Quality Management And Continuous Improvement – Case Study Analysis Of ‘Cracks In Latino Engineering’

POTI Model to develop framework for Continuous Improvement Method

Discuss about the Quality Management and Continuous Improvement.

This is with reference to the current case study ‘Cracks in Latino Engineering’; the Latino Engineering was a company with the very high value of quality to its customers and clients. But the story has changed after the company has been sold by the old owner Mr. Dominic Latino. The new owners have preserved almost all the employees except few whom they could not restrict from leaving the Latino Engineering. Now, after twelve months of taking over by the new owner (a financial group), many cracks started appearing in the service and product they are supplying since many years. The current issue which they are receiving from many clients and customers are supplying of defective equipment, very poor & late service of the customer service representative, poor designs are being supplied to clients even in some occasion the wrong equipment has been delivered to few clients which can be termed as the worst negativity of the Latino Engineering’s quality standards and the levels of quality checks they are conducting before packaging & sending their equipment. Because of all above issues, Latino Engineering is now suffering the long list of customer’s complaints, increased list of reworks and the obvious outcome is the reduced profit or even loss at some instances.

So, it can be very much finalized that the issue has arisen due to non-availability of Dominic’s close & tight control over the Latino Engineering’s quality checks at the various department from designing to dispatch. But now we need to continue without him, so we need to develop a strong quality control procedures and the approach to not only develop a continuous improvement plan to avoid such issues from happening in future but also to achieve the highest level of quality standard in the product and services they provide to all future associations. Now we shall first identify the root cause of the defects or complaints received and then find a way out to close all the issues in one and half month and then in balance one and half month we shall develop the continuous improvement procedure and a culture or approach to improve always keep on pushing for achieving day by day better and better quality results.

To identify the root cause of the defects/complaints reported by the clients and customers we shall use POTI (Process, Organization, Technology, and Information) technique to eliminate the issues present in the system. Then develop the Continuous Improvement plan for the organization to enhance the standards of the quality of its product & services using 7 QC tools.

7 QC (Quality Control) tools for achieving Continuous Improvement

Now let us analyze the root cause of the defects and find out the probable solution to plug the issues using POTI model of analysis. Now let us start with the first terminology ‘Process’, in which the analysis of the speed, quality, and efficiency of the system of working shall be identified. The speeds of the functioning of the employees are very slow and are causing an issue in providing the solution to the queries and problems raised by the customers and clients. So the issue is the speed of working, which can be improved by motivating the employees, so all the motivational techniques to motivate the employees to need to be used by the new owners to make them involved and always feel that they are the important assets of the organization and their performance is very much required for the progress of the Latino Engineering (Stadnicka & Antosz, 2015). Then the next action point is improving the ‘Quality’ of the work so that the reworks can be reduced which is actually consuming a lot of time and cost of the company. The rework of any project or job can be reduced by receiving the confirmation at every level regarding the correctness of the progress, so all the available different techniques and tools need to be utilized for developing the quality of the job by reducing the rework (Islam et al., 2012). Now the next stage of the process analysis is the efficiency testing and enhancement of the employee’s efficiency, again the motivational techniques can be used to motivate the employees and increase the efficiency level of the employee to achieve the desired quality of the product and services.

Then the next level of the POTI model (please refer Appendix – A) is the Organization, in which the structure, the capability, the leadership and the goals of the Latino Engineering are required to be analyzed to find and propose the correct recommendations to improve the quality of the product. The organization being without any good leaders who can lead the whole team the improper communication and complaints are being increased to such a level that the employees are more investing their time in finding other’s fault rather than improving their own output and efficiencies (Marino, 2015). The most critical resource of the organization has are its employees and change must begin by changing the general population; how they think and how they function before executed changes can produce results. Aside from the way of life, the aptitudes set of workers and particularly directors will be assessed and changes made, alongside the levels of staff to guarantee there are sufficient trained representatives to address client issues (Elnaga & Imran, 2013). For example, the client benefit division might be lethargic to client needs since they are understaffed and overpowered by the storm of client grievances. From the assessment, a few representatives might be moved to different parts or be trained in different parts so they can assist when the request is high (Kulkarni, 2013). The preparation needs will likewise be surveyed and recommendations made to enhance their training needs.

