Evaluating Quality Management Strategies: Volkswagen Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of quality management practices within Volkswagen. It begins by emphasizing the importance of understanding customer needs and expectations in aligning business objectives, referencing Peter Drucker's insights on customer-centric strategies. The report then explores various tools and techniques, such as cause-and-effect diagrams, flowcharts, and check sheets, used to diagnose and improve processes. The report also addresses supply chain management challenges, highlighting the need for supplier education and benchmarking. Furthermore, the report outlines quality initiatives, including design and development, production preparation, and stringent investigations. The final section connects these practices to Total Quality Management (TQM) principles and the significance of a knowledgeable workforce, aligning with Deming's 14 principles and emphasizing the importance of employee training and development for achieving customer satisfaction and long-term success. The report provides a detailed examination of Volkswagen's approach to quality management, offering insights into its strategies and challenges.

Quality Management

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Quality management can be simply defined as an act of beholding each and every
activities or tasks that is required to be maintained a desirable level of excellence. This
consist of identification of quality policies, formulating and executing quality planning and
its control as well as improvement. It not only concentrates on the goods and service quality
but also on the way to acquire it. The present report is based on the quality management
whereby tools and techniques that are used in diagnosing and improving the effectiveness of
systems and processes within Volkswagen are explained.

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY...........................................................................................................................2
Introduction ..........................................................................................................................................4
Task 1.....................................................................................................................................................4
Task 2.....................................................................................................................................................6
Task 3.....................................................................................................................................................7
Conclusion ..........................................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................................11

Introduction
Quality management is one of the key success for each and every business organization and
its competitiveness. It is defined a group of coordinated activities which improve the
effectiveness and efficiency in production process and also increase customer satisfaction
level in an effective manner. This report based on VW which is one of the leading automobile
company and operates its business in the United Kingdom and other parts of the world. This
report will be explaining evaluation of customer need in context of organizational objectives.
Various types of tools and techniques in order to improving overall organizational process to
meet long term goals.
Task 1
Importance of customer needs and expectations while establishing business objectives
Business objectives is very important thing that has to be made before starting any
business that is what the company wants to achieve before launching its products in the
market. Peter Drucker stated that before starting any type of business, it is very essential to
know about the needs or expectations of their customers as they are the only for whom
corporation is manufacturing its products and services. If they do not realise about their
wishes and create their goods then this will not be liked by them (Kumar and Reinartz, 2012).
As a result, the complete products would go into vain. So, Druker said that it is necessary to
know the demands and expectations of users while establishing objectives. Customer are
most essential people for any firm. They are the assets upon which the overall attainment or
success of the business relies. He said that it is necessary to keep following points in mind
while thinking about importance of consumers:
• Repetition of business is the backbone or keystone of selling. It assists in providing
money and certainty for the business.
• Ventures depends upon their consumers. If they do not gain user's faithfulness and
satisfaction, they may lose them.
• Without consumers the firm will not exist.
• The main goal of the venture is to meet the requirements of the users.
• They are only the customers who makes it possible to attain aims of business.

Customer satisfaction is at the centre of the selling process. Drucker says that for attracting or
making a new user in comparison to keep the present one costs around five times. Excellent
customer service and more consumer satisfaction must began with knowing expectations of
them. According to Peter, there are some of the ways or strategies that Volkswagen should
follow for determining the needs of consumers that are described below:
• Research : Organisation should carry out customer research as a part of their
marketing strategies. This gives them a wide view of users need. The market research on
specific sector should be reviewed so that targeted trends or modification in the purchasing
pattern can be recognised (Ullah and Lai, 2011). Volkswagen can also visit websites of
consumers for accessing their goods and strategies of market. From here they can determine
opportunities for full-filling their present or future requirements.
• Customer feed back : It is a strategy that will give corporations ideas about the
attitudes of users towards their goods or services. And this would help them in identifying
how well they are full-filling their demands (Wandersman, Chien and Katz, 2012).
Organisation can set up a forum or poll on their websites where users can write their
comments or ideas about their experience of using their products and services. They should
acknowledge the feedbacks coming from the consumers' side and make improvement in their
products or services as per the responses.
• Social media : Integrating social media in the communication strategy of company
also helps them in tracking the discussions of their goods as well as of their competitor's
products. Volkswagen should analyse the social media which are mentioning them and
should give response to the comments for engaging users and expectation in dialogue.
• Customer relationship management : This strategy enables corporation in developing
perception into users needs from their own records. CRM systems gather information on all
customer contacts and transactions, giving information on buying and service history, goods
interrogation, complaints, communication channel orientations and respond to marketing
campaigns. By recognising the information in a CRM system, an enterprise can create a
image of individual user's demands and preferences.
• Collaboration : Building collaboration with consumers into company's new goods
development strategies assures that products presents or shows the demand of consumers.
Volkswagen should engage representatives of targeted users in their product developing
project team and should ask them for providing their input or requirements of products or

