Quality Management: ISO 9002, EFQM, Charter Mark, Investor in People - Assignment Example

Assignment Submitted by: XXXX XXX number: XXXXXXX of XXXXXXXX XXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXDate of Submission: XXXXXXX Number of Words: XXXXXX 1. Select and summarise the nature of four quality management from the following list : ISO 9002: This is a quality assurance model which has been made up to ensure complete quality in system requirements. This is generally used in organizations that deal with production, installation and service products. It is important and essential that organizations use this model and apply it to the daily business to ensure complete control over the quality systems. This however is now obsolete and has been replaced by ISO 9001 2008 (Praxiom, 2008). EFQM: European Foundation for Quality Management is a non perspective total quality management framework which is generally based out of nine criteria. This framework recognizes that there are a number of different approaches to achieve results that are excellent and sustainable. This generally works with the help of a few of the fundamental concepts which allows the models to ensure complete quality and sustainable excellence. The various fundamental concepts are being result oriented with a lot of customer focus, leadership and constancy of purpose, continuous learning and development, development of the partners, and corporate social responsibility (Hawkes, 2007). CHARTER MARK: This is an award which has been given to a number of companies for the achievement of national standard for excellence in customer service. This award is mainly based out of United Kingdom and was introduced in 1991. This however has now been changed to Customer Service Excellence and the Charter Mark awards are not been given to companies any more. This is generally focused on the public sector and is given on the basis of a few elements like the setting of the standards and living up to them, active engagement of the customer and all others like the staff, or partners, continuous developments and improvements in the services, effective and efficient use of the resources and also contribution of the company to help improve the opportunities and the quality of life (cabinet Office, 2009). INVESTOR IN PEOPLE: This is a voluntary assessment scheme which has been backed by the UK government and various departments like the Innovation, Universities and Skills. This was introduced in 1993, and was developed by the partnership of businesses and other national organizations. The major aim of this is to help organizations improve the performance by better planning, implementation and evaluation of learning and development programs. This has been focused on various organizations of different sectors and sizes. 2. Using where possible actual organisations where you may have worked , and who have adopted such systems , explain the relationships which existed between management, staff and customers which illustrate the importance of such quality management systems. Quality and excellence are two very important elements for every company to be successful. When companies use any of the quality management systems, it becomes essential that there is a stronger and better communication among the management, staff and customers to enable the company to met up to the standards that are set by the quality management systems. Taking EFQM as an example, it is seen that the model requires complete all round excellence. All companies that take this as a quality management system within the company need to be able to meet up with the RADAR logic (as shown below). Figure 1: RADAR Logic (FNBE, 2009) This highlights that each of the three, i.e. management, staff and customers are always interrelated and need to work together to be able to ensure that the company is able to succeed. The relationship between the three is normally one of complete understanding, support and togetherness. Only if the management is able to understand the needs of the customers will they are able to explain the importance of the processes to the staff. On the other hand, only if the staffs work in hand with the management will the customers get the items to their level of satisfaction and will also provide the company with excellent feedback and loyalty. Thus the relationship of the three is one which needs complete cooperation and coordination. One of the best examples of this would be of a call centre. Here there is a high requirement for the company to perform well and provide excellent service. Here only if the managers and the staff are able to understand the needs of the customer it will be possible to provide them with excellent service. Thus the most essential and underlying element of the relationship that the three share is the communication amongst them. It is safe to say that success of a company has a very important ingredient which would be the communications within the company. This would be necessary from all levels of the organisation and in line with the customers and their needs (British Quality Foundation, 2002). A company which follows this will be able to meet up with the EQFM quite easily and also will be able to provide excellent service to the customers. 