Continuous Improvement, ISO 9001:2015, HACCP, And Quality Management In Food Industry

Oaklands theory on Total Quality Management

Discuss about the Quality and Customer Satisfaction in Return.

Continuous improvement is defined as a concept or a method that is related to manufacturing and business in an organisation. It can be argued that continuous improvement is identified as a formal practice or an informal set of guidelines that is highly linked with the quality management of a company. In this regards, the Oaklands theory on Total Quality Management is very relevant in the discussion. According to this theory, there are five distinct components that are important to improve the quality of a product. In this regards, the elements are management commitment, customer-supplier chain, quality systems, Statistical Process Control (SPC) and most importantly team work. The management component is related to the role of the senior management in as company to introduce change or transformation in the name of improvement. It can be argued that the measure of improvement and the understanding of the risk factors regarding this process of improvement are primarily concerned by the senior management team. Besides this, the Customer-Supplier Chain is considered to the the heart of the Oakland’s model for TQM. It comprises the notion of ownership, process management and the process improvement throughout the chain. It can be referred that the good quality management system and the SPC framework are highly imperative in order to shape the improvement successfully. In addition to this, the improvement can be furnished with the hard work demonstrated by the responsible team. Based on these key factors, it can be argued that the TQM model propounded by Oakland is primarily focused on maintaining the quality of the product or item. Simultaneously, it is also proved that the practice of continuous improvement is further facilitated by the Oakland’s TQM model. The reason behind this claim bestows in the model itself. The model highlights the dedication and motivation of the team to foster a practice of uninterrupted improvement process.

The ISO 9001:2015 is a Quality Management System that is internationally recognised as the standard of quality management. There are over 170 nations that follow the ISO 2015 regulations profoundly. Therefore, it can be argued that the ISO 2015 is considered to be a major asset for any company in order to develop its product. In this regards, the purpose of the ISO 2015 is to set some standard requirements for the companies to achieve excellence in customer services and delivery. It can be implemented in a particular site, plant or department. Hence, in course of the discussion the ISO 9001:2015 encompasses the idea of quality improvement in a continuous manner. The section 10.3 of the regulation discusses the continual improvement. In this context, the ISO 2015 regulation articulates that there are some determinant factors that help to maintain the continuous improvement of quality in an organisation. These factors are considered to be the internal audits, management reviews or the company performance statistics that are imperative to figure out the possibilities or the opportunities for improvement. In this regards, process documentation, updating procedure and the Six Sigma projects are very helpful to identify the improvement requirements.

Five distinct components to improve product quality

It is important for a food producing and manufacturing organisation to maintain the quality of a food product. In this regards, it is important to understand the meaning of quality is coincided with health and nutrition. As a result of that it requires a standard mechanism that can analyse and give clean cheat to the food product. Therefore, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) has been introduced to deal with the measure of safety in food. This system is an internationally recognised tool with the purpose to assess risk of safety hazards in foods and also determined to reduce possible risks in food. Furthermore, it can be argued that the HACCP system identifies the possible potential hazards and controls those risks at specific points in the process. In this context, the hazards can be referred in terms of biological and chemical or physical. Hence, any company that is belonged to the manufacturing, processing and handling of food products can incorporate the HACCP framework in order to minimise or reduce food safety hazards in their products.

It can be argued that there are a number of consumer behavioural factors that are responsible to determine the future of the products. In this context, the first determining factor is referred as physico-chemical components. It can be argued that the pysico-chemical analysis of the ice cream will help to get a clear picture of the measure of chemical components that is good for the health of the consumers. The next elements can be identified as the melting resistance of the ice cream. In this regards, the quality of an ice cream depends on the melting resistance of the ice cream. Furthermore, the sensory analysis is also regarded as a significant element for the quality of an ice cream. It is concerned with the health related issues of the consumers. For an example, it can be argued that using low fat components in the ice cream preparation is very beneficial for maintain the quality of the product. It can be argued that the storage analysis is very important in this context. It is in fact, can be asserted that the effective sanitary process is imperative for the company to be developed. It is associated with the quality of the ice cream. Furthermore, the statistical analysis is identified as a key factor to understand the interest of the consumer to buy the particular product. It is associated with the analysis of overrun, texture and overall acceptability of the ice cream among the customers.

