July 9, 2017

Quality Management Principles and Actions


ISO Quality Management Principles


 “ Quality management principles (QMP) ” are a set of fundamental beliefs, norms, rules and values that are accepted as true and can be used as a basis for quality management.

The seven quality management principles are :

QMP1 – Customer focus
QMP2– Leadership
QMP3 – Engagement of people
QMP4 – Process approach
QMP5– Improvement
QMP6 – Evidence-based decision making
QMP7 – Relationship management




QMP1 – Customer focus


Statement
The primary focus of quality management is to meet customer requirements and to strive
to exceed customer expectations.


Actions to be taken
•  Recognize customers: Recognize direct and indirect customers as those who receive value from the organization.
•  Research the needs and expecations of the customers (current and potential): Understand customers’ current and future needs and expectations.
•  Organizations objectives have to reflect customer needs: Link the organization’s objectives to customer needs and expectations.
•  Wide dissemination of customer requirements in the organization: Communicate customer needs and expectations throughout the organization.
•  Utilize customer needs understanding in developing products and services: Plan, design, develop, produce, deliver and support goods and services to meet customer needs and expectations.
•  Measure post purchase and use customer satisfaction: Measure and monitor customer satisfaction
and take appropriate actions.
•  Utilize customer feedback: Determine and take actions on interested parties’ needs and expectations that can affect customer satisfaction.
•  Maintain relations with customers: Actively manage relationships with customers
to achieve sustained success.

Customer focus is a part of market orientation.

QMP2– Leadership


Statement
Leaders at all levels establish unity of purpose and direction and create conditions in which people are engaged in achieving the organization’s quality objectives.

Managers at all levels have to create conditions in the work areas and the organization under them the conditions conducive to practice of quality principles.


Actions to be taken

• Communicate the organization’s mission, vision, strategy, policies and processes throughout
the organization. In the context of quality, quality policy and processes are to be communicated.
• Create and sustain shared values, fairness and ethical models for behaviour at all levels
of the organization. Quality must be a value in the organization.
• Establish a culture of trust and integrity. When any person in the organization provides an output to a customer, the quality is checked and confirmed by that person or he checks whether some other designated person has checked the item from quality angle. Self inspection by an operator is also valid quality check.
• Encourage an organization-wide commitment to quality.
• Ensure that leaders at all levels are positive examples to people in the organization. Every person in the organization follows the quality policy and processes.
• Provide people with the required resources, training and authority to act with accountability. The people are to be educated and trained in the quality processes and necessary tools are to be provided to them. Adequate authority is to be given to them to correct any item if a defect is found at any time.
• Inspire, encourage and recognize people’s contribution. People are economic people as well as social people. Positive social messages through verbal and body language, small rewards and awards will keep up the spirit of the people to engage in the activities of the organization energetically and happily.


Source: ISO Quality Management Principles
https://www.iso.org/files/live/sites/isoorg/files/archive/pdf/en/pub100080.pdf


WHAT IS ISO 9001?

ISO 9001 is an internationally recognized Quality Management System standard published by ISO (International Organization for Standardization). A Quality Management System, as described in the current ISO 9001 Standard, helps an organization to implement streamlined processes and improve operational efficiency  based on the Quality Management principles.

https://int.lead.bureauveritas.com/en/what-is-iso-9001

Deming’s 14 Principles or Commandments for Total Quality Management



Create constancy of purpose for improving products and services.
Adopt the new philosophy.
Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality.
End the practice of awarding business on price alone; instead, minimize total cost by working with a single supplier.
Improve constantly and forever every process for planning, production and service.
Institute training on the job.
Adopt and institute leadership.
Drive out fear.
Break down barriers between staff areas.
Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets for the workforce.
Eliminate numerical quotas for the workforce and numerical goals for management.
Remove barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship, and eliminate the annual rating or merit system.
Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement for everyone.
Put everybody in the company to work accomplishing the transformation.

The list of 14 commandments is basis for  total quality management philosophy and thus is the foundation for TQM and its successor, quality management systems.



