Bazaar Ceramics: Quality Assurance Report for Business Improvement

This report provides a detailed analysis of Bazaar Ceramics Studio, a South Australian organization specializing in art and craft products. It addresses the company's challenges, including manual processes, increasing competition, and shrinking margins. The report outlines the company's strategic objectives, quality standards, and quality policy, and proposes a quality assurance plan. It identifies critical issues such as high costs, manual order processing, and lack of IT support, and offers recommendations for improvement, including automating processes, developing an e-commerce platform, and improving customer feedback mechanisms. The report also includes a business quality assurance plan, detailing quality performance expectations, standards, benchmarks, and roles and responsibilities. Finally, it outlines a quality policy based on ISO 9001 standards and suggests corrective actions based on customer feedback, such as implementing e-commerce systems and connecting producers directly to the company database.

Bazaar Ceramics Quality Assurance
Report
1. Executive Summary
This report explores the case of Bazaar Ceramics Studio which is a South Australia based
organization that sells arts, crafts, domestic wares, corporate collection, and sculpture
pieces through its gallery located in Stepney, Adelaide. Most of its processes including order
management, sales management, and marketing are manual. However, due to this the
company is facing increasing competition from ecommerce based organization from the
industry and margins are shrinking. The organization is facing certain conflicts related to
cost, marketing, and management that are discussed in the report and possible solutions are
recommended in the quality plan. The report covers strategic objectives of the organization,
quality standards, quality policy, quality assurance processes and recommendations for
improvement.
2. Introduction
Bazaar Ceramics Studio is a 20 year old organization from Hahndorf, South Australia that
sells art and craft products. It first began producing locally designed fine art pieces and
domestic wares such as dinner sets and ovenware as a cooperative. The cooperative
members were involved in designing, throwing glazing and firing activities for their own
products. A gallery director was appointed to take care of gallery and its marketing. Over the
years, the organization grew and expanded nationally with inclusion of corporate collection
and sculptural pieces. These pieces are obtained from international hotels, private homes,
and board rooms in US and Germany and sold on commission basis with 40% as
commission. It now operates from Stepney, Adelaide and has more staff including a
production manager, 6 production potters, and 2 full time ceramic designers.
3. Strategic Direction and Strategic Plan
Bazaar Ceramics is focused on the international ceramic arts market while doing marketing
as it gives more opportunities to do business. The main revenues in the business come from
the sales made through gallery. However, cost of running gallery is very high which has
resulted into reduction in the returns on investments on gallery maintenance and marketing.
Most sales are made to interstate and international clients. However, these major clients find
the purchasing process complicated and thus, management is thinking of developing
ecommerce website to make the processes streamlined. The company would continue to
maintain high standards of technical and artistic needs. The organization has a long term
vision of growing its art market globally and builds a strong brand reputation. For this, the

company is going to use internet based marketing such that it’s advertising cost is reduced
and the company is able to get more feedback from customers.
The organization has a plan to make use of market opportunities using the organization
strengths. It would also aim to build strategies to deal with threats and overcome their
weaknesses. The strategic plan of the company is presented below:
Vision: Vision is to create a strong business reputation in the international art market
Mission: Expand the business in national and international market and increase sales figure
to exceed competition
Objectives: Objectives of the company would be behavioural, community level, and process
related (Carpenter & Weikel, 2012).
Behavioural objectives of the company include:
 Make the company staff more supportive and understanding of customer needs
Community objectives of the company include:
 Reduce order processing time
 Reduce operating cost of the company
 Expand business into national market and international market
Process objectives of the company include:
 Spend more on marketing of products that are most popular with customers
 Automate business process to improve productivity
Action Plan:
 Train staff into getting more feedback from customers and use them for the
organizational benefits
 Develop ecommerce solution that allows customers to place orders online with
convenience
 Hire IT manager to provide support to the employees managing IT systems in the
company
 Move into a smaller showroom and put more products for sale on website to reduce
cost of operations
 Automate the order management process of the company to reduce time needed for
processing orders
 Develop an ecommerce website to reduce order processing costs and time as well
as increase the reach of the business globally
 Implement analytics on the website to do sales analysis for understanding popular
items
 Automate some of the organizational processes including order management and
sales tracking to reduce order processing time and analyse trends (Burnett, 2008)
 Develop an ecommerce system that has following features and facilities:
o Online ordering
o Market products online
o Sell products online

o Collect customer feedback
4. Critical Issues and Strategic Objectives
The company is facing strategic issues that need to be resolved for which strategic
objectives are formed.
Critical Issue Strategic Objectives
Costs of gallery management and marketing
are increased with increase in cost of goods
sold and fixed costs of gallery management.
Identify and explore more options to sell
other than through gallery
Many processes used in the company are
manual including order form entries, selling,
ordering which consumes more time and
also lead to mistakes and redundancies in
data management
Automate some of the processes used in the
company
Products that are produced by remote
workers are double handled between
producers and sellers which both time
consuming and cost incurring
Develop a system that allows direct shipping
of products from workers to clients
There are cost pressures that are affecting
the profits from operations. Some of the cost
elements that have increased include
employee costs, advertising costs, exchange
rates, and fixed costs of showroom
management. This has resulted in decrease
in mark-up and returns on investments.
Reduce the fixed costs of the business
Manual order processing makes processing
time consuming. Moreover, there are more
challenges like inability of international
customers to order by phone
Automate the process of ordering
Bazaar Ceramics has no person employed
for providing IT support
Hire new staff for IT systems management
The company is unable to display all
available products in the gallery because of
its small size
Sell products through new channels other
than the gallery
The information on sales is not effectively
stored and analysed. More unsaleable
products are produced because of lack of
Improve the customer feedback mechanism

