Many different quality models have been developed to help organisations improving quality

QUALITY REPORT

Executive Summary

This report is all about quality, quality management models and recommendations about some advantages and disadvantages. There have been several key findings in the report:

Quality is important and essential.

Quality is about meeting customer needs, and it is a complex thing that can help to develop the whole organisation. It is very useful but time-consuming.

There are various quality management models being used in the world.

Many different quality models have been developed to help organisations improving quality. The ISO 9000:2000 is a worldwide based one which provides very detailed documents for the company to use as guidelines, a certificate could be awarded when all the requirements are met. Deming’s 14 points are mainly used in Japan and there are many successful examples such as some Japanese manufacturing companies. The EFQM Excellence Model is a very systematic model that has been used widely in Europe; it breaks quality into specific elements and provides logical links to put them together. There are 9 main criteria and each of them has specific requirements. Moreover, there is a prestigious award for successful implementation of the model which is the EFQM certification. However, it is not easy to get.

The EFQM are mainly discussed in the report and compared to Deming’s 14 points.

The 9 criteria have been discussed into more detail in the report with some comparisons to Deming’s 14 points. The EFQM Excellence Model has covered and exceeded most of Deming’s theory.

The EFQM model is recommended for the company to adopt while few disadvantages are should be taken into account.

The EFQM model is recommended for various reasons: First it is a European model that may offers a chance for the company to compare itself with the others in the same area. And it is very systematic and easy to understand. It also helps company to improve continuously and achieve excellence, and so on. However there are few disadvantages that must be taken into account, as the model is a complex framework, it is very time consuming, because it needs a lot of involvements. The system is also not able to transfer the organisation into excellent immediately but it helps to identify the areas that must be improved. And it needs careful planning, implementing and evaluating.

1. Terms of Reference

This report is prepared for the Board meeting at the end of December. It includes an investigation of quality, a brief description on the ISO 9000: 2000 and Deming’s model, and the recommendation of adopting the EFQM Excellence Model to the company. The main purpose of this report is to state the importance of quality and to recommend a quality management model to the company and point out the advantages and disadvantages. However, due to the length limit of the report, it couldn’t go through each elements of all the quality models mentioned into great detail such as Deming’s and ISO model, therefore bullet points have been used at times; yet many information can be found in many places such as internet, library and the local business community.

2. Methodology

Various sources have been used for the investigation. The main sources are from the Total Quality Management book and some other websites. Most information and ideas are gathered from the book and the EFQM website.

3. Introduction

This report includes the main idea and systems about quality such as ISO 9000:2000, Deming’s philosophy and the EFQM Excellence Model. Moreover, it focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of EFQM Excellence Model with recommendations.

Background

According to the pressure from customers to gain some for of quality certification and award, this report is produced in order to exam three main quality systems - ISO, Deming's and the EFQM Excellence Model. As the decision which expands the business and increase the customer base has been made, it becomes important to adopt a quality system into the company in order to achieve these goals.

Aims & Objectives

This report will provide a guide about quality. This will include, firstly, the definition of quality, it is important to clarify what quality is before ...

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Background

Aims & Objectives

This report will provide a guide about quality. This will include, firstly, the definition of quality, it is important to clarify what quality is before utilising the quality systems. Then the report will investigate on three main quality systems that have been used widely in the world. Finally it will be focused on the EFQM model which is recommended to be adopted into the company.

4. Findings

The findings are divided into four parts. Firstly the definition of quality, then ISO and Deming quality systems, finally concentrated on the EFQM quality management system with detailed analysis such as its advantages and disadvantages, and looking at whether it covers or exceeds Deming’s fourteen points.

4.1 Defining Quality

“Quality is often used to signify ‘excellence’ of a product or service – people talk about ‘Rolls-Royce quality’ and ‘top quality’.” (Total Quality Management 2003)

Quality is hard to define; quality is subjective, as each individual is different, the perception of quality is different; therefore there are various different definitions of quality. The common idea they all have is – Continuously meeting customers’ needs. Or sometimes even exceed them. As a supplier of precision components, which is a product based, quality indicates that the products exactly meet the specific requirements. Quality brings competitiveness, more customers, and profitability. However, to achieve quality, it requires careful planning, complex processes, and complete evaluation.

