The Engineering Tooling Company (ETC) was set up by a young graduate engineer in the North East of England in the early 1960’s. The main manufactured items include engineering calipers, engineers’ rules, scribes (the initial product range) micrometers and a variety of specialist items which need skills and quality materials for producing long- lasting and accurate items. With the passage of time, engineering declined in the North East of England and subsequently competition increased as a result of globalization. ETC realized that the business activity adopted by it was untenable in the long term and that there is a need for the development of a radical strategy with the help of which the survival of the business can be ensured.
In the year 2010, North- East Hospital Management Board made an approach for ETC for the designing and manufacturing of hand held precision medical equipment. Furthermore, in the year 2012, a two- year contract was signed by the Board to manufacture the cutting- edge products on a large scale. ETC has now realized the need of projecting itself to the suppliers, customers and investors as a 21st century organization with energy, vision and conscience.
The focus of this assignment is on the introduction of a companywide quality improvement strategy in Engineering Tooling Company. As the Quality Manager for Engineering Tooling Company, improvement strategy has been provided including the Total Quality Management, Quality Control and Quality Assurance implications for ETC.
The term quality can be defined as meeting or exceeding the expectations of the customers and is applicable to products, services, processes, people and environment. The most important point to be considered is that quality is required to be changed continuously. In other words, it is in an ever- changing state (the characteristics which are used to define quality of the product today may change with the passage of time). For maintaining the image in the market, ETC is required to follow the four essentials of quality. Such essentials include bringing improvement in customer service, improving productivity, reducing defects and bringing innovation in the products from time to time. Quality products will bring a number of advantages to the ETC. Some of the advantages include improved reputation of the company which will further lead to the increase in its sales due to which its revenue will increase. Improved image will automatically reduce the competition in the market. The company will be able to gain the advantage of the economies of scale. As far as the internal operations of the company is concerned, improved quality will provide benefits such as reduction of the service costs, scrap costs and rework along with lower inspection and test costs. Furthermore, the compliant and warranty costs will come down due to improved quality of the products. Slowly and gradually, the overall productivity of ETC will increase leading to improvement in profits (Dale & Plunkett, 2017).
The quality improvement strategy of Engineering Tooling Company will be based on three main areas namely customer satisfaction, shareholder satisfaction and employee satisfaction. The evolution of quality management is a four step process namely inspection, quality control, quality assurance and total quality management. The strategy based on these four steps will assist ETC in the achievement of its aim by ensuring complete quality improvement. Inspection will assist in sorting, blending, grading, taking corrective actions and identifying the sources leading to non- conformance. This will help in eliminating the materials which will reduce the quality standards of the products in the future (Goetsch & Davis, 2014).
Quality control can be defined as the procedures and the tactics employed and used for the purpose of ensuring the healthy functioning of the quality system of the organization. Quality control is done with the help of adopting a number of methods. Methods such as data recording and physical tests from the time when the raw materials are received in the organization, it will ensure that the quality is maintained from the very first step. Also, inspection goods should be made at the Factory gates. This will ensure that the goods have been produced by meeting the predefined standard with respect to quality (Mohammad Mosadeghrad, 2014).
In other words, quality control strategy should be based on development of quality manual, processing of performance data, product testing, self- inspection, basic quality planning, usage of statistics, and paperwork control (Schilling & Neubauer, 2017). It is suggested that ETC should aim at establishing a quality culture in the organization. The quality culture can be established by way of following the strategies such as identification of the required changes, placing the scheduled deviations in writing and then formulating plan for considering the changes. The process will also involve understanding the emotional transition process so that the employees can cope up with the changes. ETC also needs to make the identification of the employees and other people who can effectively lead the plan and ensure its proper implementation. Hearts and mind approach is suggested for the strategy (Nanda, 2016).
The adoption of guru approach can ensure quality control from the beginning. Crosby has specified 14 essentials which can assist the management in ensuring quality of the products. This approach requires the commitment of management towards quality. This will be done with the help of formulating quality improvement team that have representatives from each and every department so that they can easily put their requirements forward. Furthermore, this approach will help assist in the determination of the areas where potential and current quality problems exist (Ross, 2017). Then the cost of quality can be evaluated along with providing the explanation of its use as a part of management tool. Next point involves the raising of quality awareness and consideration of the concerns of every employee. Then the problems identified will be corrected by taking the required actions and establishing of the committee that can overview a zero defects programme. Also, the supervisors will require to be trained in order to enable them to take active part in the quality improvement programme. The change should be highlighted in the minds of the employees by holding a zero defects day. This day will let the employees know that the changes have become successful (Valmohammadi & Roshanzamir, 2015). ETC will also need to encourage each and every employee of the organization to establish their own improvement goals in their groups. The employees should also be encouraged to properly communicate the hurdles faced by them in performing their obligations to the management so that the management can consider and resolve them. Furthermore, the most efficient employee should be recognized and awarded for the efforts. Quality councils should be established and following up these steps so that the quality improvement becomes a continuous process.
