Quality Management: Identifying and Solving Quality Problems in Organizations

This report focuses on the quality problems faced by organizations and the seven quality control tools used by them to overcome those problems. An organization can face quality issues related to their products or even services. Access bank Ghana also faces such quality problems related to their low motivation of employees resulting in poor quality of performance, poor qualities of employees due to competition within the organization and many other reasons. A number of tools are used to control the quality and help in solving the same such as- control chart , check sheet and others.

Running head: QUALITY MANAGEMENT
QUALITY MANAGEMENT
Name of student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive summary
This report focuses on the quality problems faced by the organizations and the seven quality
control tools used by them to overcome those problems. An organization can face quality
issues related to their products or even services. Access bank Ghana also faces such quality
problems related to their low motivation of employees resulting in poor quality of
performance, poor qualities of employees due to competition within the organization and
many other reasons. A number of tools are used to control the quality and help in solving the
same such as- control chart , check sheet and others.

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Table of Contents
Executive summary....................................................................................................................1
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Identification of problem............................................................................................................4
Definition of problem.................................................................................................................5
Cause diagnosis..........................................................................................................................6
Root cause identification............................................................................................................7
Solution design and action plan.................................................................................................7
Check sheet............................................................................................................................8
Control chart...........................................................................................................................9
Flow chart.............................................................................................................................10
Pareto chart...........................................................................................................................11
Histogram.............................................................................................................................12
Cause-and-effect diagram....................................................................................................13
Scatter diagram.....................................................................................................................14
Conclusion................................................................................................................................15

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Introduction
Quality control means meeting the quality standards for products or services and
finding out the deficiencies and using tool and techniques to overcome those deficiencies
(Mitra, 2016). This technique ensures the actual outcomes with the standards to find out the
deficiencies. This technique focuses on three main parts- the elements for management of
job, skills, knowledge and soft elements such as confidence and others. There are many tools
to identify and solve the problems relating to quality such as the quality control tools which
comprises of seven main elements. Some of the tools of 7QC are check sheet, control chart,
stratification and others (Neyestani, 2017). There are many quality centric organizational
problems such as – poor quality of customer service, poor quality of work environment and
others. In Access Bank of Ghana also there are many problems related to quality which is
discussed in the discussion section. This study focuses on identification of quality problems
of the organization, definition of those problems, causes for the problems, identification of
the root cause and designing solution and plan of action.
Identification of problem
Ghana has undergone a series of mergers and acquisition resulting in banking
recapitalization by government of Ghana. This causes the efficient gains and losses of
different companies merging into one. This has affected the quality of service being provided
by banks in Ghana. Since different banks have different cultures of theirs so when banks
merge the quality of service is affected negatively because of the conflicts that may arise
between the employees of the organization (Onashile, 2016). Many times the employees do
not support the mergers, acquisition due to the fear of loss of power and position and when
the mergers and acquisition takes place against their wishes the working environment of the
consolidated bank is affected, and the service quality reduces (Goossen, 2017). Further

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Ghana had adopted mobile banking strategy among its customers for expanding its services.
It was seen that mobile banking could not become successful because the customers do not
trust the quality of services for online banking they are afraid that they may face security
issues, encryption problems and many others (Owusu-Antwi et al., 2015). The company
needs to improve its quality of online banking services to attract the attention of the
customers to this new concept of mobile banking. There is a system of written contract
between the employers and the employees in Ghana. There are psychological contracts as
well which is not given in the written contract but affects the working of the employees
because of the pressure created by the employers (Dogbatse, 2015). This contract system in
followed in the access bank of Ghana. The employees are required to meet a target to get the
pay at the end of the day or their job is put in a risky position. Hence, the employers make the
employees work hard to meet the targets. This affects the quality of the workplace in which
the employees are working because there is continuous pressure. The poor quality of
workforce makes it difficult to retain the employees in the organization that ultimately has an
impact on the service to customers because if the company creates pressure on its talented
employees who had good customer relations then if the employees leave the customers also
leave. Under the contract the employees also have a right to good working conditions so if
they do not get the same then also their quality of work is affected. If the employers fail to
fulfill their obligations that has a negative impact on the quality of performance of the
employees.
Definition of problem
The quality problems faced by Access bank Ghana are – poor quality of service
because of conflicting interests of the employees of the consolidated bank formed as a result
of the mergers and acquisitions (Alhassan & Asare, 2016). The main drawbacks of mergers