Juran’s 10 steps for Quality management and Quality improvement 


Build awareness of opportunity to improve.
Set-goals for improvement.
Organize to reach goals.
Provide training
Carryout projects to solve problems.
Report progress.
Give recognition.
Communicate results.
Keep score.
Maintain momentum by making annual improvement part of the regular systems and processes of the company.


Phil Crosby's Prnciples



The definition of quality is conformance to requirements (requirements meaning both the product and the customer's requirements)
The system of quality is prevention
The performance standard is zero defects (relative to requirements)
The measurement of quality is the price of nonconformance
The principle of "doing it right the first time" (DIRFT).


Total Quality Management: Focus on Six Sigma - Review Notes


Top Management Challenges


This article is part of #AtoZChallenge 2017 for Blogging Posts. My Theme for the Challenge is Top Management Challenges - Full List of Articles  http://nraomtr.blogspot.com/2016/12/a-to-z-2017-blogging-challenge-top.html


Updated 11 July 2017, 20 April 2017


July 8, 2017

Business and Management Innovations - 2017




July 2017

Walmart is building giant towers to solve the most annoying thing about online ordering
http://www.businessinsider.in/Walmart-is-building-giant-towers-to-solve-the-most-annoying-thing-about-online-ordering/articleshow/59458807.cms

Siemens inaugurates showcase digitalized factory in India
http://www.indiainfoline.com/article/news-top-story/siemens-inaugurates-digitalized-factory-siemens-inaugurates-showcase-digitalized-factory-in-india-117070500445_1.html


An inside look at 10 real-world digital transformations
CIOs at StubHub, HD Supply, JetBlue and other leading organizations are spearheading digital initiatives to drive business growth. Here’s a look at their evolving digital transformations.

July 7, 2017

Facilities Planning and Organizing



PPT of Salah R. Agha, Professor Industrial Engineering, Islamic University of Gaza on Facilities Planning and Materials Handling

Indicates role of IEs.



Facilities Planning

James A. Tompkins, John A. White, Yavuz A. Bozer, J. M .A. Tanchoco
John Wiley & Sons, 19-Jan-2010 - Technology & Engineering - 864 pages


When it comes to facilities planning, engineers turn to this book to explore the most current practices. The new edition continues to guide them through each step in the planning process. The updated material includes more discussions on economics, the supply chain, and ports of entry. It takes a more global perspective while incorporating new case studies to show how the information is applied in the field. Many of the chapters have been streamlined as well to focus on the most relevant topics. All of this will help engineers approach facilities planning with creativity and precision.

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=-xBIq6Qm2SQC

Organization Behavior – History of Development of The Discipline


Organization Behavior Article Series

The academic field of organizational behavior has been around for at least the past thirty to forty years (Luthans, 2005). This statement motivated me to trace the development of ‘Organizational Behavior’ as a subject in this article.

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The academic field of organizational behavior has been around for at least the past thirty to forty years (Luthans, 2005). This statement motivated me to trace the development of ‘Organizational Behavior’ as a subject in this article.


Classical Theory of Organization


The following questions were important in organizing work.

How should work be divided by departments and by individuals?
How much authority should be given to the incumbent of each position?
What should his duties be?
What mean of coordination should be provided?


Both managers and writers on management had in the past tried to discover principles to answer the questions and the quest is continuing now also.

Fayol’s analysis of management and principles that he stated regarding organization became the basis for many writers to develop their thinking on this issue. The most commonly stated principles from this approach are expressed as OSCAR: Objectives, specialization, coordination, authority, and responsibility (Dale, 1965). This thinking of this group of writers who followed and developed Fayol’s thoughts is termed as classical theory of the organization.

The criticism of the classical theory includes the opinion that it is too mechanistic. The theory seems to assume that top management only needs to know what is to be done or what it wants to be done. It will arrange for an organization in which all roles are exactly dovetailed. It will issue the necessary orders down through the chain of command, and hold each person accountable for the performance. Each person is spurred into appropriate action by the hope or reward and fear or penalties. Classical school expressed the belief that, if these steps are followed, the organization will function harmoniously and effectively. No doubt, they laid stress on the principle of esprit de corps, but its implication was not explored.


