8 Quality Manangement Principles

Executive Summary

In this assignment, it will briefly introduce the concept of the eight quality management to you. It will first introduce what are the eight quality management principles separately. Then it will introduce the importance of the eight quality management principles, a brief story about warm boiled frog will be mentioned which can greatly reflects the condition of the businesses nowadays. Finally, the key benefits and what should managers do will be mentioned. These ideas are acknowledged to the reference books and the internet which really inspires people in the business area a lot.

Introduction

In the background of the globalization, more and more companies desire to be successful. However, due to the changing environment, it is not easy for businesses to being success. Many business managers lack of the basic business management knowledge. They blame the failing results to the external environment rather than the management manners.

During the globalized changing process, the businesses need to be changed in order to fit in the global trade. Therefore, the authority of business management has introduced these eight quality management with many practices. The eight quality management principles tell people in the business about how to manage the internal quality management environment, and it has proved by a large number of people that this tool is really useful.

Question One

The principles of quality management can be divided into eight parts which are customer focus, leadership, involvement of people, process approach, system approach to management, continual improvement, factual approach to decision making and mutually beneficial supplier relationships.

Customer Focus

It is well acknowledged that customers are the base of a business. Therefore, a business should understand the current needs and wants of customers as well as in a long-term vision. In the definition of “customer” according to GB/T 19000-2000, customer is the person or organization who accepts the product. For example, some like consumers, clients, final users, retailers, benefiters and buyers. In the opposite of a customer, is the providers, the provider is the person or organization who provides the products.

For example, manufactures, wholesalers, retailers, and providers who provides service or information. There is no customer, if there is no provider. In contract to this, if there is no customer, then the provider is hard to survive. That is why we say customers are the base of a business. In a whole general perspective of the quality management, the next processing is the customer of the before processing. So, we cannot just narrowly think the customer as the “buyer” of the products. For instance, to think about the customer of a car manufacture as only drivers, but not passengers will make the car less qualified.

“Organizations depend on their customers and therefore should understand current and future customer needs, should meet customer requriements and strive to exceed customer expectations.” (http://www.iso.org/iso/qmp_2012.pdf)

Leadership

The second improtant factor of quality management is called leadership. Leadership is recognized as the core of allocating labor resources and maintaining the internal environment of a business. A good leadership also requring to unite people on achieving goals of the company. To act a role as leader, you need to have some power, and is responsible to command and organize the staff in the business. In the quality management, leaders are on a very important position, especially on allocating the resources not only on the selling process, but also the labor resources.

“Leaders establish unity of purpose and direction of the organization. They should create and maintain the internal environment in which people can become fully involved in achieving the organization’s objectives.” (http://www.iso.org/iso/qmp_2012.pdf)

Involvement of People

Besides the above, people are also the foundation of a business for that people in a business who are highly involved in business activites would enhance the efficient and effectiveness of the business, therefore, this increase the benefit of the company.

In the total quality management(TQM), there are three basic charachteristics, one is the involvement of people, the other one is the proessing quality management, another one is the quality management around the whole organization. Therefore, the involvement of people is not only the character of TQM, but also the advantage. By using this advantage, the business can achieve the effectiveness and efficiency.

“People at all levels are th essence of an organization and their full involvement enables their abilities to be used for the organization’s benefit.” (http://www.iso.org/iso/qmp_2012.pdf)

Process Approach

A process approach is defined as achieving efficient by recognizing the business activities and resources as a process to make. Excepts the process, there are also input and output, before and after the process. We input and output the products into processing, processing use resources, this includes staff, facilities, working environment and information.

Process can be long and short, each long process includes several small short processes. For each staff in the business, the composation is different. For the workers, their process is to making products. For the department managers, their process is the whole manufacture process. For the general managers, their process is to transfer the capitals into benefits.

