Importance of Quality Development to Supply Chain - Term Paper Example

 «Importance of Quality Development to Supply Chain» Overview of EliteClean’s Operations Founded in 1995 by Tonny Hammond and Greg McKensie, EliteClean is a firm engaged in manufacturing and marketing of household appliances that includes tumble driers, washing machines, dishwashers, and range cookers. EliteClean is a company dealing in the production of cleaning facilities and selling them to the retailers. Most of the products of EliteClean are environmentally friendly since in their many years of production they have not had any complain of environmental pollution. Their facilities are of high quality, a factor that makes the customers to demand for more products. Supply refers to flow and transformation of raw materials or services from the company that is the manufacturer through other channels like retailers to the consumer as well as money transfer. The interest of specializing in only one line of operation for instance, in EliteCleaning Company the supply is between the company and the retailers, influences the supply chain. Elite’s Supply Chain Supply chain entails all activities vital in delivering products to consumers. Supply chain within EliteClean involves production of different commodities by the manufacturing division in conjunction with R&D. Once the production is complete, products are sent to Regional Distribution Centres where categorization of the product is done in respect to different product lines. Each product line goes to the warehousing for storage after packaging from the factory. Package product the goes directly to the consumers who may be retailers, wholesalers, or final consumers. The following diagram illustrates the supply chain within EliteClean Company. Strengths and weakness of the Current supply Chains Strengths EliteClean’s supply chain aligns with business strategy where the basis of competition takes order of the process. This is enhanced through development of high quality goods to create competitive advantage. In addition, the firm has an overall market-winning criterion since the supply chain aligns to needs of the customers. The supply chain of this firm enables bundling of purchasing volume with other segments other than creating different lines of products. Consequently, this results into developed distribution channels that assure the firm of its global presence as well as strong relationship with key customers. It is also undisputable to note that supply chain within EliteClean is adaptive thereby enhancing the relationship between various departments and regions through regional distributional channels. Weaknesses Despite the many strengths enjoyed by EliteClean within its supply chain, the process suffers the weakness of not incorporating technology. Contemporary world is changing rapidly due to advancements and improvements in technology. So far, EliteClean’s supply chain does not incorporate technology. What’s more, this supply chain of the firm does not explicitly revise its strategies in respect to power positioning as well as new competitors. Since the firm produces different products, it would be more effective through enhancement of segmentation of customers. The retailers may demand a reduction in price an action that may reduce the company’s revel of income in their moneybag. These may occur because of the retailer claiming that the market demand of the product has gone down. Moreover, they may also insist that they are incurring many expenses in their running hence leading to reduced profitability. How the company can increase its services The company may increase its services by employing various measures that include selling of its cleaning products directly to the consumer. Consequently, there will be improved sales volume hence earning more income and profitability. EliteClean may also increase its services by conducting a market research directly to the consumers. Such market researches are to assist research and development department in identifying various concepts applicable in improving quality of products and services provided by consumers. During the company’s sale of products directly to the customers, they may also know on what to incorporate in their technology or what to eliminate (Goetsch, David &Stanley Davis. 1995, p.55). Services offered by the company Some services offered by elite company include manufacturing of all sorts of washing machines, which are used at homes offices in industries or even in offices, manufacture of tumble dryers and production of all sorts of cookers that is those that uses electricity or even those that uses other means of power to cook such as charcoal or gas. Top of Form Quality management concept The company provides professional cleaning services to business, government, non-governmental organization and in human houses. It provides the services as per the client choice and the value of money this is done under supervision of qualified personnel during the production of these cleaning products. The company also conducts research on request by the client on mutual respect, accuracy and efficiency. They also track and report on specific customer requirement to ensure that each client receives services as per the requirement and needs. The researching makes the implementation of the latest technology thus making the company to be in the market. The company provides warrants to all their products, this helps to increase the customers faith in their product, as they may not compare to any other company. Each employee works under supervision of more qualified personnel according to his or her ability Regular performance monitoring, measurement and appraisal, combined with staff incentives, help Elite guarantee the highest level of excellence for our clients. EliteClean company put the customer’s centricity in their production procedures this is to make that the customers appreciate the products at the cost in the market (Hall, 1997, p. 67). Importance of quality development to supply chain It help to increase the company’s profit, this is as a result of the company good picture created by the company as it takes into account the customers interests and the offer products of the present and future technology (Juran, 1988. P. 56). The company visits its customers in their work places where they demonstrate on how to operate and manage the cleaning product, these helps to increase the lives of these products. Quality development also reduces misuse of the organization’s resources as the high quality cleaning products may not require highly experienced personnel to operate. Moreover, these cleaning facilities may not harm the environment a condition that may make these machines good for human usage without any fear (Zimmerman, Steinmann, & Schueler, 1996. p. 38). The organization may strengthen by: employing people who are willing to transform the environment and not just to earn, these people may actively take care of our environment without looking at their working hours. Also companies should employ people that requires minimal or no supervisor this may reduce the company’s cost of hiring experts to supervise the juniors. The organization may also produce highly efficient machines to clean as the machines give good results