knowledge of popularity of products.
As the products are unique, products
displayed in advertisements get sold fast and
the advertisements become outdated
Find and utilize alternate modes of
advertising
With increase in ecommerce adoption, the
competition is increasing. Competitors have
more margins with websites as their sales
and marketing costs are less. This gives
bargaining power to consumers and they
want 25% discounts on all products
(Dolinsek & Piskar, 2006).
Make the business more competitive by
developing ecommerce platform (USFSM,
2017)
5. Business quality assurance Plan
a) Business quality performance and expectations
Quality performance would be achieved by:
 Having more stock of products that are most popular with customers
 Selling products that are reliable and of high standards of art and craft
 Sell the products that are durable and long lasting
 Sell products that have good aesthetics that are pleasing to customers
 Providing good support and communication with customers such that customers become
loyal which is shown by repeat purchases.
 Complaints from customers are responses to within 24 hours
Expectations of the customers and other stakeholders related to the quality of the business would
include:
 Prompt service personnel response to queries of the customers
 Good quality of products that follow international standards
 Flexibility in terms of order placement and payments against orders
 Understanding of the customer needs and fulfilment of the same
 Company staff has a caring attitude towards customers (WEF, 2017)
b) Business Quality standards and business model
Business would use ISO 9001 standards that define following responsibilities of the business:

 Develop quality systems as per the needs of the customers and ensure that the top
management of the company are committed to meet them
 Ensure that resources and infrastructure that is need to improve the quality of systems are
present
 Understand customer needs and ensure they are delivered what they want
 Conduct surveys or interviews with customers to understand if their needs are sufficiently met
and make improvements in case dissatisfaction is seen (Inglis, 2005)
c) Benchmarking Quality Standard
Quality standards would be measured against benchmarks reflecting upon desired quality of the
business. Benchmarking would be done in following steps:
1. Understanding the current and new processes that would be followed in the company
2. Analyse the processes used by coming organizations in the industry
3. Compare the performance of the company with its competitors
4. Take steps to eliminate the performance gap between the company and its competitors
Benchmarking would be used for the development of the ecommerce solution which would be made
ensuring that it follows the minimum quality standards used by other competing companies using
ecommerce for selling their products (Booth, 2015).
d) Project Quality plan
a. Document expectations
The expectations of the customers and stakeholders would be documented in service level
agreements that would include details of products, professional services that would be
provided by the company staff, support provided by the company, and agreement of the
customer on expectations documented (Haustein, 2017).
b. Standards
The standards that would be used for the business would include ISO9001 which would be
used for internal operations management and Australian standards like CWA which would
be used for cataloguing of the products on the ecommerce website (Wladen University,
2017).
c. Benchmarks
Industry benchmarks of quality of products and services would be followed as the base for
performance assessment. The benchmarks would be set for the following parameters:
 Material quality of domestic wares such as dinner sets and ovenware
 Efficiency of processes including designing, throwing glazing and firing
 Exclusivity of corporate collection and sculptural pieces
 Aesthetics and maintenance of art gallery
 Features of the ecommerce website

d. Resources
Roles Quality Responsibilities
Quality Manager Review and approve the quality management plan
Provide assistance in ensuring implementation of quality
management processes
Direct team on delivering quality.
Quality Assurance
Officer
Provide assistance in building a quality management plan
Develop quality control procedures with assistance from
stakeholders
Ensure that all stakeholder requirements are sufficiently
documented
Review and audit the quality control procedures
Give feedback to the program or project manager on quality
aspects
Help team make improvements in production and other
management processes
Record compliance issues and ensure that they are resolved
(EPA, 2016)
6. Implement quality policies and plans
e) Quality policy for business directive
Quality policy of business would follow ISO9001:2015 standard. The policy would be build on
corporate objectives of the company and the values they have, The quality policy of Bazaar Ceramics
would be:
Bazaar Ceramics provides high quality products including fine art pieces, household wares, corporate
collection and sculptural pieces and uses best in classes processes in the industry including
designing, throwing glazing and firing. It is the policy of Bazaar to provide products in accordance with
the given details and pricing. The company Directors, Top Management and Staff are responsible for
ensuring quality of products and services to the satisfaction of the customers. The company woudl
use the quality procedures defined in ISO 9001 standards and would try to even exceed for increasing
customer satisfaction (Hénard & Roseveare, 2012).

