Discuss about the Challenge Of Integrating Innovation And Quality Management Practice.
Increase market share by 10%- The strategic goal of AC Gilbert Company is that the company aims at increasing the market share by 10%. During late 50s, the company had missed an opportunity to bring changes in their operations as well as adapt to a new market. Even though, changes were made by Jack Wrather, but still the company could not recover properly as well as was unsuccessful in adapting to look at several changed consumer behavior for past years. The company faced great loss from the failure to adapt for changes and there was loss in market share. For this reason, the company wants to increase the market share by 10% and it is treated as one of the significant strategic objectives for the upcoming years in the performance improvement strategy of the company.
Strengthening financial resources- There was huge loss faced by AC Gilbert Company that led to loss of market share as well. The company even lost capital and presently faces stiff competition to deal with its competitors (Al Ahbabi & Alshawi, 2015). AC Gilbert Company need to strengthen their financial resources so that they can increase the market share and this can be done by increasing assets for attracting investors as well as court creditors at the time of fund expansion and modernization.
Investment in physical resources- The behavior and preferences of the consumers had changed over time as the company failed to follow the current trends. Furthermore, the changes were implemented so that they can increase sales, but needed too much investment in advertising as well as high cuts in physical resources that lead to decrease in the quality of products, delay on delivery to retail shops as well as lowering satisfaction among the customers. Therefore, the company should be investing in new machinery as it will allow faster as well as better production.
Productivity- AC Gilbert Company faced several problems in the past and these are decline on quality of products, lack of consistency on management as well as making no effort to build relationships with customers after outsourcing manufacturing. This lead to low customer satisfaction as well as delayed deliveries and shortage in staff members that leads to low production and inability to adapt to trends within the given time. In order to mitigate these issues, AC Gilbert Company should be involved in reduction of waste by 10% as well as reduction of production time by 5%. By applying this, the company can finally produce better quality products that can reach customer within less time than before.
Innovation- AC Gilbert Company faced several issues in the past that include lack of innovation as well as adaptation. Furthermore, the company involved in making no changes in their products as well as manufacturing techniques and sales force or any of the other department since 1967. However, the production system was too simple and was not able to manage the rising demand. It is for this reason why the company should start investing in innovation as well as involve in manufacturing own products. By doing this, the company can easily increase sales as well as manufacturing force. By this plan, the company will be able to build better brand in the near future (Bieraugel, 2015).
One of the most important changes that should be implemented by AC Gilbert Company is the process as well as systems. Presently, the systems used by AC Gilbert Company are very simple as it includes only 5 stages such as design, planning, purchasing as well as manufacturing and distribution (Boer et al., 2017). Therefore, the proposed process had been designed below for AC Gilbert Company that will aim at increasing shared accountability as well as decreasing waste.
Figure: Proposed Process of AC Gilbert Company
(Source: Created by Author)
Trends Research Team- This team consist of specialist who will be conducting extensive research on market trends so that they understand current market needs as well as wants.
Design Team- This team will be passing their findings to the design team so that they can develop a concept for new as well as current products that need changes
Sales Team- Sales Team will get the concepts from the Design Team. The Sales Team will be accountable for approving the concepts based on feedback that they receive on daily basis from the customers as well as distributors. The team will even engage in determining demand as well as pricing (Brown, 2014).
Purchase Team- The Sales Team will be passing on the information to the Purchase team who will the contact suppliers for making the purchase of raw materials. The team engages in negotiating with pricing so that they get best prices and make sure that the partners are aligned to the policies and values of the company.
Engineer Team- This team will be transforming the concept in reality by making important adjustments to the original design. The team engages in developing a strategy so that they can optimize the production level and make sure that the manufacturing will have all the right resources as well as minimization of waste. Therefore, the Engineer Team will be determining timeframe for the production.
Manufacturing Team- The Engineer Team will be passing all the important information to the manufacturing team and this team will start with the line of production.
Quality Control Team- This Team will be approving all products before it is sent to distribution.
Distribution Team- This Team will be responsible to look after the logistics as well as negotiating as well as market research to get best markets to place the product.
After Sales Service Team- This team will be responsible to collect the feedback from the partners as well as consumers on matters relating to products. The team is accountable to report for the trends team on matters relating to any issues with low product acceptance.
Therefore, the new system will help in bringing improvement in the functioning of AC Gilbert Company. By this system, the company can generate revenue as well as create awareness among the brand by conducting detailed research by building customer relations as well as responding back to feedbacks. By this new system, the company can optimize the manufacturing process as well as bring control over the quality of products (Fitzgerald & Stol, 2017).