Behavioral Theory – Organization Behavior


The criticism of classical theory as too mechanistic results in a new theory of organization that emphasized that organizations are made up of human beings and orders and policies will be subject to reinterpretation in the light of psychological “set” of those who transmit them or carry them out as well as the social environment. The people in the organization are motivated by many forces beside those taken into account by the classicists and employees of an organization are often seeking goals different from those expressed in the organization manual. Theory developed in the field of organization design and management based on behavioral variables of human beings in the subject of organization behavior. Chester Barnard was probably the first of the behavioral theorists of organization (Dale, 1965).

Chester Barnard


Barnard stressed the influence of psychological and social factors on organization effectiveness and emphasized that the economic motive, on which business organization depends for incentive, is only of those that influence human beings, even when they are part of organizations as employees after signing a contract. 

Chester Barnard’s book, The Functions of the Executive was published in 1938(Barnard, 1938).

Herbert A. Simon


Barnard’s theories were further developed by Herbert A. Simon in his book Administrative Behavior (Simon, 1957).

E. White Bakke


Bakke pointed out that the individual in organization hopes to use the organization to further his own goals, while the organization attempts to use the individual to further its goals. In the process of working, the organization to some degree remakes the individual and the individual to some degree remakes the organization (Bakke, 1953).

Bakke put forward the concepts of personalizing process and fusion process in organizations. The attempt to make the formal organization a mean of accomplishing the personal goals of its employees is the “personalizing process” and the fusion or integration of the personalizing process and the “socializing process” of the organization is “fusion process.”

Likert’s Motivational Approach


Behavioral theorists take a motivational approach to the company structure and management. They are concerned with the ways in which the goals of individuals and those of the organization can be made to fuse, or at least coincide to some extent. But Rensis Likert has christened a special approach as motivational approach. He said,

“ …management will make full use of the potential capacities of its human resources only when each person in an organization is a member of one or more well knit, effectively functioning work groups that have high skills of interaction and higher performance goals.”


Early Books in Organization Behavior


Bennis, Warren G. (1966), Changing Organizations, McGraw-Hill, New York.

Filley, Alan C., and Robert J. House (1969), Managerial Process and Organizational Behavior, Scott, Foresman and Company.

Luthans, Fred (1973), Organizational Behavior, McGraw-Hill, New York.

References

 

Barnard, Chester, The Functions of the Executive, 1938

Luthans, Fred, Organizational Behavior, Tenth Edition, McGraw-Hill, 2005

Simon, Herbert A., Administrative Behavior, 1957

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Refer
The Historical Roots of Organizational Behavior Management in the Private Sector The 1950s-1980s
Alyce M. Dickinson PhD Western Michigan University , USA
Journal of Organizational Behavior Management 

Volume 20, 2001 - Issue 3-4, pp. 9-58.


Article originally posted in
http://knol.google.com/k/organization-behavior-history-of-development-of-the-discipline#view

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July 6, 2017

International Trade Theory and Issues


Economics Concepts, Theories and Practices for Managers


International trade is going on for ages. There are conventional reasons for the existence for trade among kingdoms or nations.

Conventional Sources of international trade:


1. Diversity in conditions of production

Tropical reagions are suitable for certain products and temperate regions are suitable for certain other products.

2. Decreasing costs due to scale

Due economies of scale, a country which has taken lead in production of a product can increase scale of production and reduce costs further. Thus other countries may buy that product from this country lower cost of production.

3. Differences in tastes

The people of a country may have taste for a product and for the shortfall in the availability of their country may import from another country.

Unconventional Reason: The principle of comparative advantage


Each country will specialize in the production and export of those goods that it can produce at relatively low cost. This principle is unconventional because, this proposition brings out the idea that even though one country is absolutely more productive or efficient in all the items compared to another country, it is better off by exporting items in which it has relatively higher productivity advantage and importing products in which it has relatively lower advantage.

This makes trade between a developed and developing country possible.

The principle was first explained by David Ricardo.

