Question:
Discuss about the Enhancing The Quality Of The Products And Services Of Latino Engineering.
The process of making ongoing efforts for enhancing the quality of the products and services is called as continuous improvement. Companies use this approach in the form of meta-process for handling their issues regarding management of projects or system. These areas include project management, quality management, business process management and many others. It is one of the best processes which increases the efficiency of business processes and helps them in accomplishing their objectives (Hexom and Menoher, 2015).
The file is based on the given case scenario of Latino Engineering which is facing issues regarding the quality of services and products. In context to it, the report focuses on the tools and techniques for understanding the root cause, continuous process improvement program for developing an effective continuous improvement plan for improving and enhancing the quality.
As per the given case, Latino Engineering is a medium scale organization which is located in New South Wales of the Australia. The firm provides services regarding the designing, development, and manufacturing of the engineering equipment to the customers. The list of clients includes construction, oil and gas and infrastructure companies. Latino Engineering is working for 30 years and has developed a repudiated brand image among the customers by offering them high-quality services and products.
But after the takeover of the firm by the investors, the situation has been changed completely. The organization is receiving various complaints from the clients due to improper and low-quality engineering equipment and related services. Latino Engineering wants to keep its previous market position and relations with the customers, and for this, it needs to handle the situation efficiently. With the help of appropriate tools and techniques, root cause behind the occurring problems can be identified. As a Project Management Consultant, proper tools will help in gathering the data which are causing the issues (Allen, 2014). These tools and techniques are defined below:
Cause and Effect Tool: It is one of the 7 Quality control tools which is also called as fishbone method. This helps in understanding the various causes of occurring incident in the Latino Engineering. This device consists of multiple categories: People, Methods, Materials, Environment, Machines, and Measurements. As per the problem of the company 5Ms is the most suitable for finding the root cause of the problem.
Check Sheet: This tool helps Latino Engineering in collecting data in real time from the place where it was generated. In this, the company will segregate the received data into the defect type, defect location and defect cause. This helps in better understanding of the root cause behind the receiving complaints from the customers. Evaluation of defect type (wrong packaging of products, damaged equipments, poor customer service,. Etc ), defect cause (dissatisfaction of customers, lack of trust, poor quality of products, etc) and defect location (company) results to inform that quality of the products and services has been decreased after the takeover of the firm by the investigator.
Histogram: This tool offers a graphical representation of the problem for practical and better understanding of the issues. Data with respect to the sales percentage, profit margin, .raw material, etc. leads to aware about the present condition of the respected firm. The graph delivers that number of customers are decreasing along with the demand for the equipment which is affecting the profitability and brand image of the Latino Engineering.
Control Chart: The Project Management Consultant uses this tool for collecting information regarding the control over the quality of goods, services, and processes of the Latino Engineering. The chart represents an increase in profit and customer base with the time but after takeover respected firm is suffering from the decline in advantage due to the dissatisfaction of the clients towards the offered engineering equipment and services. Thus, the control over the quality of the products and services is not appropriate and appreciable.
Thus, above tools and techniques represents that Latino Engineering is suffering from inferior quality products, services, and processes. The cause identified by the tools is lack of senior experienced and talented employees within the organization who can manage the operations and guide the other workers to improve their working style. Along with this, management approaches and strategies are not proper which are resulting in taking a long time in query handling, poor follow-up with the customers, etc. It is essential to consider these causes for identifying a suitable solution for the complaints like a poor follow-up, long response time, improper customer service, damages in equipment and many others (Davidson and et al., 2017).
Customer Process Improvement (CPI) program will help Latino Engineering in handling its problems by eliminating root causes. With the CPI program, it is also necessary to know the effective and efficient Critical Success Factors (CSF) which can help firmly in accomplishing its objectives. According to the given case, the cause of occurring complaints is lack of experienced senior worker, improper strategies, inappropriate management system along with policies and procedures. In context to this, selection of suitable CSF will help in improving the present condition of the company processes and approaches. According to the Project Management, Consultant following are suitable CSF which can assist Latino Engineering in improving the quality of its business activities.