From the case study on AC Gilbert Company, it is quite important that the company recruit experienced staff members. Talented workforce at AC Gilbert Company will help in maintaining strong relationship and the company can achieve future goals as well as objectives. The staff members should be paid based on their performance through monetary and non-monetary ways. Rewards can be in form of cash. Non-monetary recognition is getting the title of employee of the month or appreciation mail from the Managers. Therefore, budgetary reward encourages staff members where they can feel motivate to work more and upgrade their execution during their stay in that company (Hopper, 2017).
It is important to understand the fact that performance administration procedure is developed where it is expected to manufacture a highly talent staff members who shows willingness to work in cordial work environment (Brown, 2014). The people working under AC Gilbert Company will have same goal where they will assume the liability for expanding the business enterprise as a whole. The target of AC Gilbert Company will be to boost the execution of workers by empowering representative within the operations. Addition to that, the company needs to identify the obstructions as well as aim at set those boundaries. Furthermore, the goal will be to assist workers in getting coveted learning as well as aptitudes at the same time.
Increase market share by 10%- The strategic goal of AC Gilbert Company is that the company aims at increasing the market share by 10%. During late 50s, the company had missed an opportunity to bring changes in their operations as well as adapt to a new market. Even though, changes were made by Jack Wrather, but still the company could not recover properly as well as was unsuccessful in adapting to look at several changed consumer behavior for past years. The company faced great loss from the failure to adapt for changes and there was loss in market share. For this reason, the company wants to increase the market share by 10% and it is treated as one of the significant strategic objectives for the upcoming years in the performance improvement strategy of the company (Hopper, 2017).
Strengthening financial resources- There was huge loss faced by AC Gilbert Company that led to loss of market share as well. The company even lost capital and presently faces stiff competition to deal with its competitors. AC Gilbert Company need to strengthen their financial resources so that they can increase the market share and this can be done by increasing assets for attracting investors as well as court creditors at the time of fund expansion and modernization (Hutchins, 2016).
Investment in physical resources- The behavior and preferences of the consumers had changed over time as the company failed to follow the current trends. Furthermore, the changes were implemented so that they can increase sales, but needed too much investment in advertising as well as high cuts in physical resources that lead to decrease in the quality of products, delay on delivery to retail shops as well as lowering satisfaction among the customers. Therefore, the company should be investing in new machinery as it will allow faster as well as better production.
Productivity- AC Gilbert Company faced several problems in the past and these are decline on quality of products, lack of consistency on management as well as making no effort to build relationships with customers after outsourcing manufacturing. This lead to low customer satisfaction as well as delayed deliveries and shortage in staff members that leads to low production and inability to adapt to trends within the given time. In order to mitigate these issues, AC Gilbert Company should be involved in reduction of waste by 10% as well as reduction of production time by 5%. By applying this, the company can finally produce better quality products that can reach customer within less time than before.
Innovation- AC Gilbert Company faced several issues in the past that include lack of innovation as well as adaptation. Furthermore, the company involved in making no changes in their products as well as manufacturing techniques and sales force or any of the other department since 1967. However, the production system was too simple and was not able to manage the rising demand. It is for this reason why the company should start investing in innovation as well as involve in manufacturing own products. By doing this, the company can easily increase sales as well as manufacturing force. By this plan, the company will be able to build better brand in the near future.
One of the most important changes that should be implemented by AC Gilbert Company is the process as well as systems. Presently, the systems used by AC Gilbert Company are very simple as it includes only 5 stages such as design, planning, purchasing as well as manufacturing and distribution (Palm, Lilja & Wiklund, 2016). Therefore, the proposed process had been designed below for AC Gilbert Company that will aim at increasing shared accountability as well as decreasing waste.
Trends Research Team- This team consist of specialist who will be conducting extensive research on market trends so that they understand current market needs as well as wants. In addition to that, this team will be collecting customer feedback as well as impressions from the customers from the After Sales Service Team for analyzing the trends.
Design Team- This team will be passing their findings to the design team so that they can develop a concept for new as well as current products that need changes
Sales Team- Sales Team will get the concepts from the Design Team. The Sales Team will be accountable for approving the concepts based on feedback that they receive on daily basis from the customers as well as distributors. The team will even engage in determining demand as well as pricing. In addition to that, this team will involve in co-authoring reports with the After Sales Service Team so that all the employees working remains updated about the market.
Purchase Team- The Sales Team will be passing on the information to the Purchase team who will the contact suppliers for making the purchase of raw materials. The team engages in negotiating with pricing so that they get best prices and make sure that the partners are aligned to the policies and values of the company (Singh & Singh, 2015).
Engineer Team- This team will be transforming the concept in reality by making important adjustments to the original design. The team engages in developing a strategy so that they can optimize the production level and make sure that the manufacturing will have all the right resources as well as minimization of waste. Therefore, the Engineer Team will be determining timeframe for the production.
Manufacturing Team- The Engineer Team will be passing all the important information to the manufacturing team and this team will start with the line of production.