3. Describe the structure of one such scheme and how it works , include an assessment of the nature of the use of documentation , the actions required of staff, the standards set and the importance of good customer relations. Structure of the scheme: The EFQM model will be considered for this answer. The model follows the below flow of processes. Figure 2: EFQM Excellence Model (Bhatt, 2009) As discussed earlier, the EFQM model is a non prescriptive framework which is based on nine criteria as seen in the above figure. “Five of these are ‘Enablers’ and four are ‘Results’. The ‘Enabler’ criteria cover what an organization does. The ‘Results’ criteria cover what an organization achieves. ‘Results’ are caused by ‘Enablers’” (Bhatt, 2009). How it works: The self assessment of the scheme is very comprehensive, systematic and also includes a number of reviews which are marked against the Excellence Model. This can be applied on all types of organisations and for all sizes of organisations. There are a number of assessments that the companies are required to undertake. This can be understood from the figure below. The RADAR model represents the results, approach, deployment, assessment and review. Figure 3: EFQM RADAR (Bhatt, 2009) Staff Action: The scheme aims at ensuring betterment of the staff as well. The strategy that the company develops needs to include the development of the staff with a wider scope. The organisation is required to provide the staff with learning programs and the staffs are required to undertake these programs to ensure improvements in their learning and also a better career direction. Set Standards: The implementation of this process leads to the implementation and setting of newer standards for the business. This will include the building of new work flows, integration, best practices, business intelligence, and others that will provide the company with high levels of standards in quality. Customer Relations: This is one of most important aspects that need to be considered and implemented within the organisations. It is for the company to take steps to improve and provide the customers with better knowledge. If the companies take the initiatives to be more knowledge focused, then the customers will also reciprocate by bringing in more financial revenues for the company. 4. Provide an account of the communications required within the organisation to implement such as system including the need for widespread consultation, the identification of action plans, and the currency, accuracy and relevance of records kept. The communication that is required to take place within an organisation is quite vast. There requires being complete disclosure of the process flows used within the company. Also a clear communication of the various learning and training programs those are available for the employees need to be disclosed (Hughes, 2007). The introduction of these programs is to help the organisations provide the employees with better and more unique ways of motivation. Also the program provides for the employees to be energized at every level in the business. This also provides for a positive and constructive atmosphere to be created. Also the documents like the process flows and the learning about how good the current working of the company is and what areas of the company require to be improved. The communication that the company will receive from the EFQM will be a good 50 pages of feedback about the company in terms of both the strengths as well as the areas which require improvements. Also there will be presentations that will be provided to the company to provide for better understanding of the current standing of the company (EFQM, 2008). Also the feedback is basically from practicing managers from across the world. This provides for a vast and varied outlook to the company. The feedback will also be free of any bias as the managers will have no interest in the business even in terms of financially creating relationships with the business. This thus makes the communication bias free and straight forward. This will also allow for betterment of the reports. Also there will be higher accuracy of the reports and records that are maintained in the company (Kasselman, 2006). The communication will help improve all the processes of the company and provide an overall improvement to the business. 5. Conclude your report with a reflection of the transferable skills used in the completion of this assignment. This report has required a lot of research that needs to be conducted. This has in turn helped me improve my research skills. Being able to collect all the data and condense it to useful information is quite a task. I have been able to understand the importance of condensing the data to form useful information and have been successful in doing so. This assignment has not only helps with the analytical part but also with my soft skills. I have been able to present all the data that is needed for the assignment and use the cream of the data to make a presentation with all the relevant information. Apart from these skills I have also been able to develop my soft skills like research and presentation of information. I have been able to convert raw data into useful comparative and understandable information. Overall from the entire project I have been able to gather a lot of knowledge and have improved my skills in various ways and my knowledge has improved a lot on the topic. Bibliography Bhatt, D., 2009, ‘EFQM Excellence Model and Knowledge Management Implications’, Accessed on 21st May 2009, Retrieved from http://www.eknowledgecenter.com/articles/1010/1010.htm British Quality Foundation, 2002, ‘How to Use the Model...Implementing the EFQM Excellence Model’, 11th March 2002, British Quality Foundation Cabinet Office, 2009, ‘Customer Service Excellence - The Government Standards’, Accessed on 17th May 2009, Retrieved from http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/chartermark/new_standard.aspx EFQM, 2008, ‘EFQM Excellence Award Information Sheet’, Accessed on 20th May 2009, Retrieved from http://www.observatori-ctesc.cat/doc/doc_11651607_1.pdf FNBE, 2009, ‘The EFQM (Excellence Model)’, Accessed on 20th May 2009, Retrieved from http://www.oph.fi/english/txtpageLast.asp?path=447,5372,27535,35887,36001 Hawkes, 2007, ‘The EFQM Excellence Model to Access Organisational Performance’, 1st edition, 15 April 2007, Van Haren Publishing Hughes, S.P., 2007, ‘The identification of quality Indicators in English language teaching’, Accessed on 22nd May 2009, Retrieved from http://hera.ugr.es/tesisugr/1711701x.pdf Investor in People, 2009, ‘About’, Accessed on 18th May 2009, Retrieved from http://www.investorsinpeople.co.uk/About/AboutIIP/Pages/default.aspx Kasselman, R., 2006, ‘Literature review’, Accessed on 21st May 2009, Retrieved from http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/submitted/etd-11092006-142635/unrestricted/02chapter2.pdf Praxiom, 2008, ‘ISO 9002 1994’, Accessed on 20th May 2009, Retrieved from http://www.connect.ab.ca/~praxiom/9002.htm Read More