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and acquisition on the quality of workforce is that if the consolidation is done against their
wishes then the performance us negatively affected and as a result their quality of service is
affected, the working conditions and the code of conduct of the two companies being
different results in conflicts and confusions among the employees which further affects their
quality of performance. The second problem that access bank Ghana is facing is that the
online banking services is not being able to attract the attention of the customers of the
company because they doubt the credibility of the bank- they feel that there may be issues
related to security of the banking services and other problems (Cudjoe, Anim & Nyanyofio,
2015). The bank has to improve the quality of online services to gain the trust of the
customers. The third problem that Ghana’s access bank is facing is that of the work
environment quality, which is being negatively affected due to the unnecessary psychological
pressure created by the employers regarding meeting of the targets. The last organizational
quality centric problem of access bank Ghana is that if the employers cannot fulfills their
obligations as given in the employment contract regarding providing proper payment of
wages and other facilities the employees feel demotivated and their quality of work suffers
(Access Bank, 2019).
Cause diagnosis
Cause diagnosis means identification of the problems and looking at its history of the
causes. In the past, Ghana never underwent a banking recapitalization and when the
government of Ghana decided to go through a series of mergers and acquisition these quality
problems started occurring (Adusei, 2015). The employment contract has been followed in
Ghana for years but the psychological pressure that is being given to the employees to meet
the targets has increased recently. This causes a poor work-life balance for the employees of
the organization and as a result their quality of work is negatively affected. Employees have

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to fulfill their obligations towards the organization and the same is expected from the
employers under the employment contact. If the employees of the organization feel that the
management is not full filling its obligations towards the employees than the employees feel
demotivated to work properly because they expect the same from the employers. Customers
have trusted the banks in Ghana and especially the access bank Ghana for their services but
the organization cannot win the trust of customers due to their poor internet quality services
(Cudjoe, Anim & Nyanyofio, 2015).
Root cause identification
The main cause behind the quality problems of organization is the absence proper
government policies and laws for regulating all the decisions of banking industry in Ghana
(Boateng, 2015). The contract of employment needs to be removed because that makes the
employees feel that they are legally bound towards one company. The working conditions of
the bank have to be improved because that is leading to the poor quality of performance
(Agbozo et al., 2017). An employment law has to be there that ensures that the employers
fulfill their obligations because this is having an impact on the performance of the employees.
The access bank needs to improve its quality of online services of banking to gain customers.
If the quality of the banks services suffers from poor quality then it will become difficult for
the banks to attract customers, to retain them and to create a harmonious relationship with
them. Customers are the most important parts of any service industry.
Solution design and action plan

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Check sheet
Reasons Custome
r
Customer Customer Custome
r
Customer Customer Customer total
Mergers and
acquisition
3 0 5 2 1 0 0 11
Banking
services
5 4 2 5 1 0 1 18
Impact of
workplace
pressure on
employees
quality of
performance
1 2 3 2 1 0 1 10
Total 8 8 13 8 6 9
Graph : 1
(Source: created by author)
Check sheet is a sheet or document that is used for collecting data in the place where
it is actually generated or real time (Mane & Patil, 2015). Both qualitative and qualitative
data is collected and analyzed in this sheet. A tally sheet is one which represents the
quantitative data. The feedback of the customers are taken on a daily basis to find the
occurrences of the problems and then to arrive at a solution. In the above diagram on a scale
of 5, the customers were asked to rate the quality deficiency that they felt for the various
reasons. The factors, which received the minimum rate (0- low quality services and 5- high

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quality services) are the ones which requires the companies attention and have to be
improved. According to the above diagram the customers faced quality issues from the
company due to demotivated employees.
Control chart
Control chart is statistical tool used to check if the business processes and the
manufacturing process are in the state of control (Burr, 2018). The control chart analysis is
used to indicate if the processes are under control that is if they have the stability or a certain
level of a variation that is agreeable to the processes than these process are said to be under
control. With the help of the chart, the organization can find out the main causes of variations
if it is not under control and make changes accordingly. This tools that is a part of the seven
quality control tools can be used for comparability. It can help in comparing sample data or
peoples performances. The following graph shows the occurrences of the poor quality
services faced by the customers of the bank. On the x-axis there are customers and on the y
axis we have the number of such occurrences faced. With the help of the control chart the
organization can find out the frequency of occurrences and create a solution accordingly. If
the company finds that the occurrences of quality issues is highest in workplace then it can
bring changes ion its employment contracts and modify it to include some new policies that
provides for a proper work-life balance.