Quality Control Team- This Team will be approving all products before it is sent to distribution. In addition to that, this Team will be approving parts made after engineering process so that they can ensure that the manufacturing is provided has high quality parts.
Distribution Team- This Team will be responsible to look after the logistics as well as negotiating as well as market research to get best markets to place the product.
After Sales Service Team- This team will be responsible to collect the feedback from the partners as well as consumers on matters relating to products. The feedback will be collected through surveys as well as focus groups. The team is accountable to report for the trends team on matters relating to any issues with low product acceptance. The After Sales Service Team will be accountable for co-authoring sales reports with the Sales Team.
Therefore, the new system will help in bringing improvement in the functioning of AC Gilbert Company. By this system, the company can generate revenue as well as create awareness among the brand by conducting detailed research by building customer relations as well as responding back to feedbacks. By this new system, the company can optimize the manufacturing process as well as bring control over the quality of products.
|
Cost-Benefit Analysis A.C Gilbert |
||||
|
Costs |
Current Year |
1st Year |
2nd Year |
3rd Year |
|
Training |
30,000 |
– |
– |
10,000 |
|
Hiring |
50,000 |
– |
– |
– |
|
Machinery |
1,00,000 |
– |
– |
– |
|
New Processes |
15,000 |
– |
– |
– |
|
Benefits |
Current Year |
1st Year |
2nd Year |
3rd Year |
|
Specialized staff for production |
30,000 |
45,000 |
50,000 |
75,000 |
|
Faster production |
60,000 |
80,000 |
85,000 |
90,000 |
|
Waste reduction |
10,000 |
15,000 |
15,000 |
20,000 |
|
Higher quality |
1,00,000 |
1,30,000 |
1,30,000 |
1,40,000 |
|
Net Benefit |
(8,95,000) |
2,70,000 |
2,80,000 |
3,15,000 |
Conclusion
At the end of the study, it is concluded that AC Gilbert has the ability to recover the loss that they had faced during past years provided they work upon the set strategic goals. All the strategic goals, proposed plan process are being revised in the study so that the company can achieve future goals as well as objectives.
References and Bibliograph
Al Ahbabi, M., &Alshawi, M. (2015). BIM for client organisations: A continuous improvement approach. Construction Innovation, 15(4), 402-408.
Bieraugel, M. (2015).Managing library innovation using the lean startup method. Library Management, 36(4/5), 351-361.
Boer, H., Berger, A., Chapman, R., &Gertsen, F. (Eds.). (2017). CI Changes from Suggestion Box to Organisational Learning: Continuous Improvement in Europe and Australia: Continuous Improvement in Europe and Australia. Routledge.
Brown, A. (2014). Organisational paradigms and sustainability in excellence: from mechanistic approaches to learning and innovation. International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences, 6(2/3), 181-190.
Fitzgerald, B., &Stol, K. J. (2017). Continuous software engineering: A roadmap and agenda. Journal of Systems and Software, 123, 176-189.
Hopper, A. M. (2017). Continuous Improvement Strategies: How to Manage, Motivate, and Retain Staff. CRC Press.
Hutchins, D. (2016). HoshinKanri: the strategic approach to continuous improvement. Routledge.
Palm, K., Lilja, J., &Wiklund, H. (2016).The challenge of integrating innovation and quality management practice. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 27(1-2), 34-47.
Singh, J., & Singh, H. (2015).Continuous improvement philosophy–literature review and directions. Benchmarking: An International Journal, 22(1), 75-119.
Timans, W., Ahaus, K., van Solingen, R., Kumar, M., & Antony, J. (2016). Implementation of continuous improvement based on Lean Six Sigma in small-and medium-sized enterprises. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 27(3-4), 309-324.
Essay Writing Service Features
Our Experience
No matter how complex your assignment is, we can find the right professional for your specific task. Contact Essay is an essay writing company that hires only the smartest minds to help you with your projects. Our expertise allows us to provide students with high-quality academic writing, editing & proofreading services.
Free Features
Free revision policy
$10Free bibliography & reference
$8Free title page
$8Free formatting
$8How Our Essay Writing Service Works
First, you will need to complete an order form. It's not difficult but, in case there is anything you find not to be clear, you may always call us so that we can guide you through it. On the order form, you will need to include some basic information concerning your order: subject, topic, number of pages, etc. We also encourage our clients to upload any relevant information or sources that will help.
Complete the order form
Once we have all the information and instructions that we need, we select the most suitable writer for your assignment. While everything seems to be clear, the writer, who has complete knowledge of the subject, may need clarification from you. It is at that point that you would receive a call or email from us.
Writer’s assignment
As soon as the writer has finished, it will be delivered both to the website and to your email address so that you will not miss it. If your deadline is close at hand, we will place a call to you to make sure that you receive the paper on time.
Completing the order and download