Homework Assignment 2
1) Discuss the importance of quality partnering and strategic alliances:
Quality partnering and strategic alliance can be conceptualized by the idea of working together for mutual benefit. On this task the one’s that work together might be suppliers, customers, employees and business that are potential competitors. It involves pooling resources, sharing costs, and cooperating in ways that mutually benefic all parties involved in the partnership. On this process, several benefits can be derived. Partnering can lead to continual improvements in such key areas as process and products, relationships between customers and suppliers, and customer satisfaction.
2) Discuss the various forms of quality partnering and strategic alliances:
Quality partnering and strategic alliances can be seen in companies in many forms as it is illustrated on the image below:
Quality partnering and strategic alliance can be conceptualized by the idea of working together for mutual benefit. On this task the one’s that work together might be suppliers, customers, employees and business that are potential competitors. It involves pooling resources, sharing costs, and cooperating in ways that mutually benefic all parties involved in the partnership. On this process, several benefits can be derived. Partnering can lead to continual improvements in such key areas as process and products, relationships between customers and suppliers, and customer satisfaction.
2) Discuss the various forms of quality partnering and strategic alliances:
Quality partnering and strategic alliances can be seen in companies in many forms as it is illustrated on the image below:
Internal Partnering
Internal Partnering has as its main purpose to harness the full potential of the workforce and focus on continuous improvement of quality. In order to achieve success, internal partnering requires a supportive environment, structured mechanisms and mutual supportive analysis.
This type of partnering operates at the following levels:
- Management to employee partnerships
- Team to team partnerships
- Employees to employee partnership
Partnering with suppliers
The main goal of partnering with suppliers is to create and maintain a loyal, trusting, reliable relationship that will allow both partners to win as we all know that relationship between an organization and it suppliers have been characterized by adversarial activities so now these activities have been demolished by creating this partnerships. And at the same time it will promote continuous promoting of quality, productivity and competitiveness.
Partnering with customers
The best way for companies to form partnerships with customers by achieving customer satisfaction. Customer-defined quality is a fundamental part of the total quality philosophy and so important for the formation of long lasting partnerships. Customer satisfaction can be ensured by involving customers as partners in the product development process.
Partnering with Potential Competitors
The main reason of partnering with potential competitors is the same of partnering with suppliers and customers: competitiveness. It is mainly helpful for the small and medium sized firms, and sometimes it is used by the large organizations also.
Global Partnering
Global partnering is aimed for organizations that seek or do business on a global scale. All types of partnerships described previously can be applied to the global scale, reaching suppliers, customers and competitors.
Education and Business Partnering
Since two of the most important factors in continually improving the performance of an organization are quality of employees and human interaction, improving education and business partnering have a big role improving performance. They can be formed to help organizations to continually improve their people and how well they interact with process technologies.
3) Discuss the importance of quality culture:
Quality culture can be defined as an organizational value system that results in an environment that is conducive to the establishment and continual improvement of quality. It consists of values, traditions, procedures, and expectations that promote quality. Organizations with a quality culture share the same number of common characteristics such as:
- Behavior matches slogans;
- Works is done in teams;
- Employees are both involved and empowered;
- Customer input is actively sought and used to continually improve quality;
- Fellow employees are viewed as internal partners;
- Suppliers are treated as partners;
- Among others.
4) Explain the difference between traditional and modern quality cultures:
The difference between traditional culture and modern quality culture are more noticeable in the following areas:
5) How do you understand who is a customer?
In the past, costumers were considered outsiders who used a company’s products. However, a more contemporary view presents customers in a different way: every organization has both internal and external customers. An external customer is one that was referred in the traditional definition and an internal customer is one whose works depend on that of employees whose work precedes his or her.
6) Explain customer defined value, value analysis and retention:
Customer Defined Value
The importance of organizations to understand how customers define value is huge. There are some points that summed, define the value of a product or service considering the customer’s perception:
- Products or Service quality
- Service provided by the organization
- The organizations personal
- The organization’s image
- Selling price of the product or service
- Overall cost of the product or service
Products or services must have attributes that customers are looking for, and their value can be defined based on the customer satisfaction regarding these factors.
Customer Value Analysis
Customer Value Analysis is the process used to determine what is important to customers the entire process consists of five steps.
- Determine what attributes customer value most
- Rate the relative importance of the attributes
- Assess your organizations performance relative to the prioritized list of attributes
- Ask your customers to rate all attributes of your product or services against the products or services of a competitors product or services.
- Repeat the process periodically
Customer Retention
In order to retain customers over the long term, organizations must turn them into partners and proactively seek their input rather than waiting for and reacting to feedback provided after a problem has occurred. Customer satisfaction is one of the main pillars of total quality approach and it’s totally related to customer retention because the greater the satisfaction the most likely the customer will come back.
7) Discuss product innovation models for customer retention:
Innovation plays a key role in retaining customers in today’s hyper competitive global environment. Trying to explain that, Praveen Gupta designed an Innovation Model that organizations can use to keep products up to date. In this way by applying this model Gupta encouraged creative thinking in an organization. The model is shown on the figure below:
Praveen Gupta Innovation Model
8) Discuss employee empowerment:
Employee empowerment means engaging employees in the thinking process of an organization in a way that matter. Involvement means having input. Empowerment means having input that is heard and used, and it means giving employees ownership of their jobs. Empowerment requires a change in the organizational culture, but it does not mean that managers abdicate their responsibility or authority.