The further stage is the ‘Technology’ which we need to improve or change to improve the efficiency level of the organization as a whole. The current innovation frameworks will be assessed and proposition rolled out for improvements that will bridle the energy of innovation for correspondence, announcing, observing, and coordinated effort to upgrade item and administration conveyance. New PC frameworks will be set up and changes made to exhibit innovation frameworks (Cruz-Cunha, 2010). New apparatus sets and systems will be set up and important plant hardware to enhance item configuration will likewise be set up.

The last phase of the POTI model is the evaluation of existing Information system in Latino Engineering and this will involve assessing the current information and data frameworks and their effect in the conveyance of value items and administrations. With new innovation frameworks and mechanization, data frameworks should likewise be moved forward to cope up with the latest trend of requirement and improve the quality of delivery (Ortiz & Clancy, 2003). Around there, better plan standards, for example, the utilization of Computer Aided outline and recreation programming applications will be executed. The data frameworks will likewise be arranged to give better revealing and reports that administration will use to screen advance and execution. Client relationship frameworks will be acquainted with upgrade client benefit conveyance through giving a superior framework to overseeing, following, and following up on client issues. The new frameworks and apparatuses will be created to improve cooperation, amongst groups and between the groups and clients, particularly amid item plan and advancement. New information necessities will likewise be fused into the framework, for example, the need to encourage all client contacts into the client relationship framework to recognize designs and ceaselessly enhance them. Information results for venture particular exercises will likewise be consolidated into the new data framework.

Now we shall develop more understanding on the very famous topic of 7QC by which we can develop the continuous plan first of all by identifying the root cause of the problem and then developing the plan for Continuous Improvement. 7 QC is a statistical tool to solve the problem and the methodologies are ‘Pareto Diagram’, ‘Cause & Effect Diagram’, ‘Histogram’, ‘Control Charts’, ‘Scatter Diagrams’, ‘Graphs’ and ‘Check Sheets’ (Magar & Shinde, 2014).

Pareto diagram deals with the idea of the 80/20 decide that places that in any given procedure, 80% of the issues or disappointments are caused by only 20% of the fundamental factors that are by and large alluded to as the ‘key few’. The staying 20% of the issues and issues and disappointments are then caused by 80% of the few minor factors that all in all are alluded to as the ‘inconsequential numerous’. For the Latino Engineering case, the imperative couple of issues should be recognized to take care of 80% of the fundamental issues, to begin with, before the staying 20% can be unraveled through a persistent procedure of change. The Pareto outline additionally features the essential factors that are the principle/significant explanations behind the watched issues (Joshi & Kadam, 2014). The Pareto diagram is comprised of a few bars (structured presentations) and lines that speak to singular factors in diving request regarding their effect and the line chart demonstrates the total aggregate of the individual elements. The Pareto outline will help in recognizing the paltry numerous and a fundamental couple of so exertion and assets are centered on critical issues. The outline likewise will help in graphically showing the relative issue causes’ significance and will help in concentrating on the causes with the most elevated effects when at long last comprehended.

It is an exceptionally valuable device that will help in distinguishing the underlying drivers for every one of the issues being experienced at Latino Engineering. After the meaning of an issue identified with quality, the elements that reason the distinguished issues, for example, faulty building items are recognized. The sub factors in charge of causing the issues will be distinguished consistently until the spoil causes are recognized to shape the reason for tackling the issue; by dispensing with the main driver (Cano et al., 2015). The resultant diagram has branches and sub-branches which resemble a fishbone structure with causal components that outcome in the issue. The reason for item variety that prompts imperfect items at Latino Engineering are assembled into the classifications of individuals, strategies, material, machines, and estimations

This is a reference chart that speaks to the recurrence of all bars dissemination; the histogram will be utilized as a part of concentrating the depth of information in given dispersion and understand the elements that are all the more frequently rehashed. The histogram is critical in overseeing ventures since it helps in the prioritization of issues. Without prioritization, exertion might be set on issues that don’t have much effect on issues and disregarding the urgent reason specialists for issues. With the histogram, the territories require the most consideration quickly are distinguished and handled.

The control chart will be utilized to build up if the procedure of generation for a given item is steady and in addition able to current conditions. The control outline involves plotting information against time in the X axis; the graph will dependably be described by a focal line (mean or normal) an upper and lower control restrain line; of which lines are drawn from the recorded information. Contrasting the present information with these lines, conclusions will be drawn on whether the procedure varieties are predictable where there is control and influenced by basic variety causes, or eccentric importance crazy and influenced by extraordinary variety causes (Aliverd et al., 2013). The diagram and data from this graph will help in separating normal causes from the uncommon variety causes. The control graph is an imperative instrument for quality control and assumes a critical part in the meaning of the ability of procedures and generation varieties. It is additionally useful in distinguishing whether the way toward assembling is in accordance concerning the desires of the client and will be valuable in taking care of the issue of faulty building items.