without affecting the environment since some machines are environmental friendly (Medori & Steeple, 2000,p. 530). The company insurers all of its workers making the working environment conducive and this results into provision of good results. The company may strengthen its operations by motivating its employees whether the management or its manual workers. This helps to create completion on service delivery among the organization therefore making the services to be of international standards (Kitazawa & Sarkis 2000, p.34). The organization also educate its workers on how to assume personal responsibility therefore the worker deals with the property as if it was theirs, this helps to reduce cases of property damage (EliteClean). The organization takes responsibility on any damages made to the client’s property and this may be achieved by direct communication with the client at any time of the day either day or night in case of emergency; this is because they are involved in these services like fire fighting or rescue in case of flood (Rosenberg, 1996, p. 67). Consequently, leading to increased costs in obtaining workers in order to carry the services of the company effectively also so people may use the name of the company to market themselves therefore tarnishing the name of the organization (Rosenberg, 1996, 67). The services offered may be too expensive and these may make some people and other organization to view it as a way of spending more money resulting in very low interests. This makes the company loss more of its clients and therefore the company may be forced to retrench some of its workers resulting into unemployment (Zimmerman, Steinmann, & Schueler, 1996. p. 38). Steps of improving quality management In order to improve quality management, the company ought to be committed to one line of product through specialization concept. This may be achieved through presence of set goals from the top management, which must be emphasized from time to time. These must be done to meet the company’s goals and customers’ choice. The commitment should be consistent and should be updated from time to time to make the company to remain in the market offering their products planned in the company’s proposal. Tracking mistakes and finding the solutions. This may be done to ensure that the required quality is achieved and if the required standards are not met the products are termed as not reject or un standard. This is done by gauging the customer’s satisfaction where clients are asked questions and the view of the majority is taken as the net promoter score. This helps to reduce cost which may be used to redo the production of the facility (Zimmerman, Steinmann, & Schueler, 1996. p. 38) Investing in training the workers In order to provide the high quality products the employees should be trained in order for them to have a standard procedure to follow therefore producing uniform and high quality products. This must be done since new employees brought in the organization may not know the goals of the company and the working conducts to be observed during the operation. Also new managers who may be hired may come up with certain procedures that may increase the financial status, increase the work rate or come up with some term of investment where even other heads should be advanced. The workers should also be trained on how to cooperate with other employees therefore creating a team (Medori & Steeple, 2000, 530). Employing people with right attitude to work Additionally, the company should ensure that people who have access to right motivation to a particular line of operation results into high productivity and requires low supervision. Also people who take a certain career as a hobby may since they don’t require much straining to provide good results. This helps to reduce the amount of human resources as a single employee may work in place of many other workers (Medori & Steeple, 2000, 530). Creating a good working environment These may result into large profits being attained since workers work to their maximum. This act help to reduce costs of catering for medical bills in case of injury or development of infections where these may be used to run other activities of the company apart from treating workers. Employing enough work personnel to avoid overloading the workers an action that makes them to either not complete the piece of work or finish the piece work but perform it at a poor state an action that may result in to some clients quitting and looking for another company that may produce the same cleaning product at a good cost and in the right order. The company should make use of modern machines in the offices in order to make referencing easier and faster, to make storage of information to be efficient and organized. The machines used in cleaning should be human friendly therefore should not harm the surround, the machines should also be easy to use and should not be outdated within a short period of time but must stay for long without going bad. The machine may also be used in diversified activities; it must also be used in case there is power breakdown (Zimmerman, Steinmann, & Schueler, 1996. p. 38) Project network diagram In EliteClean the project system diagram may appear as follows. The transfer of tasks in, EliteClean should be made shorter that is the management should have direct contact with their customers. The short supply chain helps to preservation the company’s cost of hiring very many people. These may result in presence of ghost worker a condition that may result in excessive loss of company’s money. These may also ease the task of management as the population of employees is easy to manage. Moreover the short supply flow results, in maximum utilization of the present human resources in the company as every worker is put to their maximum production. These help the company in cutting its expenses (Zimmerman, Steinmann, & Schueler, 1996. p. 38) The short flow also helps to reduce time wastage because the workers are closely monitored. This is also advantageous since it helps to create close contact between the company and the immediate. References EliteClean. Cleaning services. Retrieved from. http://elitecleanservice.co.uk/default.aspx Goetsch, David L. & Stanley Davis. (1995). Implementing Total Quality. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Hall, R. (1997). Attaining Manufacturing Excellence. Burr Ridge, Ill.: Dow-Jones Irwin. Juran, J. M. (1986), “The Quality Trilogy,” Quality Progress 10, no.8 19–24. Juran, J. M. (1988). Quality Control Handbook. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. Juran, J. M. (1998).Juran on Planning for Quality. New York: Free Press. Kitazawa, S., & Sarkis, J. (2000) “The Relationship Between ISO 14001and Continuous Source Reduction Programs,” International Journal of Operations and Production Management, 20, no. 2, , 225–248. Medori, D., & Steeple, D. (2000), “A Framework for Auditing and Enhancing Performance Measurement Systems,” International Journal of Operations and Production Management, 20, no. 5, 520–533. Rosenberg, J. (1996). “Five Myths about Customer Satisfaction,” Quality Progress 29, 1257–60. Zimmerman, R. E., L. Steinmann, and V. Schueler. (1996) “Designing Customer Surveys that Work,” Quality Progress 22–28. Read More