Role of senior management in implementing continuous improvement

The ISO 9001:2015 model is highly effective in fulfilling the requirements underlined by the customers. In fact, the ISO standards are utilised in order to figure out the possible hazards regarding the food products. The possible hazards are related to the health issues of the customers. In case of introducing a new product such as ice cream, there are some chemicals and colours that have to be used in preparing the item. As a matter of fact, these elements can be posed a threat to the health of the customers. Therefore, with the help of the ISO system this type of threat can be eliminated. Moreover, the packaging and stock managing are also interrelated with the ISO framework. The framework also deals with sanitation issue in a food manufacturing company. According to the ISO 2015 every food manufacturing companies must have the system to maintain a good sanitation facility. In this regards, the ISO 9001:2015 system comprises the mechanism to maintain sanitation in the manufacturing factory of the company. In terms of packaging there are some regulations that are illustrated by the ISO 2015 system in order to mitigate the risk factors.

• Owners and managers do not have adequate understanding of the ISO 9001 framework. In this regards, it can be argued that due to is inadequacy in understanding the managers often find that implementing the process is seemed to be wastage of time and effort.
• The implementation of the ISO framework is very costly and as a result of that it is impossible for the small and medium companies to follow the ISO 9001 guidelines.
• Heavy emphasis on the documentation is considered to be a disadvantage for the ISO 9001:2015 system. In many cases it has been seen that the companies are not able to submit their papers in time and faced with obstacles in business activities.

Senior managers have a significant role in ensuring success in maintaining quality in an organisation. Therefore, it can be argued that there are a number of responsibilities for the senior managers to have to undertake in order to formulate a clear understanding of the risk factors regarding the image of the company.

In this regards, the first step of the managers is to analyse the possible threats in order to procure the process of quality management. In this context, there are a number of risk factors that can perturb the possible development of a quality management framework. In this regards, it can be argued that some risk factors can be identified as expenditure, lack of understanding of the purposes of the system and the proper measures that can be taken in order to implement the system. Moreover, the risk matrix should be used to prioritize risk reduction based on target risk levels and tolerance thresholds.

In addition to the risk factors there are a number of control strategies that the company senior managers have to take into consideration. It can be argued that the senior managers must assume the risks and prepare a plan accordingly. Moreover, the risk review is also considered to be a pivotal facet of the managerial responsibility. It can be argued that without risk review the risk assessment will become outdated and ineffective.

It can be argued that the Lean mechanism is a systematic approach to reduce activities. It emphasises removing wasteful steps in a process and taking the only value added steps. It ensures high quality and customer satisfaction in return. In this regards, the characteristic of value in Lean mechanism is related to the customer satisfaction. The next step is to map the value stream in such way that is coincided with the planning to render good quality to the customers. After that it requires to create a flow to the customers by ensuring continuous flow system in manufacturing the product. Establishing pull is very imperative in this regards that fosters a pace to the process. The continuous improvement is connected with it to retain the business activities with the change in customer needs.

The Six Sigma system is a data oriented solving methodology that focuses on process variations and emphasis in order to provide customer satisfaction. It can be asserted that the Six Sigma process is based on a five stage framework, known as DMAIC framework. It encapsulates the steps such as Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control. Define connotes the specific problem or an array of problems regarding the quality of the product. The measuring step is related to the planning methodology of the item. It can be argued that this stage measure the appropriate steps to resolve the issues regarding product quality. The next step is identified as the analysis where the framework discusses about mechanism of the process. In this regards, this step is also highlighted the possible factors that can influence the quality management framework. It can be stated that during the process sometimes it requires some improvisations that can ease the mechanism and makes it effective. The final step is demarked as the control where the assurance of improvement for sustainability of the product quality has been discussed.