f) Feedback analysis - Quality Management Plan
The feedback of the customers and stakeholders on the quality of products and business processes
would be taken and based on the analysis of the feedback, changes would be incorporated in the
quality management plan. An initial feedback of the customer on the quality aspects revealed that the
international customers are not very satisfied with the communication modes and are looking for
options to connect to the company representatives directly. Also, it was found that the order
processing time is longer as compared to competition mainly because of manual processes unlike the
competition that is using ecommerce systems
g) Corrective action
Based on the customer feedback on quality of business processes, some corrective actions are
recommended including:
 Ecommerce systems would be implemented through which the customers would be able to
place the orders which would make the process faster
 The producers would be connected to the company database directly such as upon
placement of the orders, the shipments can be made from the producer to the customer
directly without the need for involving the company in between
h) Quality reporting and monitoring program
The quality assurance officer would conduct an audit in which the quality performance of the business
would be measured based on the monitored data throughout the quality management process. The
QA officer would report the quality deviations to the project manager and would seek necessary
corrections.
i) Position description – Quality Assurance
The staff would need to be trained on the ecommerce system to be able to achieve fast
order processing and order fulfilment.
7. Control quality assurance processes
j) Quality performance guidelines, procedures and processes
In order to maintain the quality of the services and processes of the organization, the company is
adopting ISO and AS based standards that cover the aspects of customer involvement, staff
involvement and processes. Various procedures that are used in the organization for the management

of the quality can be recorded in a quality, management policy and procedures document which would
include the following:
Policy Statement: Bazaar Ceramics specializes in selling or art and craft products and corporate
collections from Germany and US. It provides following services to customers:
 Gallery for viewing art and craft collection
 Sales of art and craft products
 Survey of customers to get feedback for improvement
 Provision of items from producers sold directly to the customers
Bazaar ceramic is committed to maintain reputation of good quality products and uses stringent
procedures for managing quality products. The company is committed towards continuous
improvement and have planned to develop an ecommerce platform to allow customers more ease in
ordering through online platform. The company also strives to improve its IT processes and employ
staff for efficient IT systems management support.
The quality management approach of Bazaar Ceramics is based on four principles that include:
 Conforming to the needs of customers for products and services
 Focus on improvements with identification of performance gaps and working for their
improvement
 Ensure that all the staff understand the quality need sufficiently and is committed to achieve
them
 Involve all major stakeholders in the review process to take a 360 degree feedback to help
improvement
k) Stakeholder feedback for monitoring and implementation
Stakeholder feedback is taken using survey with customers and interviews with other representatives
of stakeholder groups including suppliers, marketers, sponsor, and vendors.
l) Presentation - Monitoring Quality Performance
The performance of the quality processes is measured based on the monitoring procedures that
includes quality logs where all the quality related steps that are taken are recorded.
m)Breakdowns in the system and corrective action and resources
Major problems with the system are high cost of operation mainly due to the maintenance
cost of gallery and manual processing of the organization activities. Because of manual
systems, order processing is time consuming. Also, because of lack of certain features that
are provided by competition, the company is losing on the international customers. For
improvement, the company is planning to implement an ecommerce system that would help
it automate order management processes and widen the reach of the company. Further, the
company would modify its processes to involve producers in direct sales such that deliveries
are made directly from the producer to the customers upon receiving orders. For this, the

company is planning to outsource development to a third party and hire more staff for
managing IT systems that are developed.
8. Improve quality
n) Analysis of Quality Performance
Quality performance use standards defined by ISO and AS including ISO9001:2015 and CWA. The
two quality standards define the processes related to customer needs management and
process management.
o) Adjustment and Review of benchmark standards
Benchmark standards are defined based on the competitive analysis that has found that the company
is lacking presence of the online systems to interact with and sell to customers.
p) Quality improvement monitoring
The monitoring procedures include quality logs where all the quality related steps that are taken are
recorded.
q) Quality Performance results
Quality performance assessment reveals that the company has a longer order processing time than
competition and has higher operating costs. Moreover, some of the facilities that are made available
to customers by competitors are not available with the company such as availability of alternatives for
ordering and direct delivery from producers to customers (Cotleigh Engineering Co. Limited, 2016).
r) Review business procedures
A review of business procedures revealed certain concerns with existing processes that need to be
improved:
 Most processes used for order management and sales are manual and thus, ecommerce
system would help automating some of them
 The staff is unable to keep track of popular items and thus, non-popular items are stocked.
Implementation of analytics on ecommerce would reveal the sales statistics that would help
company managers know popular items and accordingly stock them

 Despite good quality products, the company incur high marketing cost because of traditional
marketing methods and thus, use of digital marketing along with ecommerce platform use
would help company widen its reach.
Conclusion
This report explored the case of South Australia based Bazaar Ceramics Studio that sells
arts, crafts, domestic wares, corporate collection, and sculpture pieces through its gallery.
The report identified issues faced by the company including manual processing, shrinking,
cost increases, and long order processing time. Some recommendations were made for
improvement of the situation such as development of the ecommerce website that would
automate order processing as well as provide sales analytics capabilities that can be used
by the organization to get the trend and accordingly focus their marketing on popular
products
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