Quality Audit Report: Enhancing Efficiency and Productivity at Telstar

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Quality Audit Report
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Contents
Examine the concept of quality management and continuous improvement in an organization,
taking into consideration ethical issues...........................................................................................3
Critically evaluate the benefit of quality awareness and quality management to organizations.....4
Select two appropriate change management tools (Kotter’s 8 step model, Lewin’s change model)
to implement the change and/or improvement................................................................................5
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Examine the concept of quality management and continuous improvement in an
organization, taking into consideration ethical issues.
Quality Management in an organization can be defined as the constant attainment of satisfaction
of customers through an integrated system of tools, training, and techniques. The main focus of
quality management is on continuous improvement of the processes of organization which
results in high-quality products and services. Continuous improvement is an ongoing process for
improving the products, services and operational activities of an organization. Such improvement
can be achieved by eliminating the waste and improving the quality (Kovach, and Fredendall,
2013) It strengthens the position of the organization in the industry, enhances the customer
satisfaction, improve productivity and profits of the organization. This effort must be made
consistently to achieve competitive advantage.
The process of total quality management is based on trust. Ethical behaviors build trusts and it
acts as an essential ingredient of quality management. It is important for the company to follow
the ethical principles and ensure that the products and services provided by the company are
trustworthy and reliable. The main objective of quality management is to provide the customers
with products and services which satisfy their needs and demands. Therefore, customers
satisfaction is of central value but the products and services provided may not be socially
accepted. This leads to an ethical issue for the company and such issues must be resolved by the
members of the company (Hicks, 2016). Therefore, it is important for an organization such as
Telstar to maintain a balance between ethical principles and continuous improvement of quality.
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Critically evaluate the benefit of quality awareness and quality management to
organizations.
The business organizations such as Telstar can achieve numerous benefits from the total quality
management. It enhances the efficiency and productivity of the company and is likely to provide
the company with an edge over its competitors. It ensures the achievement of reliability and
stability with reference to the resources, techniques, and equipment used. The fully recognized
and integrated quality management system ensures that the customers are satisfied with the
quality of products and services provided and enhance the customer’s confidence in the
organization (Garteinstein, 2019). It helps in attaining more consistency in the activities of a
project and effectiveness is also enhanced as usage of time and resources is improved. It further
helps in ensuring that the production is within the schedule baseline. The process of quality
management and awareness shall also include proper techniques of evaluation and better training
for employees. When effective quality management is implemented within an organization, it
ensures that in the event of defects, corrective actions are taken. The investment in management
and awareness of quality is always rewarded by enhanced financial performance.
While on one hand, Telstar can enhance its performance using quality management, on another
hand, it may also have detrimental impacts on the organization. The process of implementation
of quality management may take a lot of time and this will lead to extra cost for training of
employees and the existing performance of employees shall be compromised. Further, it is an
investment for long-term and there shall be no immediate returns (Ghotbabadi, et.al., 2012).
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Select two appropriate change management tools (Kotter’s 8 step model, Lewin’s change
model) to implement the change and/or improvement.
For the purpose of successful implementation of improvement or changes, it is important to
ensure that wastes are avoided. This can be done by ensuring that the ‘8 Wastes of Lean’ are
considered and avoided. Telstar can implement the changes using the following method:
8 Wastes of Lean
 Defects: These may be the errors in the design of [product, repeated inspections,
misinterpretation of the demand raised by the customer or excessive control. This waste
can be eliminated by ensuring that mistake proof systems are in place, the workers are
trained and the procedures are followed.
 Overproduction: The company produces the products in advance before the demand is
raised by customers. This leads to a risk of over-production and the company Telstar
must establish a system to improve the control of inventory and eliminate the operations
which are redundant (Myerson, 2012).
 Waiting: This is a clear wastage of time. It results from a lack of correlation. For
example- excessive waiting for the approvals, order confirmation calls and such others.
To eliminate any time wasted in waiting, it is important for Telstar to synchronize its
activities and eliminate unnecessary bureaucrats. It may also eliminate transferring the
activities between various departments.
 Non-Utilized Talent: It mainly refers to the unused human capacity. This
underutilization may lead to loss of motivation, lack of capitalization of the capacity of
production and a decrease in production. Telstar may eliminate this underutilization of
talent by identifying the skills of all the employees and allocating them the tasks
accordingly.
 Transportation: This includes the data and materials movement from one place to
another. It is an activity which may not directly concern the consumer but is significant
for the delivery of the final product. This waste can be eliminated by reducing the time
taken in processing, eliminating the documents which are unnecessary and process
virtualization (Jasti, and Kodali, 2015).
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 Inventory: Inventory is included in waste when there is excess supply and it is tracked
poorly. Telstar is a company involved in technology and technology keeps updating
every now and then. In case, the company keeps excess inventory, this leads to an extra
cost for the company if the technology updates. The cost of storage shall also increase.
The company can follow Kanban Stock Control System to ensure that the inventory
waste is eliminated.
 Motion: It means that the products are moved from one place to another and such
movement adds no value to the final product. As a result, it is an unnecessary cost for the
company. The company can eliminate this waste by training its employees about how to
eliminate the motion cost (Myerson, 2012).
 Extra-Processing: This includes the worthless activities or steps which could have been
avoided. These are the steps for which the customer is not willing to pay. The company
must focus on eliminating such activities and the appropriate solution in this regard can
be automation.
Therefore, the company Telstar can implement its changes in a more organized manner by
eliminating wastes. The company must understand and implement the ‘8 wastes of Lean’ for
more effective outcomes.
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References
 Garteinstein, D., 2019. Advantages & Disadvantages of Total Quality Management
Strategies. [Online]. Chron. Available at: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-
disadvantages-total-quality-management-strategies-22160.html [Accessed on 7 Feb
2019].
 Ghotbabadi, A.R., Baharun, R. and Feiz, S., 2012. A review of service quality models.
In 2nd International Conference on Management (pp. 1-8).
 Hicks, R.W., 2016. Maintaining Ethics in Quality Improvement. AORN journal, 103(2),
pp.139-141.
 Jasti, N.V.K., and Kodali, R., 2015. Lean production: literature review and
trends. International Journal of Production Research, 53(3), pp.867-885.
 Kovach, J.V. and Fredendall, L.D., 2013. The influence of continuous improvement
practices on learning: An empirical study. Quality Management Journal, 20(4), pp.6-20.
 Myerson, P., 2012. Lean supply chain and logistics management. New York: McGraw-
Hill.
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