However there are some disadvantages to quality circles. They require a well trained workforce and committed management if they are to work effectively. Also, training costs City Limits a lot of money. Managers might hand over too much of their responsibility for quality to the quality circle which then may lead them to fail and this can cause problems for the business. A lot of money may have been wasted implementing the new systems which then turn out not to work. Managers might ignore what the quality circle recommends which again leads to quality dropping. Also it might be assumed that the quality circle is able to solve all the problems that might arise in City Limits and management will layback which might lead to the quality falling. Quality fall might have devastating effects on City Limits sales and profits.
City Limits could link quality circles to a reward system, which therefore motivate employees. For example employees can be paid more if quality is maintained at company quality standards. In order for City Limits to give out this reward to the employees managers check, delivery and service time, wastage and staff and customer satisfaction. Having a reward linked to quality makes the employees work hard but also maintaining the quality of the service they provide for the customers meaning that the reputation of city limits is improved.
However linking quality to a financial reward means that City Limits will have to pay out a lot of money in form of wages, salaries or bonuses; this will be too expensive for the company and might reduce its profits.
City Limits could use benchmarking; this is the motivation for continuous improvement by the company and its employees. The concept of this is that City Limits compares itself to another company that is better than it but in the same industry and aims to be as good as that company. All the departments have to work together in order for this to happen. Benchmarking involves a number of stages: first City Limits has to decide what needs benchmarking? Then choose another business for standards of excellence to benchmark against then gather information about the standards of excellence, lastly city limits sets standards and makes sure that everyone know about them. Benchmarking is a very simple concept and gives the City Limits a target which to aim.
However benchmarking only works if suitable benchmarking data is available and the comparison is valid, for example benchmarking would not work if City Limits was compared to a super market, different departments would need to be compared to different business e.g. the restaurant will be compared to top restaurants, bowling alley to bowling alleys. There needs to be good communication in City Limits between management and staff if benchmarking is to work. The approach of benchmarking is simplistic and can help the business resolve quality problems but in an effective way. City Limits is a market leader, this means you can not find a business to benchmark City limits with.
I recommend that City limits use quality circles because this method is more advantageous than all the other methods mentioned above. Those quality circles have disadvantages, the advantages out weigh the disadvantages. One of the disadvantages of quality circles is that managers might hand over too much responsibility to the workers but I think this is less likely to happen at City limits because there are not very many managers at City limits.
Using quality circles will affect all the departments at City Limits, as they will have to make time for employees to attend quality circle meetings and arrange them. Also a decisions will have to be made on who would attend these meeting and decide on who will take part in quality circles then encourage them to take part. However because of the style of management and business culture of City Limits the use of quality circles would have an impact on the quality but would not mean that the departments will have to change what they are already doing. Quality circles would fit in very well as manager already value their employee’s opinions and them in consideration.
