Tools and Strategies Quality Improvement

Discuss about the Tools and Strategies Quality Improvement.

Introduction

Latino Engineering was founded by Dominic Latino and has been operating for last 30 years. The client base of the company was strong due the professionalism and work quality of the Dominic and various contracts had been awarded. It attracted various investors and after the takeover of the Latino Engineering by an investment company, various complaints have started been received by the clients, which include defective engineering equipment, poor follow ups with clients regarding design and development, long turnaround time for the resolution of the issues, and non-responsive customer service team. Furthermore, there were some cases, in which, wrong equipment were packaged and delivered to the clients. In order to resume back in the market, the senior management of the company has employed me as a project management consultant in order to provide continuous improvement plan so as to overcome the issues and complaints within the next three months.

To resolve the issue, it has become essential for me to identify the root cause of the issues arising, for which, I will have to propose the use of appropriate tools and techniques. Root cause analysis (RCA) is considered as a most popular technique to assist the people in identifying the cause of the issues occurring within the organization. It requires the identification of the origin of the problem utilizing a specific set of steps along with the associated tools in order to find the primary cause of the problem. RCA presupposes the systems and events to be interrelated to each other (Brighthubpm, 2017).  It is a well-known fact that actions keep on triggering other actions in sequence and by tracking such actions, the root cause of the problem can be identified (Wheeler, 2014). There are three basic types of causes, which include physical causes, human causes, as well as organizational causes. All three types of causes are taken into consideration by the RCA, which involves investigation of the patterns of negative impacts by finding out the hidden flaws within the system, and by discovering the specific actions that have contributed to the problems that occurred in the organization (Yoon, 2003).

There are five identifiable steps of RCA for the process of Root Cause Analysis. These include defining the problem, which involves the current issues with the company as well as the specific symptoms that appears. The second step is to collect the relevant data, which involves the analysis of the situation before looking at the factors that have added to the problem. In order to exploit the effectiveness of RCA, one should consider the opinion of the experts and the front line staff, who are familiar with the situation of the company. CATWOE is a significant tool at this level, through which, the situation can be analyzed from various perspectives, i.e. the Customers, the Actors implementing the solutions, the Transformation process that affected, the opinion of the World, process Owner, as well as the Environmental constraints (Hughes, 2008).

The identification of the possible causal factors should be the next step, in which, the sequence of the events that have led to the problem is required to be identified, and the conditions due to which, the problem has occurred, should be identified. In this step, the causal factors behind the occurrence of the problem are required to be identified, for which, the tools to be utilized must be Appreciation, 5 Whys, Drill Down, as well as Cause and Effect Diagrams (MindTools, 2017).

In step four, recommendations and implementation of the solutions are required to be suggested, which involves, preventing the problem from occurring in future, ways of implementing the solutions, the responsible factor for the problem, along with the risks behind implementing the solutions. Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a tool that can be utilized to identify the potential failures, wherein, a solution implemented can fail. Impact Analysis assists in exploring the possible positive and negative consequences of a change on various parts of a system or organization. Kaizen or continuous improvement is considered as another great strategy as it emphasizes upon the people associated closely with the process in order to identify the possibilities for improvement (Miers, 2003).

Particularly in this situation, it will be better to utilize the Fishbone (Ishikawa) diagram because this tool is suitable for identifying the possible causes for the problem specifically, when in case of Latino Engineering, the thinking of the senior management has fallen into ruts (American Society for Quality, 2017).     

Image Source: http://www.project-management-skills.com/fishbone-diagram.html

There are five main problems that have arisen after the takeover of the company by an investment company. Through Fish bone diagram, the causes behind the problems and their impacts can be analyzed. On the basis of the complexity and the importance of the problem, most possible causes can further be identified, which can be made possible by establishing the investigations, and performing the surveys (Mindtools, 2017).  

After analyzing the possible causes behind the problems arising in the organization, a strategic plan will be required to be proposed in order to eliminate or to reduce the root cause keeping in mind the available resources (Project-Management-Skills, 2017). However, the senior management of the company has committed that they will be providing all the required support in order to turnaround the situation, but they want a well prepared plan so as to address all the issues in the next 3 months.

Plan To Eliminate or Reduce the Root Cause

Defective engineering equipment- Because of improper maintenance and inappropriate testing procedures of the company, defects in the engineering equipment can occur. It might also be the result of ignorance by the engineering staff members of the maintenance section. It is essential for the maintenance related engineers to look after the matter more seriously as it is related to the quality of the material that will be provided to the customers. In addition to it, there is a requirement of strict supervision as well as the workforce in the relevant section must also be provided with effective training and should be properly guided. As the impact of takeover has not affected the workforce, the experience within the organization has been retained. Moreover, there must be strict rules and regulations and must be re-evaluated if required (Sinur & Bell., 2003). The supervisor and the managerial staff should engage with the workforce in order to recognize the issues they are facing and should motivate them to enhance their performance and quality aspects. Furthermore, the client base of the company has also been affected because of the retirement of the owner as they had trust over the work related policies and the commitments of the owner of Latino Engineering. In order to develop same trust with the client, the company must communicate with the clients from time to time and should emphasize upon gaining their trust by providing them with the best quality of services (Chang, 2005).

