How the ACE Principles if Used Properly Can Positively Affect Quality in an Organizations Products - Assignment Example

ACE Principles and How the Principles if Used Properly can Positively Affect Quality in an Organization's Products and Services Number GM588 Table of Contents Introduction to Topic 3 Literature Review 6 Demonstrations and Applications in the Business World 8 Reflection and Conclusion 10 Bibliography 12 Introduction to Topic Dean and Bowen (1994) indicated that quality management is a combination of management principles, practices, and techniques to improve performance of the organization. To this end the concept of internal marketing within an organization helps to achieve quality parameters in organizational functioning (Dean & Bowen, 1994). According to this concept, each employee of any organization is an internal supplier and may be considered as customers to other employees and departments. In this system, there would be a built-in process of integration of various functional areas of an organization to the quality processes and systems. The principle of internal marketing emphasizes on achieving motivation of the employees through appropriate training, support, and reward systems, so the service to the external customers becomes very satisfactory. Kotler (1994) indicated that the principles of internal marketing look forward to accomplish the highest degree of customer satisfaction possible, and it is only possible through employees delivering quality service. The philosophy of total quality management takes the approach of integration of all functions and processes across the organization to achieve continuous improvement of quality (Kotler, 1994). It has been indicated that the total quality management is a process of integrated functions within an organization in order to achieve continuous improvement of quality and services, where customer focus, defect prevention, performance measurement, and continuous improvement are inherent. It has been indicated also that enhancement of organizational performance is actually very closely related to the soft aspects of quality management practices, which are expected to generate an organizational culture of employee performance eventually supporting organizational culture. These are essentially linked to the performance of the employee whose productivity and on-time delivery would result in customer satisfaction (Rahman & Bullock, 2005). Thus it is an important question what would be the ideal parameters and indicators of employee performance which can generate customer satisfaction and at the same time maintains quality. It has been demonstrated that a system approach for operations may lead to this goal in the most efficient manner. This therefore involves a management approach to achieve quality where identification, understanding, and managing the interrelated processes as a system may contribute to the efficiency in achieving the objectives of the organization. In this manner, the management would involve integration and alignment of the processes that will best achieve the desired results. Ability to focus the effort on the key processes would generate confidence about effectiveness, efficiency, and effectiveness of the organization. If quality management means a system approach of operation of continual improvement, the system needs to be structured with the objectives of the organization in mind, and the processes must be aligned in the most effective and efficient way. It is also important that the system must demonstrate a universal understanding of the interrelations and interdependencies among the different processes within that system. A structured approach is indicated since it integrates the processes. The employees thus armed with a better understanding of the common objectives may develop a sense to eliminate the barriers in cross-functional areas, so there is a harmony between different roles and responsibilities. A system approach may also help developing a more comprehensive understanding of organizational capabilities, and thus a definition of specific activities within a system and its operations can be chalked out. Once these are known, a process of measurement and evaluation can be implemented which can strive to continually develop the system. Murphy (2009) in her studies on Lean Six Sigma indicated the importance of these methodologies to improve business through improvement of organizational framework, and according to her, the quality improvement approach should be accomplished through a framework and with the aid of different tools. Lean Six Sigma utilizes an amalgamation of lean manufacturing and process improvements. According to this philosophy, these principles focus on eliminating waste in production and improving flow. At the same time, this has the prerogative to eliminate variation through identification and amelioration of the root cause. This means there is a structural approach to effect change through initiatives. These methodologies are known to offer strategies of change and tools to effect these changes within the organizational environments. This is not possible unless the managers employ a structured and system approach in such managements. It has been stated that this system approach is nothing but a discipline to identify and eliminate inefficiencies, defects, and errors within the quality parameters of the organizational structures and activities, so at all points, the main goal remains to deploy and follow processes that accelerate improvements in customer satisfaction. Along with that, these processes must control cost, ensure quality, ascertain process speed, and save the invested capital. It is evident that both these systems need to be project based and are complementary in that both of