their feedback on proposal of products (Trainor and et. al., 2014). They also have to set up a
panel of users for testing and evaluating new prototypes of their goods.
Task 2
It is essential for a company to develop an effective production and system within their
organizational in order to meet customer expectations (Sallis, 2014). For this, there are
various tools and techniques which can be used by them and evaluate their overall system in
an effective manner.
These tools can be:
Cause and effects diagram: This is one of the major factor which identify those factors for
causes of various problem. Therefore, VW required to implement this tool in order to
increase effectiveness of their system. There are following aspects must be considered by the
company:
People: It involves those people who involves in the overall system. For example, in a TQM,
there are various parties such as quality assurance manager, employees and other staff.
Methods: There are various methods which considered by the company to assure their quality
of their products and increase customer satisfaction.
Materials: VW have large number of suppliers which provide various components to them. It
can be involving tyres, heal light, wires, fabric and other components (Hazen and et. al.,
2014). This is responsibility of the cited enterprise is to check the quality of these products
and make sure such goods are meet their set standards which help to attain customer
expectation.
Measurements: This is another element in the quality management where a company required
to measure overall process and its standards which meet customer expectation in an effective
manner.
Flowcharts: This is another tool which used for the improving quality of products and also
increase the effectiveness of their system. VW required to implement this system helps to
understand the overall proves and also define the relationship between various department. It
helps to increase the communication and coordination among staff and meet their long term
goals in an effective manner.

Check sheets: This is systematic way to collecting data and evaluate this information in order
to check the quality on regular basis.
Because there is positive relationship between supply chain and quality management. There
is various issue which required to understand and focused on each issue which help to
improve their overall system. These are:
Supply chain: This is one of the major issue for each and every organization which related
with the acquiring of goods from suppliers and transform to finished products. In the context
of VW having more than 15000 suppliers across the world (Chen and Luo, 2014). This is one
of the most significant for the company to analyse their suppliers and make sure that to
decrease transportation time and increase production process. There are following way which
can be used by the company and improve their overall SCM and maintain their quality of
products and services:
Educate: This is one of the most common assessment where a company make sure that the
need to link all department and suppliers to provide row materials and components at the
right time (Akgün and et. al., 2014). For this, they can use an interrelated system where they
can make order and track such order which leads to increase its effectiveness through
reducing time frame of transportation and also overcoming the transportation cost.
Benchmark: This is another way where cited firm improve its supply chain by setting
benchmark. This is a set of objectives which compare the company with the industry and
helps to improve their overall process.
Task 3
Quality initiatives that could be implemented assuring that customer demands and
requirements are always met
Peter Drucker has given certain steps of quality initiatives that can be implemented
assuring that the needs and requirements of consumers are met. Volkswagen can take use of
them while doing the same. Some of them are described below:
• Design and development: Volkswagen can implement quality assurance from the
drawing stage by taking use of design and manufacturing expertise for creating drawing
which is designed for facilitating manufacturing. Research and development department of
Corporation can create drawing for maximal comfort of manufacture so that variability in