Poor design and development follow up with clients- It is essential for a company to keep regular follow up of the clients as their opinions and feedbacks provide better ideas and maintain brand image of the company in the market. Poor design and development follow up from the clients might be the result of lack of efficient team members and inefficient handling of the clients' responses (Rother & Shook, 1999). Taking follow ups from the clients creates trust among the clients for the company which ensures them that the company will leave no stone unturned in resolving their issues and will provide them with the best products and services. Hence, the company must provide appropriate training to the employees related to customer service department as well as employ more employees to curb the situation of poor client handling. Through training, all the employees will get updated with the latest trends and demands of the customers, which will assist them in bringing modifications in the designs and development of the engineering equipment as per the demands of the customers (Moore, 1999).

Too long turnaround time for issue resolution- Excessive time required for the resolution of the issues might be a result of slow system services, lack of skilled and well trained staff, and inefficient management processes. The issues related to the systems can be resolved by proper maintenance of the computers and updated versions in them. In addition to it, the engineers must always be keen to check the systems and processes so that the issues of the clients might reach upto the customer service executives as earliest as possible. Furthermore, the hiring of the new staff and proper training to them along with the older ones can resolve the issues of lack of skilled employees in the customer service department (Womack & Jones, 1996).        

Nonresponsive customer service team- As mentioned earlier, customer service team should well trained and equipped to handle the issues of the clients as it enhances the reputation of the company in the market. Non-responsiveness might be occurring because of lack of required staff in the customer service department and lack of confidence among the employees due to take over of the company and the replacement of the owners (Khan, 2004). It is evident also because there is no change in the workforce and the name of the company, but the productivity of same employees has led to so many complaints from the clients regarding various issues, who were previously performing at their best. The degradation of the performance might have caused due to the culture clash between the working environments generated because of change in the ownership of the company. As the company has decided to make no changes in the workforce, the morale of the employees is required to be boosted up in order to receive similar results from them as were in the times of Latino. It seems that the human resource management and the work culture during the period of Dominic were excellent, so it should be adopted by the Investment Company. Taking into consideration, the lack of employees, the company should immediately work on hiring more employees to increase the productivity of the company (Harmon, 2003).

Wrong engineering equipment packaging and delivery - Efficient packaging involves the pickers getting to the correct bin, finding the parcel with the correct ticket number and sending it to the destined location. The issue in this case is the wrong packaging of the equipment as well as wrong delivery of the products to the clients. It might be caused due to the lack of knowledge among the related human resources or lack of responsibility among them (Verma, 2009). It is extremely essential to provide them with the required training and to reevaluate the existing rules and regulations to develop the sense of responsibility among them. Such mistakes destroys the image of the company in front of the clients and in the market, so it requires immediate and strict actions to be taken by the company and at the same time, the company should calm down the clients and respond them in a well behaved manner along with apologizing for the mistakes (Snabe et al., 2008).    

After the process of assessment, Latino Engineering will be required to develop a continuous improvement plan in order to ensure that the issues shall not be repeated in future.  The continuous improvement plan will offer a structured plan for the analysis of the areas in which, improvement can be performed, outlining of the actions planning of the actions and the processes that are required, allocation of the responsibilities, establishing the priorities regarding the improvement activities, and for the determination and establishment of the time frames for the completion of the tasks, and monitoring and measurement of the effectiveness of the improvement (Jeston & Nelis, 2010). The requirement of the continuous improvement plan is essential for the company for the purpose of management of the processes within the organization. It is also essential for making the behavior of the team more uniform (Ball & Maleyeff, 2003). However, it is essential to emphasize upon the alignment as well as to reward the achievements of goals; otherwise the activities within the organization can negatively impact upon the efficiency of the team members. The culture within the company emphasizes the employees over there to concentrate towards tangible, measurable, and visible issues of the organization. In order to implement continuous improvement plan, the company will have to follow certain specific goals, strategies, and action steps. In this process, it becomes essential for the company to implement SMART components as well as to value the progress within the organization (Chang, 2005). Moreover, the company would require offering a strong leadership for guidance to the projects through the continuous improvement plan. The processes in action steps require the stakeholders to ensure the reasonable and supportive environment.

Continuous Improvement Plan

For the purpose of implementation of Continuous Improvement Plan, the company will be required to implement the concept of the lean management for the business of the company. The implementation of the process management of the business will basically assist the company in enhancing the services and the products with the help of the structured approach for the improvement of the performance within the organization (ASQ.ORG, 2017). However, the value stream is also an effective methodology for the description of rules and processes of the business, there is a need for the adaptation of the innovative tools for the process management of the business in order to increment the values.  The procedure of the company designs the tools that include the establishment of the budget as well as to accomplish the goals for increasing the value of the money.  

The implementation of the continuous improvement plan, the improvement actions should be implemented in an effective manner as well as the target should be achieved (Guru99, 2017). After it, the improvement activities should be reviewed and actions should be taken to learn the lessons from failures. Furthermore, the standardization of the improvement point will be essential and updating the policy documents and plans and to determine the ways to apply the changes in the future tasks and processes within the organization.

Conclusion

The Latino Engineering company is facing serious issues because of the takeover process of the company. The investment company that took over the company has made no changes in the workforce despite that there are various complaints from the clients. In order to address the issues as early as possible, the company has engaged me as project management consultant. In my opinion, after the analysis of the issues, their causes and serious negative impacts over the company, it can be recommended that that the company should adopt the environment and work culture of the previous time period within the company as there is no change as such in the workforce of the company but the results are not satisfactory at all. The senior management must incorporate with the exiting employees and should motivate them to work hard for the betterment of the company. In order to improve the situation, there is requirement of hiring more people as well, on which the company should act immediately. The employees should be provided with training to enhance their efficiency and rules and regulations must be followed strictly to ensure sense of responsibility among the employees towards their clients and customers. These implementation might help the company in improving their image in the market.

References

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