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Describe the quality efforts that have been applied to your organizational unit (including any ISO or QS certification programs) and assess the effectiveness of these efforts using Deming’s 14 points. To accomplish this, you should carefully analyze your organizational unit in regard to each of Deming’s 14 points, examining each point individually and noting what your organizational unit is doing in response to each of these points. Based on your analysis, develop a plan to address any shortcomings in the quality effort.
Include the plan in your paper. This paper is due at the end of Week Three of the course. Content, style, and grammar are all important to the grade. Well-written papers with excellent content and grammar will receive A grades. Deficiencies in either content or style/grammar will reduce the grade No length is specified. The correct length is whatever length it takes to do an excellent job with the content of the paper. (Generally speaking, good papers tend to fall in the 6- to 14-page range on this assignment.
Please organize your paper around Deming’s fourteen points. Deming’s 14 points by Phil Cohen W Edwards Deming was an American statistician who was credited with the rise of Japan as a manufacturing nation, and with the invention of Total Quality Management (TQM). Deming went to Japan just after the War to help set up a census of the Japanese population. While he was there, he taught ‘statistical process control’ to Japanese engineers – a set of techniques which allowed them to manufacture high-quality goods without expensive machinery.
In 1960 he was awarded a medal by the Japanese Emperor for his services to that country’s industry. Deming returned to the US and spent some years in obscurity before the publication of his book “Out of the crisis” in 1982. In this book, Deming set out 14 points which, if applied to US manufacturing industry, would he believed, save the US from industrial doom at the hands of the Japanese. Although Deming does not use the term Total Quality Management in his book, it is credited with launching the movement.
Most of the central ideas of TQM are contained in “Out of the crisis”. The 14 points seem at first sight to be a rag-bag of radical ideas, but the key to understanding a number of them lies in Deming’s thoughts about variation. Variation was seen by Deming as the disease that threatened US manufacturing. The more variation – in the length of parts supposed to be uniform, in delivery times, in prices, in work practices – the more waste, he reasoned. From this premise, he set out his 14 points for management, which we have paraphrased here: 1. Create constancy of purpose towards improvement”. Replace short-term reaction with long-term planning. 2. “Adopt the new philosophy”. The implication is that management should actually adopt his philosophy, rather than merely expect the workforce to do so. 3. “Cease dependence on inspection”. If variation is reduced, there is no need to inspect manufactured items for defects, because there won’t be any. 4. “Move towards a single supplier for any one item. ” Multiple suppliers mean variation between feedstocks. 5. “Improve constantly and forever”.
Constantly strive to reduce variation. 6. “Institute training on the job”. If people are inadequately trained, they will not all work the same way, and this will introduce variation. 7. “Institute leadership”. Deming makes a distinction between leadership and mere supervision. The latter is quota- and target-based. 8. “Drive out fear”. Deming sees management by fear as counter- productive in the long term, because it prevents workers from acting in the organisation’s best interests. 9. “Break down barriers between departments”. Another idea central o TQM is the concept of the ‘internal customer’, that each department serves not the management, but the other departments that use its outputs. 10. “Eliminate slogans”. Another central TQM idea is that it’s not people who make most mistakes – it’s the process they are working within. Harassing the workforce without improving the processes they use is counter-productive. 11. “Eliminate management by objectives”. Deming saw production targets as encouraging the delivery of poor-quality goods. 12. “Remove barriers to pride of workmanship”.
Many of the other problems outlined reduce worker satisfaction. 13. “Institute education and self-improvement”. 14. “The transformation is everyone’s job”. * Deming has been criticised* for putting forward a set of goals without providing any tools for managers to use to reach those goals (just the problem he identified in point 10). His inevitable response to this question was: “You’re the manager, you figure it out. ” “Out of the crisis” is over 500 pages long, and it is not possible to do full justice to it in a 600 word article.
If the above points interest you, we recommend the book for further information. Web sites: These web sites have a great overview of Deming’s 14 points This is the web site for the Deming Institute http://www. deming. org Workplace-Oriented Applications Paper {text:bookmark-end} Due at the end of Week Seven, this assignment requires the student to analyze the operations of his/her current workplace and represents a comprehensive assessment of the student’s ability to apply the concepts learned in the course.
Note that this means that you should apply at least two of the models discussed in classto your workplace. Examples include service blue prints, control charts, pert charts etc. Because employment situations vary, it may be necessary to consult with the professor to interpret these requirements. However, it is intended to be an analysis of a real-world company with regard to its quality and service operations management strategies. This paper should have at least the following components: Description of the Service. Describe the service(s) that your company or business unit provides.
Include in your discussion any E-services that are provided. Productivity. Describe the firm’s productivity and the metrics used to monitor productivity. Show how productivity has changed over time and explain what events or defining moments led to changes in this measure. If your company does not use metrics of this type, you must define and create them for the purpose of the paper. Facility Layout and Job Design. Define the facility layout, including in the analysis layout deficiencies and suggestions for improvement.
Also, analyze the ergonomics of the workplace and any suggestions for improvement. 10. 11. Summary of Recommendations. Prepare a short memo that summarizes your analyses and provides recommendations for improvement. 12. Reflections. Describe the ways in which this course and its activities have had an impact on your job and your understanding of quality and operations management strategies at your workplace. Feel free to also include other relevant reflections related to this course and your MBA curriculum.