Management Policies and Procedures: Implementation of adequate policies and procedures with respect to management of workforce and business processes will result to enhance the working system of the firm. Proper policies will also make employees to pay attention to their work and improve the performance which will increase the productivity of the engineering equipment. Along with this, the addition of management procedures like a reward system, performance appraisal, etc. will enhance the motivation of the workers. Strict policies will make staff members to follow every business activity correctly for maintaining the quality of equipment.
Productivity: This success factor will increase the production of equipment by keeping an eye on each process for handling the issues regarding wrong packaging and delivery of goods and damaged engineering equipment. This factor will also help in selecting practical strategies and methods for improving the operations regarding the manifesting of the devices. Apart from this, workers will able to design and develop the engineering equipment according to the chosen approach. Right strategy and decision will handle to issue regarding damaged engineering equipment and wrong packaging of the products. This success factor will somehow help Latino Engineering in increasing its graph of sales and profitability (Bodily, Nyland and Wiley, 2017).
Training and development: This is one of the essential CSFs which will help in handling the root causes of the Latino Engineering. On conducting adequate training and development program, the company will able to increase knowledge and skills of its staff members. Training under the guidance of experts will result to enhance communication skills, customer handling skills, problem-solving skills, risk management and other required skills of the workers. This success factor will work efficiently for the customer service team so that they can handle the queries of the clients by providing them right solution or suggestion. This element will also help in developing right strategies for follow-up with the clients.
Effective Leadership Style: Under the skilled and talented leader, employees of the firm will able to provide high-quality services to the clients. Participative leadership style will make workers take participation in the decision-making process with respect to design, development, and manufacturing of the engineering products. Apart from this, selection of right strategies as per the suggestion of leader will enhance the quality of services in the area of customer handling and follow-up. This success factor will increase performance and capabilities of the staff members which will directly improve the productivity issues of the organization (Critical Success Factors (CSF’s) Made Easy. A step by step guide. 2017).
Thus, from the above critical success factor Latino Engineering will able to regain its previous market position and brand image among the customers of Australia. Addition of this defined success factor in the CPI program will result in desired outcome (Lewis, 2016). The CPI program with respect to the problems of the respected company is as follows:
Analysis of the central issue: Firstly, Latino Engineering will have to find out the root cause of the occurring problems. From the above analysis, it has been identified that improper management system, lack of skills and knowledge and inappropriate production processes are the prime reason behind the receiving complaints from the customers. Combination of all these issues is contributing in decreasing the quality of services and satisfaction level of the clients.
Record: After identification of the main issues, the company will have to keep a history of all the problems it has found. This documentation will include details about the issues, the reason behind their occurrence, strategies to be used, impact on the company performance, etc. This record will help in future in handling the similar situation in case they occur.
Alignment with the organization’s values, vision, and strategy: It is necessary to match selected solutions with the procedure, values, and vision of the Latino Engineering. With the help of business values, the company will able to choose appropriate solutions for enhancing the quality of the products or services along with the business processes.
The decision regarding processes: In this, the company will have to make decisions with respect to the type of operations. The organization will take decisions related to the business activities which need to stop, replace or improve for handling the present situation. This step will provide an actual overview of the processes which need to grow and efficiently manage (Hexom and Menoher, 2015).
Delegation: It is necessary to delegate work as per the talent and expertise of the employees. In this step, the company will offer work employees according to experience and knowledge. It will lead to better management of the issues and problems.
Communication: In this, the company will communicate information regarding the implementation of change to the employees. By sharing the information, workers will able to work with full dedication and interest which will lead to handle the issues and increase the quality of services.
Beginning from the small: By prioritizing the issues, the firm will able to handle them effectively and efficiently. This will lead to improving the crucial areas first and remaining later. Implementation of the solutions will become easier and faster.