Quality assurance initiates with planning for quality. Quality assurance is considered to be the infrastructure in which the operation of quality control system takes place. Quality assurance is the total of all the processes related to quality control and the environment in which such operation takes place. With the help of quality assurance, customers will be assured that ETC will fulfill the promise of offering cost effective products (Mitra, 2016).
For assuring the quality of the products, ETC should follow quality inspection from time to time. Inspection will include measuring, examining, gauging or testing of the products and then making comparison of the results with the predefined quality standards for the purpose of establishing whether the products conform to the quality standards or not (Jimenez- Jimenez, Martinez- Costa, Martinez- Lorente & Rabeh, 2015).
The company can adopt the ISO 9000 standard which will act as the framework for conducting the business. The standard will follow the set of rules which will required to be followed by ETC for the purpose of meeting the needs, wants and requirements of the customers. When ETC will follow this strategy, it will be capable of remaining competitive in the market. The ultimate goal of the implementation of this standard is the achievement of customer satisfaction (Ooi, 2015). Furthermore, the implementation of this standard will ultimately lead to the promotion of development of standardization for the purpose of facilitating international exchange of products and services. This standard will also help ETC in the promotion of technological, intellectual, scientific and economic activity. ETC will be benefited from the implementation of ISO 9000 as it will assist it in the improvement of its operations and in the creation of a quality management system. Subsequently, the consistency of quality will improve which, in turn, will lead to the satisfaction of the customers. When the products of the company will be in conformity with the requirements of the customers, it will take a competitive posture in the market (Irvine & Irvine, 2018).
The approaches adopted by the three gurus Crosby, Deming and Juran can be characterized as companywide motivation, statistical process control and project management. The teachings of these gurus should be kept in mind during the implementation of the strategy. Their teachings have some common points. All the gurus give importance to the support and participation of the top management. Also, proper training and education should be given to the workforce such that they can understand their obligations. Also, according to the gurus, careful planning should be done and steps should be taken for encouraging companywide involvement for ensuring proper quality management. Furthermore, quality improvement programmes should be undertaken as the ongoing activities (Fonseca, 2015).
In other words, quality assurance strategy should be based on quality systems deployment, comprehensive quality manuals, advanced quality planning, usage of quality costs, failure and effects analysis, involving non production operations, etc.
Total quality management (TQM) can be defined as the approach used for the purpose of doing business that make constant attempts for the maximization of the level of competitiveness of the organization with the help of continuous improvement in the quality of its products, services, environments, people and processes (Zeng, Phan & Matsui, 2015). However, the basic requirement of total quality management is to have obsession with quality, making the use of scientific approach to problem solving and decision making, keeping the customers as the focus and thinking strategically. Total quality management also requires an organization to have long term commitment and follow team work (Hietschold, Reinhardt & Gurtner, 2014).
It is suggested that ETC should adopt a total quality management strategy which is based on the principles such as customer focus, communicating and educating, thinking long term and acting short term, measuring and recording quality (so that required actions can be taken) and following team work (by involving each and every employee). The adoption of TQM strategy will provide a number of advantages to ETC such as it will provide a leading position to the company such that the company can easily defeat the competitors (Talib & Rahman, 2015). With the help of TQM, teamwork in the organization will increase which is the biggest advantage as it will bring an ease in the decision making and will provide a number of suggestions for every problem. Slowly and gradually, ETC will automatically become sensitive to the needs of the customer which will help in meeting the requirements of the customers. TQM will help ETC in easily adapting to change and will enhance teamwork in the organization (Dubey & Gunasekaran, 2015).
