MGT330 University of North Carolina Total Quality Management Discussion
Question Description
Part 1 needs to be done in 1 day
Part 2 and 3 need to be done in 3-4 days
SOURCE:
Kiran, D.R. (2016). Total Quality Management: Key Concepts and Case Studies, 1st Edition, Butterworth-heinemann, 2016. ISBN-13: 978-0128110355
Chapter 22: Kaizen and Continuous Improvement
Chapter 24: Six Sigma
Chapter 25: Lean Management
PART 1:
Please respond to this discussion in 200 words:
Every organization consists of wasteful or inefficient processes that we have at some point witnessed or experienced. However, there are no actions to make improvements because there is fear from workers that they will be blamed or released if improvements are made or the time and resources to fully vet the situation isn’t something the organization can spare. I can go on and on with different excuses. Well this week put yourself in the decision maker seat and look at your current organization or an organization you are familiar with and find a product/service/process (or all of these) and explain how: 1) Lean Management Practices would be beneficial to make a fix and 2) what approach or best practices from the reading could benefit your cause and why. Please don’t try to answer both questions at the same time. Address each question separately
Part 2:
Please respond to this student in 150 words:
Lean Management Practices would benefit my organization in fixing the issue of duplication of services that do not serve our students and potential students efficiently and effectively. Currently, the college is separated into two divisions (Curriculum and Continuing Education). In each division there are separate staff members available to take calls to answer questions about available classes and to register students for these classes, but these staff members often are not aware of what the other division is offering, when it is being offered, and where the classes are being held. This leads to frustrated students and potential students that contact the college for assistance in finding what they need and sometimes ending in a situation where the potential student just gives up. Lean Management Practices would help management look at the current situation and evaluate how they could combine these services, cutting unnecessary personnel and reorganizing responsibilities for employees so that the workload is more evenly distributed and therefore more efficient to the people we serve. As noted in Chapter 25, “A lean organization understands customer value and focuses its key processes to continuously increase it” (Kiran, 2017, p. 364).
The process-oriented practices, such as 1)Assure seamless information flow, 2)Maintain challenges to existing processes, 3)Identify and optimize enterprise flow, and 4)Maintain stability in changing the environment, and Human-oriented practices such as 1)Promote lean leadership at all levels, 2)Make decisions at lowest appropriate level, 3)Optimize capability and utilization of people, 4)Continuous focus on the customer, and 5)Nurture a learning environment, could benefit our organization in fixing these issues (Kiran, 2017, p. 370). Reorganizing the staff involved in registering students into one central location would help improve the communication issues because they would no longer be physically separated in different locations with a sense of being their own entity. In centrally locating the employees, responsibilities and workload could more evenly be distributed and maintain a sense of stability because the department would then be more efficiently organized. By nurturing a learning environment, cross-training employees to answer questions on all available programs and responsibilities associated with the registration process will lead back to building an environment where employees feel valued and trusted as well as focused on providing the best customer service in the most efficient manner.
Part 3:
Conduct research and find an organization that is experiencing troubled times because of some poor or inadequate processes/procedures. Of course you won’t know all the specifics but your professional experience and research will help you fill the role of a consultant who has been asked to help the organization determine what the best way forward is in terms of effective TQM practices. The first thing the organization would like you to do is conduct a 5S Lean Audit (Use the attached spreadsheet.). Feel free to adapt the checklist for a product, service, process or any other problem point to help your analysis. The template has sample information to help your efforts. Next, once you have completed the 5S Audit the organization has asked you to complete a DMAIC Planning Worksheet so that they can begin to think about the actions to fix the problem(s). You have some flexibility with the dates but just make sure you explain what actions to would take for each part of the DMAIC to help the organization. Make sure you