Feedback: This will include a collection of reviews from the employees and customers with respect to the implemented changes or solutions. It will provide information regarding the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the clients towards the engineering equipment or services.
Monitoring: This step will help in making continuous improvement of the processes and services. Handling of mistakes with the help of regular tracking will tend to improve the quality of business activities and services (Hegade, Rajkumar, and Murthy, 2017).
Thus, the above critical success factor and Continuous process improvement will help the Latino Engineering in developing effective and appropriate continuous improvement plan.
Continuous Improvement Plan for the Latino Engineering is as follows:
|
S.No. |
Issues |
Solutions for improvement |
Person responsible |
Time Required |
Result |
|
1 |
Lack of proper guidance regarding the selection of strategies and development of follow-up |
Leadership |
Leader |
1 month |
Proper guidance, improvement in performance, team management |
|
2 |
Improper business process |
Selection of proper strategies and methods along with adequate monitoring of the business activities |
Production Manager |
3 months |
Production of less defective engineering equipment, increase in quality of products |
|
3 |
Poor follow-up with the customers |
Creation of proper monitoring by discussing with the leader and manager. |
Leader, Manager and Team members |
2 weeks |
customer feedbacks regarding the follow-up, information about the likes and dislikes of the clients improved follow-up |
|
4 |
Long response time for issue resolution |
Documentation of the issue, discussion with the leader, use of appropriate tool for handling issues |
Leader, Project Manager, and team members |
1 week |
Time to time monitoring of the risk handling tools, development of strategy for handling risk like risk assessment process |
|
5 |
Improper packaging and delivery of the products to the clients |
Creation of new strategies for handling the present issues. Storage of the information regarding the distribution of equipment (Intra and Zahn, 2014) |
Production manager and other team members |
2 to 3 months |
Better packaging, eco-friendly packaging, transportation to the right client |
The recommendations Latino Engineering needs to follow are:
Conclusion
From the above study, it is concluded that Latino Engineering is suffering from the issue of inferior quality products, services and business processes which is increasing dissatisfaction of the clients. In context to this, the company wants to regain its previous brand image, market position and customer base. For handling the complaints concerning the damaged equipment, wrong packaging, and delivery, improper customer service, long response time, etc. organization has hired project management consultant. The use of tools like 7 Quality control help in understanding the root cause of the problems along with this, continuous process improvement program results to formation of constant improvement plan.
References
Allen, B.B., 2014. Lean risk assessments: Emphasizing management’s needs and continuous improvement can enhance internal audit’s risk assessments. Internal Auditor, 71(5), pp.24-26.
Bodily, R., Nyland, R. and Wiley, D., 2017. The RISE Framework: Using Learning Analytics to Automatically Identify Open Educational Resources for Continuous Improvement. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(2).
Cannata, M., Redding, C. and Rubin, M., 2016. Continuous Improvement in Action: Educators’ Evidence Use for School Improvement. Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness.
Davidson, L.A. and et al., 2017. A continuous improvement approach to social and emotional competency measurement. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology.
First, M.B., Kendler, K.S., and Leibenluft, E., 2017. The future of the DSM: implementing a continuous improvement model. Jama Psychiatry, 74(2), pp.115-116.
Hegade, A., Rajkumar, S.G. and Murthy, S., 2017. Standardization of Continuous Improvement Process.
Hexom, D. and Menoher, J., 2015, January. Using Data-Driven Decision Making for Continuous Improvement in University Programs. In International Conference on Education and e-Learning (EeL). Proceedings (p. 40). Global Science and Technology Forum.
Intra, C. and Zahn, T., 2014. Transformation-waves–a brick for a powerful and holistic continuous improvement process of a Lean production system. Procedia CIRP, 17, pp.582-587.
Lewis, W.E., 2016. Software testing and continuous quality improvement. CRC press.
Online
Critical Success Factors (CSF’s) Made Easy. A step by step guide. 2017. [Online]. Available Through: <https://rapidbi.com/criticalsuccessfactors/>. [Accessed on 5th October 2017]
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