processes can be restricted and prevention to human errors can be carried on while the
process of manufacturing (Harrington, Voehl and Wiggin, 2012). Such drawing act as the
basis of quality assurance attempts. Engineers can prevents them from the historical issues of
quality by taking use of database because they can communicate intimately with the
department of production at the initial stage of development.
• Production preparation : Volkswagen can prepare for quality assurance via process of
production by creating manufacturing and control techniques that minimises variableness in
processes. Production department of Volkswagen can set up manufacturing control items and
standards for each and every portion, process and work task that is made on the basis of
designers' purpose so that issues related to product quality can be prevented (Singh, 2012).
After that engineers utilises such manufacturing control items and standards for verifying
changeability that arises during manufacture as they are working for preventing quality
related issues. Moreover, Volkswagen can implement those processes that minimises the
variance by soliciting recommendations for improvement from the sites where the job is
really performed. They can then determine methods of manufacturing control for every
processes.
• Production : In addition to use drawing which is used to ease manufacturing and
performing techniques to control manufacturing that would limit process variability,
Organisation can also conduct a stringent investigations of part and finished or processed
vehicles. On the basis of this investigation, Volkswagen can take steps to insure that no
damage has occurred while transporting.
Task 4
TQM is related with the management techniques and provide long term success to the
business through customer satisfaction. The member of a business organization focused on
the process, system, service, products quality and other aspects (Griffin, 2016). Therefore,
each and every company is more concentrate of quality rather than other aspects. In the
context of given case study, Damming provide the 14 principles of quality which are similar
to the Drucker point of view. According to the Drucker’s, the role of knowledge workers is
largely significant for a company because it helps in producing quality products due to their
specialized knowledge in a particular area. This shows that, each and every business required
to develop knowledgeable workforce which provide customer loyalty. In the context of VW
which having large number of workforce and they also highly skilled. Because, cited firm

conduct provide training and development program on regular basis. On the other hand,
Deming said that company need to develop a new philosophy where a company required to
develop new culture and system in order to providing quality products and services to its
customers (Kafetzopoulos and Gotzamani, 2014). This shows that cited firm required that to
sue new approach which met future needs and in an effective manner so that they can meet its
short and long term targets. There are following principles of quality management which
must be considered by the VW:
Customer focused: Today, a customer is the focal point for every business organization. they
make decide the quality of products are good or not. It doesn’t matter how much investment
company make, training to their staff and other aspects.
Total employee involvement: Employee involvement is too significant for each and every
company in order to provide a high quality product and services to its customers. This is the
responsibility of the management is to create a harmonious environment which helps to
increase the collective efforts in order to increase customer expectations.
Process centred: The role of overall process in the TQM is very critical for an enterprise. In
the context of VW, where they concentrate on each and every aspects process such as
acquiring of goods and services to delivery of good to the end consumers (Psomas, Vouzas
and Kafetzopoulos, 2014). In this way, the main area is to minimising the delivery time and
improve which enhanced customer satisfaction level.
Integrated system: Coordination is one of the key principle for an effective TQM, where a
company need to installed an effective integrated system between various functional
department such as finance, HR, marketing tec. So that they can share and coordinate with
each other in a limited period of time.
Continual improvement: This is another aspect where a company make sure to improve their
product quality on regular basis. For this, they need to conduct feedback from its customers
and make modification accordingly. VW, need to use various tools and techniques and
provide unique competitiveness in the market which provide strategic advantage in the
market.
Communication: During organizational change, the role of communication and also helps to
maintain a long term relationship with their stakeholders such as investors, employees,
customers, government and society.

Fact based decision making: An effective TQM required a variety of data from its different
department. This is the responsibility of management to evaluate performance level on
regular basis. Which helps to meet its short and long term targets in an effective manner.
Strategic and systematic approach: This principle is related strategic planning which helps to
provide a long term direction for the future. VW have its own mission and vision guide them
what they want to achieve in the long run.
Conclusion
From the above report it has been concluded that the role of quality management significant
at every business. In this report, the critical analyses of customer need and organizational
objectives which is very crucial. Further, there are various types of tools and techniques to
improve product quality in order to provide a high quality products and services which is
crucial in the modern business. This report also explained about the TQM and its principles in
the context if VW and its current and future performance.

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