“A desired result is achieved more efficiently when activities and related resources are managed as a process.” (http://www.iso.org/iso/qmp_2012.pdf)

System Approach to Management

To identify, understand and manage the related processing as a whole system can make a company to achieve its goals more effective and efficient. For the total quality management, the “total” also means system. The concept of “system”, had become one of the important theory in science in the 20th century, it has influence philosophy, social science, and managerial science a lot. The concept of science allows any process to be a part of the system. “Identifying, understanding and managing interrelated processes as a system contributed to the organization’s effectiveness and efficiency in achieving its objectives.” (http://www.iso.org/iso/qmp_2012.pdf)

Continual Improvement

Overall, continual improvement should be the main aim of an organization. It should be a long-lasting aim of the performance of the organization. Continual Improvement is one of the important core content of total quality management (TQM).

“Continual improvement of the organization’s overall performance should be a permanent objective of the organization.” (http://www.iso.org/iso/qmp_2012.pdf)

Factual Approach to Decision Making

Statistics leads to effective and efficient decision making. The total quality management is developed from statistics quality management, it allows respect subjective fact, try to use data to talk. A real data can not only reflect the fact, but also describe the fact. The data which is clearly showed can better analyze and solve the problems.

“Effective decisions are based on the analysis of data and information.” (http://www.iso.org/iso/qmp_2012.pdf)

Mutually Beneficial Supplier Relationships

To build a trustful and mutually beneficial supplier relationship is critical to improve the value on both sides. This new idea is the new change compared to the vision of 1994, GB/T 19004-2000. In the past, including some books in TQM, they only think the customers are besides the providers. They think providers are only providers, so they do not need to build any good relationships with providers. However, this idea has changed through the time pass.

“An organization and its suppliers are interdependent and a mutually beneficial relationship enhances the ability of both to create value.” (http://www.iso.org/iso/qmp_2012.pdf)

Question Two

Are these principles important? The answer is surely they are important. Why are these principles important? Firstly, I want to tell a story about warm boiled frog.

The boiling frog story is a widespread anecdote describing a frog slowly being boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability of people to react to significant changes that occur gradually. According to contemporary biologists the premise of the story is not literally true; a frog submerged and gradually heated will jump out. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog)

So, why did the frog die? If we imagine dying process of the frog as a business management, then we would know that a business fail is because of lacking of conceptual management thinking, blaming the external environment, focusing only on the occasional issue happens, and lacking of team work cooperation. This story really reflects the model of the business management that people should be aware of the gradual change intend to not to fail in a changing business environment, and that is the reason why we should involve those quality management principles into our business management which is really focusing on the management of internal environment.

Question Three Key benefits
Principle 1 – Customer focus

Increased revenue and market share obtained through flexible and fast responses to market opportunities • Increased effectiveness in the use of the organization’s resources to enhance customer satisfaction • Improved customer loyalty leading to repeat business.

(http://www.iso.org/iso/qmp_2012.pdf)

Principle 2 – Leadership
People will understand and be motivated towards the organization’s goals and objectives • Activities are evaluated, aligned and implemented in a unified
way • Miscommunication between levels of an organization will be minimized. (http://www.iso.org/iso/qmp_2012.pdf)

Principle 3 – Involvement of people
• Motivated, committed and involved people within the organization • Innovation and creativity in furthering the organization’s objectives • People being accountable for their own performance
• People eager to participate in and contribute to continual improvement. (http://www.iso.org/iso/qmp_2012.pdf)

Principle 4 – Process approach
• Lower costs and shorter cycle times through effective use of resources • Improved, consistent and predictable results
• Focused and prioritized improvement opportunities.
(http://www.iso.org/iso/qmp_2012.pdf)

Principle 5 – System approach to management
• Integration and alignment of the processes that will best achieve the desired results • Ability to focus effort on the key processes
• Providing confidence to interested parties as to the consistency, effectiveness and efficiency of the organization. (http://www.iso.org/iso/qmp_2012.pdf)

Principle 6 – Continual improvement
• Performance advantage through improved organizational capabilities • Alignment of improvement activities at all levels to an organization’s strategic intent • Flexibility to react quickly to opportunities.