these utilizes business decisions through collection of data to inform and drive change. Six Sigma approach from that point of view bring the processes into statistical control and the process speed and efficacy are improved through the lean functions, and thus automatically the invested capital is reduced (Murphy, 2009). In the context of service industry, the term quality can be defined as a holistic concept, which involves consistency of service delivery and fitness for purpose. In the context of quality culture, quality thus may be meant as perfection in services leading to customer satisfaction. It has been noticed that for some specific quality attributes, customer satisfaction is inherent in product or services, and in most of the cases, absence of these attributes have reverse effects on customer satisfaction. In this context, the classic Kano model may be referred. The classic Kano model talks about possibility of nonlinear relationship between performance attributes and customer satisfaction over a range of heterogeneous base of customers or over a period of time (Kano, 1984). Literature Review ACE principles are grounded on a different quality operating system. Although these are not well known as TQM or Six Sigma, these principles are very successful in delivering quality. The name is an abbreviation, which can be expanded into Achieving Competitive Excellence (ACE). This system was developed in the United Technologies Corporation, and it has been opined that this system is broader based than the Six Sigma approach in quality management. It has been discussed in the introduction that the Six Sigma approach is based on data monitoring and thus controlled by statistical parameters. In contrast, the ACE system is not dependent on data, rather it is dependent on process improvement in three important categories of principles. The tools used are waste elimination, decision making, and problem solving tools. It is evident that this process deploys lean manufacturing process and philosophies of quality improvement. As indicated in the UTI website, ACE indicates the commitment of UTI to achieve competitive excellence. This has been designed to ensure unquestionable quality of products and processes. This management system is focused on increasing efficiency and reducing waste, and in this performance model, quality improvement and customer satisfaction are ensured even though the cost for quality is reduced. Thus this is a model worth studying. The most important aspect of this model is its culture and philosophy for achieving competitive but excellent quality. This is accomplished through a set of tools that helps the organization to identify process improvement opportunities. In addition, this opens the provisions for problem solving in order to assist decision making processes. These foster the third element, the competency, commitment, and involvement of the entire organization in this process. This means, for the ACE system to be successful, the implementation would occur at the micro level. This needs training and empowerment of employees to implement the standard processes across the organization (Hutton, 2004). As indicated earlier, the ACE Operating System for quality management comprises of ten tools. These tools are encompassed in the three indicated categories of Process Improvement and Waste Elimination, Problem Solving, and Decision Making. These tools thus serves the purposes of identifications and solving problems, improving processes, elimination of waste, and making strategic decisions which are effective. These tools can be repeatedly applied in order to enable the organization to drive the ACE operating system. In this way, the gaps between actual and business goals may be fulfilled. The most important part is cost effectiveness since a lean process flow may help reduce and eliminate wastage. The ACE tools are the backbones of the ACE process. If the philosophy of the ACE system is clear, the tools are easy to use and learn. The micro level applications are ensured by accessibility of these tools to every employee of the organization. Moreover, these tools are so generic that the employee has the opportunity to supplement these tools with other tools used for quality and process management. Specifically, the ACE practitioner can have opportunity to perform a relentless root cause analysis, mistake proofing, process management, and passport process in order to solve problems and make decision on his own. There are five process improvement and waste elimination tools. These are 5S in visual workplace, process management and standard work, process certification, setup reduction, and total productive maintenance. There is one decision making tool, which is otherwise known as passport process. The four problems solving tools together are known as DIVE process, which comprises of market feedback analysis, quality clinic process charts or QCPC, Relentless Root Cause Analysis, and mistake proofing. The visual workplace or 5S is defined as a state where in the workplace; anyone can understand the current workplace situation through visual appreciation. This assessment can tell the workers about the organization of the workplace, the processes employed in work, schedule condition, or other abnormalities. The 5S stands for sort, straighten, shine, standardize, and sustain. This means practically, in any organization, the work place must be arranged in such a way that all unnecessary elements are to be eliminated. The remains are to be organized in a workable order, and the work area must be clean. Scheduled cleaning and maintenance must be regularly, and all these elements must be maintained, so all workers may take these as a way of life. Demonstrations and Applications in the Business World