9) Discuss leadership for quality:
Leadership for quality is leadership from the perspective of total quality. It is based on the philosophy that continually improving people, processes and products will turn in improving quality, value, productivity, service, market share longevity, business expansion and return on investment. Some of the key elements of leadership for quality can be seen on the list below:
- Customer focus;
- Obsession with quality;
- Recognizing the structure of work;
- Freedom for control, unity of purpose;
- Looking for faults in systems;
- Teamwork;
- Continuing education and training;
- Emphasis on best practices and peak performances.
10) How to lead for a better quality change?
Leading people in organizations through change initiatives requires a concerted and systematic effort. The following change-implementation model is designed to help leaders systematically lead a change in an organization.
- A change picture is a brief but compelling written explanation of five W’s and one H i.e. what, where, when, who and why plus how.
- There are two ways to communicate changed picture.
- Give the changed picture to stakeholders in writing;
- Explain the change picture verbally at the team or department level.
- The purpose of roadblock analysis is to identify all potential road blocks that might impede implementation of the change initiative
- After making changes the organization should implement the changed picture and act as a responsible organization.
- After implementing the developed model it is important for an organization to monitor it and adjust accordingly so the change plan is successful in the organization.
Social Networking Assignment 2
For the Social Networking Assignment, some articles were discussed with classmates and some conclusions have been reached. They articles discussed as well as the findings can be seen on the following paragraphs.
Articles discussed:
1 - All aboard Energy-Efficient Rail Transportation
2 - Study: Air Pollution Kills 3.3 Million Worldwide, Might Double
3 - Department Of Energy Launches Smart Manufacturing Grants
The desire for energy efficient transportation affects humanity since the creation of the first means of transport. Humans are always looking for ways to generate, store or utilize energy in the best and most efficient away. In this context, the first article presents applications for capacity energy storage in the rail market. Capturing and repurposing energy generated by the slowing down and propel of the trains over and over is what capacitive energy storage is all about. In sum, the union between capacity energy storage devices such as ultra capacitors and de blossom of the rail market can create a unique energy efficient environment that is good for the sustainable development as a whole.
The second article presented portrays one of the most important themes regarding global air pollution and public health, but this time bringing a new approach to the topic, exposing and interest face of the problem. The fact that air pollution is killing more and more people throughout the years is getting known by the general public in virtue of the media exposure and debates about the topic.
One thing that is not broadly said is the role farming plays in smog and soot deaths in industrial nations. The general public is aware that carbon dioxide is the main gas causing global warming. However just a few are concerned that the combination of ammonia from fertilizer and animal waste and sulfates from coal-fired power plants and nitrates from car exhaust form the soot particles that are the big air pollution killers. Even though the predictions of the number of deaths associated with pollution are high, (to about 6.6 million a year by 2050) this is a problem that can still be solved. The reduction of the level of carbon dioxide would reduce soot and smog levels as well.
The third article addresses a different topic: investments in technology. Investments in smart manufacturing innovations are always a good step into increasing energy efficiency and improving energy production. Knowing that, the Department of Energy is investing $70 million in funding into smart manufacturing with its next Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute grant. The work will be done inside the Innovation Institute on Smart Manufacturing, where public and private entities will work together to create a regional hub for applied research and product development. This represents also an opportunity for federal agencies, companies, universities to invest in the research of technologies related to energy efficiency or production.
The discussions regarding the articles can be seen on the link below.
Link: http://tqmvitorlibermansantos.weebly.com/discussion-2.html
Articles discussed:
1 - All aboard Energy-Efficient Rail Transportation
2 - Study: Air Pollution Kills 3.3 Million Worldwide, Might Double
3 - Department Of Energy Launches Smart Manufacturing Grants
The desire for energy efficient transportation affects humanity since the creation of the first means of transport. Humans are always looking for ways to generate, store or utilize energy in the best and most efficient away. In this context, the first article presents applications for capacity energy storage in the rail market. Capturing and repurposing energy generated by the slowing down and propel of the trains over and over is what capacitive energy storage is all about. In sum, the union between capacity energy storage devices such as ultra capacitors and de blossom of the rail market can create a unique energy efficient environment that is good for the sustainable development as a whole.
The second article presented portrays one of the most important themes regarding global air pollution and public health, but this time bringing a new approach to the topic, exposing and interest face of the problem. The fact that air pollution is killing more and more people throughout the years is getting known by the general public in virtue of the media exposure and debates about the topic.
One thing that is not broadly said is the role farming plays in smog and soot deaths in industrial nations. The general public is aware that carbon dioxide is the main gas causing global warming. However just a few are concerned that the combination of ammonia from fertilizer and animal waste and sulfates from coal-fired power plants and nitrates from car exhaust form the soot particles that are the big air pollution killers. Even though the predictions of the number of deaths associated with pollution are high, (to about 6.6 million a year by 2050) this is a problem that can still be solved. The reduction of the level of carbon dioxide would reduce soot and smog levels as well.
The third article addresses a different topic: investments in technology. Investments in smart manufacturing innovations are always a good step into increasing energy efficiency and improving energy production. Knowing that, the Department of Energy is investing $70 million in funding into smart manufacturing with its next Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute grant. The work will be done inside the Innovation Institute on Smart Manufacturing, where public and private entities will work together to create a regional hub for applied research and product development. This represents also an opportunity for federal agencies, companies, universities to invest in the research of technologies related to energy efficiency or production.
The discussions regarding the articles can be seen on the link below.
Link: http://tqmvitorlibermansantos.weebly.com/discussion-2.html