Quality is important to a company. There are various quality models that can help to improve quality such as, ISO, Deming’s and EFQM.

4.2 ISO

ISO stands as International Standards Organisation. The latest model ISO 9000:2000 is a series of Standards that helps a company to improve and evaluate quality. A company is rewarded when it meets all the requirements of the ISO 9000:2000 system. By having the ISO certificate, the company is on its way to excellence. The ISO system is being used worldwide.

“ISO 9000:2000 – the fundamentals and vocabulary – sets down the principles behind quality management which formed the basis for the quality management system standards in the ISO 9000 family.” (Total Quality Management 2003)

There are eight main principles of ISO 9000:2000:

Focus on Customers and Their Needs
Provide Leadership
Involve People
Use a Processed Based Approach
Take a System Approach
Encourage Continual Improvement
Make Decisions Bases on Facts
Make Decisions Bases on Facts
Work Closely with Suppliers

As a quality management system ISO 9000:2000 also provides detailed guideline documents that help company to implement it and ensure their products meet the customer requirement.

4.3 Deming

As one of the gurus of quality management, Deming offers 14 points to help senior management to improve quality. His idea has been widely used in Japan and has been successful.

The 14 points are:

Create constancy of purpose.
Adopt a new philosophy.
Cease dependence on inspection.
End awarding business on price.
Improve constantly.
Institute training.
Institute leadership.
Drive out fear.
Break down barriers between departments.
Eliminate slogans and numerical targets without training.
Eliminate quotas and MbO that are followed regardless of quality.
Remove barriers that rob people of their right to pride of workmanship.
Institute an education and self improvement program.
Put everyone in the company to work to accomplish the transformation.

Deming’s philosophy is more focused on the internal development of a company with a lot of stress on human resources management such as leadership, training and the relationship between people.

4.4 EFQM

In Europe, the EFQM Excellence model is the most popular quality management model and being used widely. The Excellence Model is designed for business to assess itself therefore create competitive advantage, improve quality and achieve excellence. EFQM stands as European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) which is founded in 1988. The Excellence Model was then created in 1992; it provides a tool with criteria and sub-criteria for large and small, public and private sector organisations to self evaluate. The EFQM Excellence model has been updated and refined over the years. The last version – which is shown below, is introduced in 1999. Each white box has various sub-criteria; there are lists of areas to consider below each sub-criterion.

(Source: EFQM http://www.efqm.org)

The criteria are broken into two categories – the enablers are concerned with how the organisation undertakes the activities and the results are concerned with what the organisation achieves.

There are five enablers in the Excellence Model that helps organisation to achieve quality results. They are leadership, people, policy & strategy, partnerships & resources.

Leadership
The leadership is regarded as important in EFQM Excellence Model, which takes 10% in the assessment scoring. This includes various commitments of the leader of an organisation such as develop long-term decisions, personal involvement and motivating the other people within the organisation. Therefore this may cover a few points of Deming’s, such as 1. Creating constancy of purpose, and 7. Institute leadership,

Policy and Strategy
Policy and Strategy are also concerned in the EFQM excellence model. They must be carefully created and based on facts. And must be regularly reviewed, updated while implementing. Deming’s 14 points, however, didn’t stress as much importance as the EFQM model.

People
People are the most important element of any organization. The EFQM excellence model recognises some important such as training and everyone’s involvement, communication and reward. Deming’s few points have been included here, e.g. 3, 6, 12, 13, 14.

Partnerships and Resources
Organisation should build a good relationship with its external partnerships such as suppliers, but also manage its finance and internal resources, e.g. finances, materials, equipments and information. The Deming’s 14 points has been exceeded as it doesn’t mention about the partnerships and resources.

Processes
Process is the most important enabler in the EFQM excellence model. Processes are about how the organisation implements strategies, utilising resources and maximize profit. The processes must be systematically designed based on customer needs, and customer relationship should be managed with care. Therefore processes are important to achieve the results below.

All enablers together achieve the results as follows. There are only four results but they are even more important and hold a large percentage in the assessment scoring.

People Results
Being mentioned a few times in Deming’s 14 points, people results includes motivation and satisfaction. Everyone in the organisation should involve into the work and they should have been communicated and linked together as a complete working organisation rather than a departmentalised organisation where there is no link between people.

