L6&7

• The operation’s view of quality is consistent conformance to customers’ expectations, which implies a clear specification and consistent conformance to specification.
• The customers’ view of quality is whatever they perceive it to be, which may not align with the organization’s internal quality specification.
• Quality Management is a process that ensures the quality of the product throughout its life cycle.
• Gap 1: The customer’s specification - operation’s specification gap can occur when there is a mismatch between the organization’s internal quality specification and the specification which is expected by the customer.
• Gap 2: The concept - specification gap can occur when there is a mismatch between the service or product concept and the way the organization has specified quality internally.
• Underlying the use of these techniques is an emphasis on the scientific method, responding only to hard evidence, and using statistical software to facilitate analysis.
• Process improvement involves collecting and analysing data to formulate a plan of action which is intended to improve performance.
• Customers are seen, not as being external to the organization, but as the most important part of it.
• A process perspective in improvement focuses on what actually happens rather than which part of the organization has responsibility for what happens.
• Six Sigma consultants are devoted to mastering quantitative analytical techniques.
• Six Sigma promotes systematic use of (preferably quantitative) evidence.
• An end-to-end process, also known as an “e2e process”, is a complete series of activities and tasks necessary to produce a finished product or service, involving every step from the beginning of the development process to the delivery of the final product or service.
• Some improvement approaches, such as Business Process Re-engineering (BPR), prescribe exactly how processes should be organized.
• The DMAIC cycle involves defining the problem, measuring the problem, analysing the problem, improving the process, and controlling the improved level of performance.
• Gap 3: The quality specification - actual quality gap can occur when there is a mismatch between actual quality and the internal quality specification.
• Total quality management (TQM) is a philosophy that puts quality and improvement at the heart of everything that is done by an operation.
• It means stressing that each process in an operation has a responsibility to manage these internal customer - supplier relationships.
• The key elements of the lean approach are customer-centricity, internal customer-supplier relationships, perfection as the goal, synchronized flow, reduce variation, include all people, and waste elimination.
• They do this primarily by defining as clearly as possible what their own and their customers ‘requirements are.
• Even with improvement specialists used to lead improvement efforts, the staff who actually operate the process can still be used as a valuable source of information and improvement ideas.
• TQM lays particular stress on meeting the needs and expectations of customers, improvement covers all parts of the organization, improvement includes every person in the organization, including all costs of quality, getting things ‘right first time’, and developing the systems and procedures which support improvement.
• Lean is an improvement approach that aims to meet demand instantaneously, with perfect quality and no waste.
• One of the best ways to ensure that external customers are satisfied is to establish the idea that every part of the organization contributes to external customer satisfaction by satisfying its own internal customers.
• Business process re-engineering (BPR) is an approach that advocates radical changes rather than incremental changes to processes.
• In effect this means defining what constitutes ‘error-free’ service – the quality, speed, dependability and flexibility required by internal customers.
• Gap 4: The actual quality - communicated image gap can occur when there is a gap between the organization’s external communications or market image and the actual quality delivered to the customer.
• Benefits of implementing ISO 9001:2008 include improvement in quality, reduction in waste and defects, increased productivity, and faster growth of the company.
• A Quality Circle is a group of workers who do the same or similar work, who meet regularly to identify, analyze and solve work-related problems.
• Benefits of Quality Circle include self-development, opportunity to attain knowledge, potential leader, enhanced communication skills, job satisfaction, healthy work environment, and organizational benefits.
• The principles of quality management according to ISO 9001:2008 include being customer-focused, measuring quality performance, being improvement-driven, and top management commitment to maintaining and continually improving management systems.
• Benefits to customers of ISO 9001:2008 include greater satisfaction, better service, and fewer problems with products.
• The ISO 9001:2008 standard provides the set of standardized requirements for a quality management system which should apply to any organization, regardless of size, or whether it is in the private or public sector.
• Properties of Quality Circle include being a participative management technique within the framework of a company, teams of 6 to 12 employees voluntarily, defining and solving quality or performance-related problems, and having objectives of improving quality, productivity, safety, reducing cost, promoting team spirit, and developing leadership quality.
• ISO 9001:2008 is a company level certification based on the standard published by the International Organization for Standardization titled “Quality management systems - Requirements”.
• Six Sigma is a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects (driving toward six standard deviations between the mean and the nearest specification limit) in any process from manufacturing to transactional and from product to service.
• The DMAIC principle/ roadmap includes Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control.
• Benefits to employees of ISO 9001:2008 include more training and improved abilities, more recognitions and rewards.
• Operations managers are judged not only on how they meet their ongoing responsibilities of producing products and services to acceptable levels of quality, speed, dependability, flexibility, and cost, but also on how they improve the performance of the operations function overall.
• There is a perceived increase in the intensity of competitive pressures (or value for money) in not-for-profit or public sector operations.
• Improvement is now seen as the prime responsibility of operations management.