The TQM strategy for ETC is suggested to follow the basic objective of bringing continuous improvement. The path for the strategy will automatically lead ETC towards improved quality and profit for the organization. Firstly, ETC will aim at reducing the existence of waste and errors in the organization. When there will be less waste, there will be a great reduction in the costs. The reduced costs of the products will attract the customers towards the company which, in turn, will lead to increase in sales (Oakland, 2014). The profit of the company will be the ultimate result of this strategy. In order to efficiently follow the TQM strategy, the management of the company will be needed to create a constant drive for bringing improvement in the products and to continuously learn the use of new technology which has the capability of increasing the demands of the company. The strategy is required to result focused. The result expected in this case is the need for projecting itself to the suppliers, customers and investors as a 21st century organization with energy, visualization and integrity. This result can only be achieved when the company will have its entire focus on the quality of its products. Therefore, this strategy demands a passion for delivering customer with value for their money in the form of excellent products (Kiran, 2016).
Quality improvement also aims at the satisfaction of the employees as it is directly related to the quality of the products. The employees will work hard for the accomplishment of the aims of the organization when they will be satisfied with the job. The strategy requires the company to show active involvement in solving the concerns of the employees while working in the organization. This will ensure the development of employees and will assist in the achievement of the objectives. This development will be dependent on the response ability of the organization. The strategy will become a success only when proper implementation will be made (Gomez, Martinez Costa & Martinez Lorente, 2017).
Strategy requires the adoption of continuous learning in the organization. When ETC will adopt the practice of continuous learning in the organization, the processes will automatically improve. Process improvement will lead ETC to quality improvement and will assist in the fulfillment of three key objectives namely customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and shareholder satisfaction (Rani, Reddy & Poongavanam, 2018). The strategy implementation related to total quality management will require a cultural change in ETC. The requirement of cultural change arises due to the fact that the occurrence of change cannot take place in a hostile environment. Also, total quality management cannot take place in a single go and takes time. Moreover, sometimes overcoming of the pat becomes difficult. Change resistance will also be required to be managed properly (Calabrese & Corbo, 2015).
In other words, total quality management strategy will be based on policy deployment, process management, involvement of all operations, customers and suppliers, teamwork, employee involvement and performance measurement. The strategy can be effectively implemented only when the top and middle level management performs their role in the required manner. The role of top management will be to provide effective leadership to the various departments of the ETC in ensuring quality management. The top management will also make sure that the resources are being optimally utilized. Furthermore, the role of middle level management is concerned with facilitation (Suwandej, 2015). Through facilitation, the middle level management will offer proper assistance and guidance to the lower level management who are actually responsible for the implementation of the strategies. The lower level management is then required to show proper commitment during the implementation of the strategy. The implementation will also require the creation of a companywide steering committee which will focus on measurement analysis and results (Attafar, Shahin & Kheradmandnia, 2016).
The senior managers need to realize that the TQM is not the concern of the quality department only and is required to be undertaken by every department from the beginning to the end. The senior management of ETC will be required to lead the training and education sessions and continuous assessments of the improvements made. If there are any deviations from the planned results, corrective actions can be taken at the initial stages. The implementation of TQM will follow three stages namely preparation stage, planning stage and execution stage. ETC will get a good start when it will follow the ISO 9000 steps for the implementation of total quality (Akgun, Ince, Imamoglu, Keskin & Kocoglu, 2014).
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that quality improvement plays a great role in the success of the organization. As a Quality Manager for Engineering Tooling Company, improvement strategy has been provided including the Total Quality Management, Quality Control and Quality Assurance implications for ETC. The quality improvement strategy of ETC is suggested to be based on three key areas namely customer satisfaction, shareholder satisfaction and employee satisfaction. Success in these areas can assist ETC in the achievement of its goal of projecting itself to the suppliers, customers and investors as a 21st century organization with energy, vision and conscience. The evolution of quality management is a four step process namely inspection, quality control, quality assurance and total quality management.
Quality control strategy should be based on development of quality manual, processing of performance data, product testing, self- inspection, basic quality planning, usage of statistics, and paperwork control. The adoption of guru approach can ensure quality control from the beginning. Quality assurance strategy should be based on quality systems deployment, comprehensive quality manuals, advanced quality planning, usage of quality costs, failure and effects analysis, involving non production operations, etc. It is suggested that ETC should adopt a total quality management strategy which is based on the principles such as customer focus, communication and education, thinking long term and acting short term, measuring and recording quality and following team work. Total quality management strategy will be based on policy deployment, involvement of all operations, suppliers and customers, process management, teamwork, performance measurement and employee involvement.
References
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Attafar, A., Shahin, A. and Kheradmandnia, M., 2016. The impact of TQM practices on organizational learning case study. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 33(5), pp.574-596.
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