(http://www.iso.org/iso/qmp_2012.pdf)

Principle 7 – Factual approach to decision making
• Informed decisions
• An increased ability to demonstrate the effectiveness of past decisions through reference to factual records • Increased ability to review, challenge and change opinions and decisions.
(http://www.iso.org/iso/qmp_2012.pdf)

Principle 8 – Mutually beneficial supplier relationships
• Increased ability to create value for both parties
• Flexibility and speed of joint responses to changing market or customer needs and expectations • Optimization of costs and resources.
(http://www.iso.org/iso/qmp_2012.pdf)

Question Four
Principle 1 – Customer focus
• Researching and understanding customer needs and expectations • Ensuring that the objectives of the organization are linked to customer needs and expectations • Communicating customer needs and expectations throughout the organization • Measuring customer satisfaction and acting on the results • Systematically managing customer relationships

• Ensuring a balanced approach between satisfying customers and other interested parties (such as owners, employees, suppliers, financiers, local communities and society as a whole).

Principle 2 – Leadership
• Considering the needs of all interested parties including customers, owners, employees, suppliers, financiers, local communities and society as a whole • Establishing a clear vision of the organization’s future • Setting challenging goals and targets

• Creating and sustaining shared values, fairness and ethical role models at all levels of the organization • Establishing trust and eliminating fear
• Providing people with the required resources, training and freedom to act with responsibility and accountability

Principle 3 – Involvement of people
• People understanding the importance of their contribution and role in the organization • People identifying constraints to their performance
• People accepting ownership of problems and their responsibility for solving
them • People evaluating their performance against their personal goals and objectives • People actively seeking opportunities to enhance their competence, knowledge and experience • People freely sharing knowledge and experience

• People openly discussing problems and issues.

Principle 4 – Process approach

Systematically defining the activities necessary to obtain a desired result • Establishing clear responsibility and accountability for managing key activities • Analyzing and measuring of the capability of key activities • Identifying the interfaces of key activities within and between the functions of the organization • Focusing on the factors – such as resources, methods, and materials – that will improve key activities of the organization • Evaluating risks, consequences and impacts of activities on customers, suppliers and other interested parties.

Principle 5 – System approach to management

Structuring a system to achieve the organization’s objectives in the most effective and efficient way • Understanding the interdependencies between the processes of the system • Structured approaches that harmonize and integrate processes • Providing a better understanding of the roles and responsibilities necessary for achieving common objectives and thereby reducing cross-functional barriers • Understanding organizational capabilities and establishing resource constraints prior to action • Targeting and defining how specific activities within a system should operate • Continually improving the system through measurement and evaluation.

Principle 6 – Continual improvement

• Employing a consistent organization-wide approach to continual improvement of the organization’s performance • Providing people with training in the methods and tools of continual improvement • Making continual improvement of products, processes and systems an objective for every individual in the organization • Establishing goals to guide, and measures to track, continual improvement • Recognizing and acknowledging improvements.

Principle 7 – Factual approach to decision making
• Ensuring that data and information are sufficiently accurate and reliable • Making data accessible to those who need it
• Analyzing data and information using valid methods
• Making decisions and taking action based on factual analysis, balanced with experience and intuition.

Principle 8 – Mutually beneficial supplier relationships
• Establishing relationships that balance short-term gains with long-term considerations • Pooling of expertise and resources with partners
• Identifying and selecting key suppliers
• Clear and open communication
• Sharing information and future plans
• Establishing joint development and improvement activities • Inspiring, encouraging and recognizing improvements and achievements by suppliers.

Conclusion
In conclusion, the eight quality management principles really show us a way to control our business quality which is most effcient and effective. Customer focus shows us that customer is the foudation of a business due to customers make up the market. Learship shows us that a good leader should always try to motivate people in the business and lead them to reach the business goal as well as manage the resources efficiently.

Involvement of people tells us a good business should always let people make the decision.Process apporach presents a way to manage the resources to most effective. System apporach to management presents that we should always see the producting process into a system. Continual improvement tends to enhance the business continuallly. Factual approach to decision making lets us always remember use data to analysis your business. Finally, to have a really good relationship with your supplier is what Mutually beneficial supplier relationships tells us.

Bibliography
http://wenku.baidu.com/view/cca5b6c2d5bbfd0a79567361.html
http://baike.baidu.com/view/470884.htm
http://wenku.baidu.com/view/98c1a0d8d15abe23482f4d44.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog. http://www.iso.org/iso/qmp_2012.pdf..