Illustration: USA is a unit of food costs 1 hour of labor and a unit of clothing costs 2 hours of labor.
In Europe, one unit of food costs 3 hours of labor and a unit of clothing costs 4 hours of labor.
This means that  1 unit of food is equal to 0.5 units of cloth in USA.
1 unit of food is equal to 3/4 units of cloth in Europe.
Cloth is exported to USA and food is bought with it till relative prices are equal. Let us say relative price become equal at 2/3. It means in USA 1 unit of food buy 2/3 units of cloth. In Europe also one unit of food is equal to 2/3 times of cloth.

In the situation of after trade, the USA persons have to spend only 2 and half hours to get 1 unit of food and one unit of cloth. Earlier, before trade he has to spend 1 hour for food and two hours for cloth. So he is better of.

Similarly the European needs to spend only 6 and 2/3 hours for 1 unit of food and 1 unit of cloth instead of 7 hours. So he is also better of.


Absolute and Comparative Advantage
genehayward
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References

Paul Samuelson and William D. Nordhaus, Economics, 13th Edition, McGraw-Hill, 1989


Updated 8 July 2017,  23.12.2012, 11 December 2011

Exchange Rates: Markets Regulation and International Financial System


Economics Concepts, Theories and Practices for Managers


International trade is beneficial as it increases real wages. This idea is based on the benefits of trading based on comparative advantage. But payments in international trade are based on two different currecies. A person in USA has to pay a British seller pounds to buy goods. It means a US person has to first buy pounds using his dollars. The number of dollars a US citizen has to pay for each pound is the exchange rate for pound expressed in terms of dollar.

On 24.12.2012, one pound requires 1.62 dollars. Any US person who wants pounds has to buy pounds at this exchange rate.

How are there rates (exchange rates) determined?

For foreign exchange also there are markets like there are markets for various commodities. The markets operate on the basis of demand and supply for a currency. The demand for British pounds with respect to dollars come from the people who want to buy  British goods, services and assets. Supply of pounds come from British people who want to buy US goods, services and assets. The equilibrium price for the currency is at the intersection of these two curves at any point in time.

Changes in Demand Curve

The demand for British pounds from US citizens can change due to various reasons. Like, if there is better substitute produced locally in US itself, the demand for British item may go down and consequently, the demand for British pound will go down. The demand curve will shift to the left and exchange rate for Pound will go down.

The balance of supply and demand for foreign exchange determines the foreign exchange rate of a currency. It can fluctuate day by day and period by period.


When a country's foreign exchange rate has declined relative to that of another country, we say that the domestic currency has depreciated while the foreign currency has appreciated.

Government try to regulate exchange rates. When a country's official exchange rate (or policy rate) is lowered we say that the currency has undergone a devaluation.

Three major exchange rate systems are the gold standard, pure floating exchanged rates and managed floating exchange rates.


References

Paul Samuelson and William D. Nordhaus, Economics, 13th Edition, McGraw-Hill, 1989

Introduction to Exchange Rates and Forex Markets

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Jason Welker

Updated 8 July 2017, 11 December 2011

July 3, 2017

Improve Strengths and Become Extraordinary Leader



Remember, if you really want to make a difference within your organization, it's your strengths that will lead the way. Give them the attention they deserve. - Scott K. Edinger, a consultant, author, adviser and speaker, of Edinger Consulting Group, Inc. is a recognized expert on leadership.

16 leadership behaviors



Displays honesty and Integrity
Exhibits technical/professional expertise
Solves problems and analyzes issues
Innovates

Practices self-development
Focuses on results
Establishes stretch goals
Takes initiative

Communicates powerfully and broadly
Inspires and motivates others to high performance
Builds relationships
Develops others

Collaborates and fosters teamwork
Develops strategic perspective
Champions change
Connects the group to the outside world

Develop 5 behaviors to outstanding level and you will be in 91 percentile of leaders.
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Zenger Folkman

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Jim Clemmer





https://www.forbes.com/sites/joefolkman/2016/10/21/3-hard-truths-about-developing-your-strengths/