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
number of occurences
Graph: 2
(Source: created by author)
Flow chart
Flow chart is a diagrammatic presentation of the step-by-step solution of the
organizational problems (Price, 2017). It is represented through algorithms and process. It
shows a number of boxes which helps in identifying and understanding the process and to
find the main problems in the process. The flow chart diagram as a part of the quality control
helps to understand the methods for solving the problems of the quality issues and discuss
whether it is possible to have a solution or not. In the following diagram the process of
solving quality control problems and also it will analyze whether it found any problems in
implementing the solution. The company can improve customer services of online banking
by increasing its credibility and it can provide customer awareness about the benefits of the
internet banking.

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Figure number: 3
(Source: Created by author)
Pareto chart
Pareto chart is the graphic representation of the data where both line and bar diagrams
are used (Dale & Plunkett, 2017). The bar diagrams represent the individual values and the
line diagram represents the cumulative values of the data for a number of years. In quality
control, it helps to identify the major reasons for defects and the highest occurrence of the
defects. The following diagram shows the quality problems of the organization and shows
the number of complaints made by the customers. Through this diagram the organization can
Identification of problems
Looking for methods to improve
quality
Did the
company find
it difficult
Did the
company find
the solution?

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overcome the problems for which the highest number of complaints has been received from
the customers.
0
10
20
30
40
0.0%
20.0%
40.0%
60.0%
80.0%
100.0%
Pareto Chart - Banking Company
Highlighted Bars Remaining Bars Cumulative %
Histogram
It is the representation of the numerical data in form of a graph (Akpolat, 2017). It
shows the distribution of the data and helps to find the density. It represents only one
variable. It shows the frequencies of the observation over a range of values. The following
diagram represents the number of customers affected due to the poor quality or deficiency in
services. This shows the number of customers affected due to the deficiency. Based on the
following diagram the organization decides which problem has the most occurrence and then
the organization tries to solve that problem.

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0-5 5-10 10-15 15-20 20-25 25-30 30-35 35-40
0
5
10
15
20
25
Chart Title
defects per month no. of customers affected
Figure :5
(Source: created by author)
Cause-and-effect diagram
This tool is used to identify how one events causes the effect in another. This tool
connects the two processes (Taylor, 2018). These two variables are dependent upon each
other. It shows what are the main reasons that are leading to the problem of the effect. In
quality control, it discusses what are the main factors that are leading to the poor quality of
the service or goods. The organization can select this tool to identify the causes and its effect
on the organization and after finding the causes it can find alternative solutions. The main
cause’s are- mergers and acquisition affect the quality of employees when the employees do
not accept the consolidation, the bank cannot provide a proper work-life balance to the
employees so the quality of the employees performance is affected, competition within the
organization is leading to poor quality of performance. The above mentioned causes are
leading to degraded quality of services to customers as an effect.

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Cause 1 cause 2
Cause 3 cause 4
Figure: 6
(Source: created by author)
Scatter diagram
It represents the values of the variables for two set of data (Fonseca, Lima & Silva,
2015). The collection of points show the data each having a variable and shows the
positioning of the data of the variables on the x-axis and the y-axis. In the following diagram,
there are two main variables – dependent and independent and those are occurrence of poor
quality of services, which is dependent about the causes, and the weightage of the causes. The
dependent variable is given on the y-axis and the independent variable is given on the x-axis.
A linear scatter diagram is used to shows the relationship between the two variables. This
diagram is used to show the dependence of one variable over the other. This will help the
organization to understand how the most important causes affects the occurrences of poor
quality services.
Problem
(Effect)

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5 10 15 20 25 30 35
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
weightage of reasons
Figure: 7
(Source: created by author)
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that good quality of products and
services is important for the organization. However, maintaining that quality in the services is
difficult for organization dealing with goods or services. Organizations of the service industry
can also face this problem of quality. They can have quality issues in their services such as
poor quality services to the customers or having poor quality of performances of the
employees due to various reasons. Access bank Ghana faces similar situations while
providing banking services to its customers such as – the customers do not trust them due to
their quality of services in online banking area, the quality of performances of the employees
is being negatively affected due to employment contracts and many other reasons. However,
access bank can use the seven quality control tools to understands the deficit in their services
and to take actions to overcome the quality problems.

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