The process improvement and waste elimination can be best accomplished through standard work, in which work may be simplified and structured to ensure maximum quality, consistence, and repeatability over time. If the standards are predefined through defined systems and processes through procedures and instructions related to work simplified for use in a documented form, both manufacturing and business process may be replicated in a consistent fashion. This may indicate the full pathway of sequence of movement of material to finished product through the work area. However, this remains incomplete until the process certification occurs. Process certification is known to be a disciplined approach to achieve business process agility, effectiveness, and efficiency. In any business process there are four stages, which in sequence are setting the direction, conducting assessments, selection of vital opportunities, and process improvements. In order to become cost effective and in order to reduce the investment in the process and at the same time to demonstrate quality setup reduction is an important step, where the total time required to change over a machine or process through rapid movement of internal setup tasks to external, which is done through activities during the runtime of the machine. Employee involvement in quality process and overall effectiveness is ensured in the ACE processes through total productive maintenance. One of the ways to achieve this is through improvement effectiveness of the machine. This improves overall operational effectiveness and thus improves quality of the product. Thus the reliability of the equipment increases, and errors are eliminated drastically. However, the roles of maintenance personnel and the machine operators in this process are phenomenal, and the best outcomes are possible when the machine operator takes care of the important aspects of routine maintenance if the equipment. There are evident scopes of expansion of role for the traditional maintenance personnel in that they can teach and train the equipment operators to maintain the machines. Market feedback analysis is a significant part of ACE systems since this serves as a problem solving tool. In any business, the most important quality needs arise from a better understanding of the dissatisfaction, frustration, and pain of the customer. Therefore, there is a need for continuous analysis of market data to resolve these issues. Like any other business, these can dictate the areas in which the process needs to improve, and the best indicators of these are related to the behavioral parameters of the customers. Therefore, different forms of responses such as structured forms, chards, freeform surveys, and written responses ma all serve as important inputs to this process. In UTC, many problem solving tools are in use. All these tools help identify the problems, grade them in terms of priority, and select them so they can be solved in the shortest possible time frame. If this is not possible due to some reason, it is important to identify the reasons for this. QCPC is used to identify these reasons which would comprise of defects, waste, and inefficiencies. This information should be used for mistake proofing so continuous improvement may be implemented (Technologies, 2010). Of all these parameters, it is important to note that there are no measurable parameters in ACE, and the process certification elements thus appears in complete, and the decision making regarding the root cause of a failure may become extremely difficult. As it has accepted the lean manufacturing principles from Six Sigma, if it incorporates the measurement methodology in the system, this could really be more effective. Reflection and Conclusion While doing this assignment, it was evident that in today's competitive world, quality is an important parameter that cannot be neglected by any business. From that point of view, the ACE system, although comparatively less known is a very effective system approach to business quality management. However, the philosophy of ACE principles must be clear to the practitioner, and therefore, continuous training is an important part of the whole process and its successful implementation. Therefore, wider applicability of this system may be restricted in the sense that in-depth training of the employees on this operating system may be the key to successful implementation. This was understood that this philosophy is a blend of lean manufacturing and quality improvement tools. Moreover, since it was developed for UTC, despite being custom fit for that organization, implementation in other business scenarios may need further modification of this operating system. Bibliography Dean, J., & Bowen, D. (1994). Management Theory and Total Quality: Improving Research and Practice Through Theory Development. The Academy of Management Review , 3 (19), 392-418. Hutton, T. (2004, June). ACE vs. Six Sigma. SUBMITTED TO THE ALFRED P. SLOAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT . MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY. Kano, N. (1984). Attractive quality and must be quality. Quality , 2 (14). Kotler, P. (1994). Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, Implementation, and Control. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Murphy, S. (2009). Leveraging Lean Six Sigma to Culture, Nurture, and Sustain Assessment and Change in the Academic Library Environment. College and Research Libraries (70), 215 - 226. Rahman, S., & Bullock, P. (2005). Soft TQM, Hard TQM, and Organizational Performance Relationships: An Empirical Investigation. Omega , 1 (33), 73-83. Technologies, U. (2010). Quality. Retrieved June 3, 2010, from United Technologies: http://www.utc.com/About+UTC/Quality Read More