TQM Implementation

q7a. Identify five types of teams available to an organization and the context in which they are utilized.

Informal, or self-directed teams are social in nature and do not require organizational authorities to participate. Informal teams often solve problems before they reach the administrative level.

Traditional teams are based on the formal organizational structure and usually represent the department or functional area.

Problem-solving team is gathered when the problem appears. It acts as a temporary tool to solve the issue. Problem-solving teams comprise employees from different departments.

Leadership teams are officially appointed supervisory bodies. Usually they take form of advisory councils or steering committees.

Virtual teams are composed of geographically distributed team members that communicate using the modern technologies’ advantages.
q7b. Explain job enlargement, job rotation, and job enrichment. Why are these seen as ways to improve employee satisfaction and productivity?

Job enlargement means assigning the new types of work to an employee. It is supposed to reflect company’s confidence in worker’s abilities. It can be a good motivation, saving considerable budget amounts along the way.

Job rotation is another way of getting new types of work done by employees. In this case, they do not continue to perform their usual duties. Workers are taught a new skill and see the result immediately. This increases their satisfaction from the job.

Job enrichment is again about increasing the number of activity types. However, this approach allows the employee to choose those activities that suit him or her best.
q8. Differentiate between value-creation (core) processes and supporting processes. Provide an example of each process.

The value-creation process addresses the needs of a customer. Such process is based upon the demand and adds to the core of a business. The example could be the ongoing development of an iPhone 6.

The supporting process is driven by company needs. The daily cleaning in the offices of iPhone 6 developers is a supporting process.
q9a. Identify four categories of measures that might constitute a Balanced Scorecard of performance measures and provide and example of each.

Labor efficiency is one of the most important performance metrics. For example, worker A can assemble seven iPhones per day while worker B can assemble four. This category can be a part of Balanced Scorecard also comparing the labor efficiency of competing companies.

Another category is a rate of rework or scrap. The Balanced Scorecard can include it because it also influences the performance.

The return on investment can be used to measure the performance too. For instance, there is one billion USD spent on the iPhone 5 development and all sales will make three billions.

The survey of customer satisfaction also is an important category of performance measures. For instance, iPhone 5 users are satisfied by 15% more than was reported in a similar survey for the iPhone 4S. Consequently, the performance measure indicates the right direction of the development.

q9b. Identify and discuss five leading practices in the development and use of data, information, and performance measures.

Open communication is an important methodology that builds understanding of strategic measures at all levels in the organization.

Best practices assessment gives the possibility to follow the trends.

Increased cooperation helps team members to focus on helping each other to achieve a common goal.

Customer involvement is intended to provide strategic feedback and learning.

Strategic planning makes sure that there is a clear understanding of company’s development within industry standards.
q10. Discuss the two major reasons why companies adopt total quality.

TQM helps improving the quality of each of company’s processes, resulting in a massive quality improvement for the company as a whole. The total quality concept takes into account the customers’ perspective. It creates the value perceived as association with customers’ needs. Thus, quality is assured both from within and from outside the company. Combined with the TQM impact on the corporate culture, it presents numerous social benefits.
q11a. Explain the three fundamental principles of statistical thinking. Use an example from either your personal life or a work process to illustrate.

The first principle suggests that all events that happen are interconnected. Thus, every process is a part in the activities’ chain. For example, the iPhone 5 development is closely connected with a success of an iPhone 4S model.

However, variations exist in allprocesses. For instance, success of iPhone 4S was less pronounced than the popularity of iPhone 3GS.

Third principle ensures thatvariations are assessed and reduced in order to achieve the goal. That would mean that iPhone 6 is going to avoid mistakes of iPhone 5.
q11b. What are the advantages of studying a sample from the population instead of the studying the entire population though a census?

The population as a whole is too complex and too diverse for the TQM study purposes. The percentage of irrelevant results will obscure the useful part. It is more practical to categorize the population and select the most appropriate category for the sample studying. The precision of study results reflects the accuracy level of the target group definition. Thus, sample category should be carefully defined and selected.

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