Implementation of Quality Management, Research Paper Example

Introduction and Background of the Organization

The Wesley Foods Inc. was founded in 1992 in Durban, South Africa. The company had revenues nearing $1billion and labors force of over 10,000 people. Wesley Foods Inc. is one of the leading food producers in the Southern part of Africa, having stores in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Lesotho. The company specializes in the production of branded ready meals that include bread, sandwiches, pizza and other puddings. The company makes bread under the brands of Supaloaf and Tosti, which are the major brands of bread in these countries. They have bakeries that produce these brands of bread in Pretoria, South Africa and Harare in Zimbabwe.

The Wesley Foods Inc. has incorporated modern technology and has cited commitment to the provision of authentic and quality bread as its principle. The company’s core values include integrity, reliability, and quality service. The company is a major supplier of bread to the major institutions of learning that includes universities and colleges in South Africa and Zimbabwe. For a long time, the customers have developed brand loyalty to the two brands of bread, and this has largely contributed to the success of the company. Again, the success of the company has been pegged on the active quality management that has existed since its inception.

Problem Statement

From the year 2014, Wesley Foods Inc. has been faced with a myriad of quality management problems. This began when a consumer launched a complaint in the quality assurance department about loaves of bread that went bad before the expiry of the dates on the labels. This complaint was not taken too seriously by the management of the company as they thought that it might have been an isolated case. However, thereafter, more consumers called the customer services department to report similar claims. This time, the quality management team sought to find out the credibility of these claims. Several tests were done on samples of loaves from the two bakeries and indeed, it was realized that the source of the poor quality bread was the Harare factory.

Further investigations were done, and it was realized that the cause of the problem was poor workmanship and negligence. In addition to that, the machines that were used to make the dough were found to be too old and in bad condition. The company was not able to determine the quantity of bread with the poor quality that was out in the market and it was not also able to tell the number of consumers who were affected by the problem.  The management of the company was hoped that no more complaints would be registered and most of all, no consumer will make such findings public. This is because if all the public would be aware of the incident, then the number of sales of the bread will drastically go down, leading to losses. The competitors may as well use the failure to woo customers to their brands. Eventually, there would be a total failure of the company that may lead to a major overhaul that is too costly. In addition to that, the company hoped that nobody consumed the loaves that had gone bad because this may cause health problems to the customers, which may lead to legal issues cropping up, hence denting the image of the company.

Wesley Foods Inc., therefore, needs to look into the quality management issues in its Harare factory to ensure that the quality of bread from the company in reinstated to its original state, or better still, improved. This is crucial to the survival and further growth of the company. The company must be able to analyze the problem and ascertain the root causes of the quality issues so as to establish the best way to handle the problem.

Opportunities

There are various benefits and potential gains that the organization will attain after the implementation of quality from management processes and systems. For example, quality management systems will allow the firm to increase its quality of products and services, to provide cost effective services as well as to provide and promotes its customers satisfaction levels. This will increase the revenue generation of the firm, it profitability margin as well as its employees and other stakeholders performance levels. This is mainly because the application of quality management systems will boost the morale of the employees as well as other stakeholders in the firm in order to improve productivity of the organization.

Furthermore, effective application of quality management systems will also improve the firm competitive advantage and its global brand image thus improving its reputation and integrity of the firm. This will attract various customers towards purchasing of the firm products and services. The implementation of quality management process will also allow the firm to identify and analyze the main causes of its major problems thus allow the firm to solve its major problems and challenges.  The quality of services in the firm also depends on the feedback mechanism given by the firm customers and the firm should provide effective procedures and policies of identifying, monitoring and understanding its customers’ needs and interests.  This will improve growth and development of the firm, increase customers satisfaction and employee’s performance especially through the adoption of quality leadership, quality management systems and other employee and customer based decision making process in the firm. The firm will also gain from quality improvement and quality management systems by improving its employees and stakeholder’s continuous improvement and professionalism.

It also clear that quality management process will promote coordination and communication systems in the organization. This is because firm human resource management will involve in training of its employees in order to increase efficiency and information management services of the firm.

Literature Review

The term quality refers to the totality of characteristics of an entity that bears on its ability to satisfy the stated and the implied needs (ISO 8402:1994 1). According to ISO 9000:2000 2, quality is an integration of features and characteristics that determine the satisfaction of the customers’ needs by a product. The quality of a product is currently defined by the consumer, rather than the manufacturer. Quality Management, therefore, entails the activities that decide the strategies, responsibilities and the objectives of the quality of work (Hubbard, 1991).