This is a diffuse plot and is a measurable apparatus that is utilized to set up the reliance on two factors or to determine the relationship between the two. The plots are made on a Cartesian plane with the X axis having one variable and the Y pivot having the other variable. The relative esteems are plotted as the spot on the Cartesian plane on their regular purposes of crossing point; when these spots are joined, the current connection/connection between the two factors can be resolved in view of a condition as y = m(x) + c, where c is a constant. With this relationship built up, future forecasts can be rolled out on how an improvement in one of the factors will make the other variable react. The Scatter graph, accordingly, will be helpful in building up the connection between the general impact and the reasons for the impact and decide how critical this relationship is. The connection between the two factors can be curvilinear, straight, logarithmic, exponential, polynomial quadratic, and in addition being either positive or negative and feeble or solid (Arditi & Gunaydin, 1997). In the event that the connection is more grounded, at that point the relationship remains constant similarly unequivocally. The incline of the best line of fit decides if the relationship is negative or positive

There are various graphs which can be used for the case of Latino Engineering like ‘Line graph’ by using which we can differentiate the two distinct data before 12 months and the current data. We can compare them to assess the magnitude of the gap has happened in the figures and by conducting such exercise for different departments we can easily present the management regarding the weakest department and the strongest one so that accordingly the training needs can be identified. Another tool is the ‘Gantt chart’ where we can compare the time taken for a particular project against the baseline to track the delay and its trend using the study of earned value method.

The Check sheet (Singh et al., 2012) is an organized table, measurements, of a frame utilized basically for information gathering with a view to dissecting this data. The data on causes and issues at Latino Engineering will be gathered utilizing the count sheets; quantitative data will be gathered, for example, the quantity of client data in a given day and age. The check sheet will be used in posting down essential occasions and checkpoints in measurements forbidden arrangements; these data must continue being refreshed and afterward denoting their status of how they happen that will help in the understanding advancement; the reasons for deformities and examples for imperfections will likewise be seen better using these check sheets.

Other techniques for achieving the continuous improvement in the quality are the famous ‘Six Sigma’, in which the continuous improvement is done till the correction value of the very high level of correction is obtained. This was being introduced by Motorola Corporation (Arnheiter & Maleyeff, 2005). So the similar techniques can be used to develop the continuous improvement method for the Latino Engineering too. By adopting the above technique the Latino Engineering can develop even more value of the company to its customers and the clients. The ISO 9000 family also emphasizes on using TQM and Continuous improvement methods in the organization to achieve high standards of quality (Systemoch & Vality, 2000).

Similarly, lean six sigma (Aziz & Hafez, 2013) is a technique which can be implied upon the Latino Engineering to achieve the cost-effective method and improve doing the business techniques (Jeyaraman & Teo, 2010). Such similar tools and techniques can be used by the Latino Engineering to achieve the continuous improvement.

Conclusion

After having a vast discussion on the various tools and techniques, which can be implied upon the Latino Engineering, to achieve a continuous improvement culture in the organization, and this can be concluded that 7 QCs are the basic criteria which can be used to calculate the impact and find the root cause of the issues. Then the 7 QC tools can be used for achieving the TQM (Total Quality Management) in Latino Engineering by using the PDCA cycle (Swinehart & Green, 1995) & (Ibrahim, 2013). In PDCA by using the Flow-chart, Cause & Effect Diagram, Check sheet, Pareto diagram and histograms the ‘P’, that is ‘Plan’ can be done for the further improvement in the system and obtain the quality (Sokovi? et al., 2009). Then after the planning is done ‘Do’, the action is require to be taken to develop a prototype or a simple example to do the change and then after the change is administered we can ‘Check’ the results of implementing the action plan on a sample case using Check sheet, Pareto diagram, histogram etc. and in case of success the plan is applied to the whole system for achieving better quality results. This way with the continual process (refer Appendix – A) of developing the better results, the continuous improvement approach or the culture can be implemented in Latino Engineering and never face such defects or complaints in future and improve the business results (Chang, 2005).

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