Develop an information-gathering plan
3. Gather information
4. Analyze the results
5. Check the validity of conclusions
6. Take action
Customers change constantly, therefore this is an ongoing process.
QFD: Quality function deployment: It is a mechanism for putting into operation the concept of
building in quality.
The value of a product can be defined by: Quality of the product, the service surrounding it,
de organizational personnel, image and price of product.
CVA: Customer Value Analysis: It analyses what the customer wants and how the
organization can reach that.
Customer Service Mix: It is a pyramid showing the more important a customer is, the sell
there are of them.