In the manufacture of a product, quality management goes through the some stages. The product must meet the expected quality as required by the consumer, it must bear the prescribed quality such as its appropriateness for consumption and it must meet the designed or the defined quality (Jung, & Kang, 2007). A quality product must be tested to ascertain that it meets requirements and most importantly, the product should be able o maintain its quality during its lifetime (Hale, 2006). Quality management of a product involves determining the problems of quality, understanding the current situation , identifying the causes, formulating the measures and carrying out those measures, monitoring the implementation, prevention of the recurrence of the problem and finally, standardizing the solution (Chen, 2009).

The quality of a product is an important aspect of any business and can be measured in terms of its performance, features, reliability, conformance, durability, serviceability, its esthetics and its perceived quality. This is because the good quality of products increases the competitiveness of the product in the market.  In order to analyze the cause-and-effect of the process, a fishbone diagram is used. This helps in the identification of the main reasons for the problem.

Once the cause or causes of the problem have been identified, then several tools for ensuring quality management can be used. This paper employs the concept of Total Quality Management to help in solving the management issue in Wesley Foods Inc.

Total Quality Management is a management mechanism that is focused on quality through the participation of all the members for a long term success and customer satisfaction. TQM is important in companies because it promotes growth and most importantly, it increases the motivation of the employees. According to Berry (1991), Total Quality Management is a total corporate focus on meeting and exceeding the consumers’ expectations and significantly reducing costs resulting from poor quality through adoption of new management systems and corporate culture. Dahlgaard et al. (1998) adds that TQM encompass elements such as leadership, management, commitment, employee involvement, supplier partnership and continuous improvement. There are very many companies that have implemented TQM and have succeeded in maintaining high-quality products. These companies include IBM, HP, Motorola and the British Airways.

Analysis of the Problem

In order to solve the prevailing quality in Wesley Foods Inc., and as well the best way of solving any problem, the causes or the reasons why that effect came about should be critically sought and analyzed. The Wesley foods Inc. should first of all find the primary cause of the quality problem affecting the company. This is done by the use of the fishbone diagram to determine the cause-and-effect of the problem. This chart will help in identification of the primary reasons for the problem. The fishbone diagram below shows the analysis of the cause-and-effect of the company, raising the important issues of management that may have been overlooked by the management of the company.

A comprehensive analysis of the functionality of the various departments in the company will give the main causes of the poor quality of the products (Hale, 2006).  This will provide a diagnosis for the best method to be used for the change and also the departments involved. The analysis can be carried out by the Analysis Hierarchy Process (AHP). This process makes the diagnosing of a problem in a large and complex company simpler, and it is easier to make a quantitative judgment using the analysis (Li, 2012).

From the two analyses, it is true to say that poor quality of bread production in the company was found to be caused by, among other factors;

1. Poor quality control management (both raw materials and the product).
2. Poor workmanship as result of poorly motivated workers and poor management of human resource
3. Bad machinery which may be faulty or technologically outdated.
4. Lack of monitoring of the production process, and
5. Poor coordination between the various departments of involved in the production.

These issues are caused by the insufficient executive ability to manage properly the quality in the company. The employees are also not adequately trained, especially in ethics and thus their values deviate from the company’s objectives and also, the inefficiency in the Human Resource Management.

Companies need a comprehensive framework that is flexible and easy to adopt. The success of a business depends on a several factors that are interrelated; the approach to change the quality management must be holistic and should not have an adverse impact on the overall system (Kanji, 2001).

Therefore, the company should take up the Total Quality Management approach because the problem is caused by a multiple of failures from different departments. The company’s quality policy includes reduction of costs and continuous improvement of their products. The company has a policy that requires that the product defect rate be zero and the overall score for the quality check should be above 98%, bearing in mind that the products are human food. The customer satisfaction should also be rated at 98%. There are managers in charge of quality management in all the branches of the company with several departments under them as per the product. The managers are expected to establish and maintain the company’s quality management system while the departments are responsible for the system maintenance and implementation with considerations for improvement in quality (A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 2014). The department of customer relations is available to monitor the customer satisfaction by use of the internal quality audit.

Possible quality management initiative

There are various possible and potential quality management practices that should be adopted by the firm including the use of six sigma strategy, the use of lean principles as well as the application balanced scorecard and total quality management procedures (Kuehn, 2011).  In most cases, six sigma strategies and techniques are mostly used in order to improve the project improvement in various global firms.  In that sense, the firm will employ the use of six sigma policies in order to promote the identification of errors and problems in firm. This will reduce challenges and problems facing the firm and promote the achievement of the firm goals and objectives. The main strategies of six sigma process in improving quality management of the firm mostly include defining, measuring, improving as well as analyzing and controlling the main problems and challenges of the firm based on the customer’s feedback and needs (Gasik, 2011).   In that sense, the use of six sigma strategy and initiative will improve the analysis, control as well as identification of problems facing the firm.