Customer Results
Customer results are the most important factor within the EFQM Excellence Model that is what the organisation actually achieve with its customers. The customer result is a reflection of the quality of the products / service, customer care and support, and customer loyalty.

Society Results
The EFQM Excellence Model requires the organisation to be responsible to the society as whole, but not only internally. The organisation should be involved into the community and may deal with some social ethical problems such as environment protection.

Key Performance Results
The key performance results are what an organisation achieves through all the factors mentioned above, which are simply the financial results and non-financial results.

Organisation then can use the results achieved to learn and innovate, in order to correct mistakes, improve quality, and introduce new product / service, and most importantly, to improve continuously.

Deming’s 14 points, however, didn’t focus more on the results and continuously improvement.

Finally, when a company has successfully adopted the whole model, an award can be applied from EFQM. External assessors will score the business in each element to decide whether to give the award. However, the criterion of giving the awarding is extremely restricted, only one of the hundreds applying organisation can get the award. Once it is awarded, the reputation of the organisation will then massively increased, and become more attractive to its customers.

4.5 Advantages & Disadvantages of EFQM

As a popular quality management system and a model that has been refined many times, the EFQM Excellence Model provides many advantages to the organisation that adapts to it. However, there still are some disadvantages that should not be ignored.

The advantages of the EFQM Excellence Model are as follows:

- The EFQM Excellence Model is an integrated model that brings many different elements together and logically linked.

- It is very easy to understand and visible and covers almost all aspects of an organization with detailed guidelines.

- It gives a complete and holistic picture of the organization, and it gives a clear picture of what the different elements are.

- The model offers visible and clear links between what the goals are, how to achieve the goals, and what results will be achieved, and these are systematically linked together.

- It is about continuously improvement, and provides a systematic way.

- It is flexible, even an organisation doesn’t go on for the award; it is still a very useful tool for quality assessment and improvement.

- It provides a chance to compare and compete with other organisations. As the model has been widely used in Europe, the company will be able to compare itself with the others.

- Successfully adopting the model can be an important step for further success, such as getting the EFQM quality award.

The disadvantages shouldn’t be ignored when adopting the model. Because the model has been around for many years and refined many times, it is extremely hard to find any disadvantages of it. However, there are still few to be noticed:

- First of all, there are too many activities and factors need to be taken into account at the same time. For example, people, policy & strategy, partnerships & resources, the model didn’t clarify which is the priority and suggest an order to do those activities.

- Second, if to adopt the model, it needs training to everybody in the organisation as everyone is required to involve.

- The model also doesn’t stress on promoting changes, but only focus on how to improve with the existing resources.

- Finally, adaptation to the model is very time consuming. It is such a complex system that needs training, careful planning and implementing which may take a very long time and energy, even high cost.

5. Conclusions

In conclusion, quality is essential – as it is important to meet the need of customer, for the company it needs to be continuously improved and reviewed. All the three main quality systems discussed provide useful approach for Company to improve quality and drive to success. While using any of the systems, it is important to consider the disadvantages of them and find suitable ways to overcome those problems.

6. Recommendations

“For more than 10 years, EFQM has been helping European businesses make better products and deliver improved services through the effective use of leading edge management practices.” (EFQM http:www.efqm.org)

By the discussions above in the findings part, it is clear that the EFQM Excellence Model covers most points of Deming’s, and even exceeds them, rather than Deming’s focus most on the internal development, EFQM model also stress on the external factors such as customer, and partnerships; and it also exam what results can be achieve through the various activities. As the company is located in the UK, it is recommended to adopt this popular European model in order not only to achieve the goals – expand the business and increase the customer base by 15% annually over the next 3 years. Through continuous improving the quality, but also to use the model as a driver for the future success to the “Excellence” of the business. However, the EFQM model shouldn’t be the sole quality model to rely on, as there are still a few problems that must be taken into account, it could be useful to refer to the other quality models such as Deming’s as well. Most importantly, the EFQM Excellence Model is a complex framework that must be carefully planned, implemented and reviewed, and this that may take a long time to accomplish.

As for the ISO 9000:2000 model, it may be useful for the company to adopt it as being the fist step before the EFQM Excellence Model; first because it provides a very specific and detailed documents for guiding the company, and also because it is much easier to get the certificate, which will also helps the company to attract more customers.

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