The firm will also employ the use of total quality management in order to improve and promote customers satisfaction level in the firm. The use and application of total quality management will enable the firm to identify major problems and challenges facing its activities and business operations. Furthermore, total quality management strategy that will be adopted by the firm will provide cost effective procedures of improving customers and employees satisfaction levels especially towards various firm products and services. Total quality management will provide the firm management with the opportunity to identify the major customers complains and to provide corrective measures of preventing such complains in the firm operations.  The use of total quality management will also improve customer’s data collection systems and allow the consideration of the customer’s viewpoints and perspectives in major decision making process of the firm.

The firm will also focus on lean principles of quality improvement by providing cost effective operation systems in the firm. The firm will also focus on improving the quality of the services and products by focus on proper financial management and reduction of wastage of resources in the firm.  The lean principle and policies in the firm will also include proper and effective labor management systems in order to improve employee performance and customer’s satisfaction systems in the firm.

Moreover, the firm will also involve in balance scorecard policies of quality improvement and management systems by identifying the best procedures of improving the firm customers needs and interests. The firm will also involve in the application of balance scorecard procedures in order to improve quality assurance and quality control of its major services and products.  In most cases, balance scorecard procedures and strategies of quality management mostly focus on the provision of proper and effective financial practices, proper business operations and other practices that can improve the firm operations and growth.  Furthermore, the use of balance scorecard initiatives will allow the firm to use effective communication systems, to focus on different stakeholders of the firm as well to ensure that the organization operations and activities are in line with the firm goals and objectives.

Recommendations

Since there is a need to implement TQM, the company must consider training of both the management and the other employees of the company. Emphasis should be laid on team development and support, and a strong quality coordinating body should be composed.

Implementation of TQM takes place through structural and functional adjustment of eight important channels. These include the leadership, corporate planning, Human Resource Management, Customer focus, Suppliers focus, Information Management, Process Management and finally, Quality Assurance (Anuar and Hayati, 2013). Deming’s philosophy should be applied because every level of the company needs change and improvement.

In order to streamline these aspects of the business, should inculcate a culture and purpose of ever improving through the creation of a long-term quality plan and preparation for future challenges. The company should also adopt a new philosophy since the present has not worked and by putting the customers’ needs first and adopting a new quality vision and implementing it.

Quality should be built in the whole manufacturing process from the purchasing of raw materials to the dispatch of the finished products. This would allow no loophole for the production of poor quality products. The statistics within the company should guide the quality and hence there will be no physical inspections. Physical inspections give unnecessary pressure on the workers and in most cases; the quality is compromised after the conclusion of such inspections.

The company should employ the concept of training on the job in order to save it from the costs of training the employees and to offer practical experience in the quality of products. There should be a foundation for common knowledge in the company. The company should put in place measures to eliminate barriers between different departments that are involved in production. They can be done through setting proper communication channel in the company. This will allow for the ease of identification of a problem that may arise.

Management is crucial and, therefore, implementation of the TQM begins with the managers (Sila and Ebrahimpour, 2005). The company should ensure that all its managers are competent. The managers should also understand the concept of leadership because leader-managers are always more effective. Thus, participative management should be core to the leadership of the company. The managers should be trained to provide support and resources and finally be enough motivation to other employees. There was inadequate monitoring of the production process that led to the problem. Therefore, the managers should have a culture of monitoring the processes and not the individuals and, they should be more concerned with the process and not the numerical targets.

After the implementation of the TQM, it will be important to measure the performance. According to Brah, Tee and Rao (2002), performance measurement is more crucial to a company’s survival in the competitive market. Measurement of performance in TQM can be done using the financial outcomes, service performance, operational measures and customer satisfaction.

The Business Performance (sales, growth, and profitability and market share) and Operational performance (product quality, productivity and customer satisfaction) for the Wesley Foods Inc. will be measured using the conventional ways of measuring these parameters. At the end of the implementation, the business should register profitability and most importantly, there should be customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction can be measured through conducting surveys.

Reflection

Quality Management is a crucial element of success in any business. Therefore, any business that wishes to grow must employ stringent quality management policy and ensure that the policy is utilized properly by the employees of the company. Successful companies have goods quality management teams that are highly motivated and quality driven. Total Quality Management seems to be the best method of improving quality in a business, but it is also costly and may not, therefore, be the most appropriate method for small businesses. It has however worked well in large companies. The issue of quality management is broad in that it encompasses several if not all the departments in an organization. The Human Resource Management is the most affected department. Others are customer service and public relations.

References

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