Project Management Assignment Help Online Report writing :: TQM at Sydney City-Australia

Question Asked??

Write a report on Total quality management & action plan on PDCA cycle and Storyboarding At Sydney City??

Solution Proposed::

Introduction

 Sydney City Australia is one of the largest Toyota dealerships in Australia which serves the heart of Sydney as well as the eastern suburbs of Sydney. The main motto of Sydney City Australia is to offer superior quality service to its customers and that too at competitive price. This flagship dealer has its main facility located at the Waterloo just nearby the Moore Park and it has been designed in state-of-the-art manner offering a wide selection of newest cars as well as the used cars to the customers as per their demand.

 The location of Sydney City Australia is in close proximity to CBD and is conveniently located. This car dealership is spectacular in the sense it provides unparalleled customer experience and fulfils all the automotive needs of its customers under one roof. Being the new manager of the car dealership company the task is to develop an action plan regarding implementation of Total Quality management in the organization.

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a business concept which mainly focuses on carefully controlling the quality of the service or the product through the proper involvement of every employee as well as manager of the company. This is the reason why it is mostly termed as a journey not a destination (Burati and Oswald, 1993) . Thorough research has been done in relation to implementation of TQM in service sector and the car dealership is also a service providing company and it has been found that the main benefits of TQM are :

• High level of customer satisfaction
• Delivering better products or services
• Higher market share (Pheng and Teo, 2004)

Defining Service Quality is a tough task as it is person-dependent and carries different meanings for different people in service sector (Juneja, Ahmad and Kuamr, 2011). The principles of TQM are very much adaptable in the Service Sector as in the last decade it has been witnessed that there has been high rise in usage of TQM in service sector because service quality is found to be vital factor which brings in growth, success and survival (Anderson and Adams, 1997) (Kelsey and J.A., 2001).

 Most of the researchers  have agreed to the  perception minus expectation theory , but still there are numerous issues (H. Besterfield et al., 2011).The nature of the causal relationship , if any exists between  perceived quality and customer satisfaction is disputed (Cronin and Taylor, 1992) because the customer might have different perception in any case  of quality from service providers. The dimensions of service quality which have been identified are:

Sydney City Australia being a proactive firm needs to emphasise on main two factors:

• Exceed the expectation levels of customers through proper anticipation of  their needs and satisfying them
•  Maintaining a long lasting relationship with customers by giving them loyal services

Action Plan

  Service as a product is very difficult because it is tough to place quantifiable features which help in developing the quality of the product. Since the service products are supposed to be perishable and the same is the case with cars to the latest model is in demand and once it becomes old it loses its worth. Therefore the service products cannot be stockpiled and they must be produced ‘on demand’. Therefore  the process for delivering a service becomes a highly complex process which involves proper coordination of primary as well as the support systems in the system which is very time sensitive with regard to its relationship with customer.

 If the customer has booked a car then with the dealer, then car is a commodity which is usually bought on special occasions and the customer expects timely delivery. Thus the car dealer has to manage the specific model with the specific features on the date and time when the customer expects. Moreover car dealer is not the producer of cars, so he has to depend upon the car manufacturer for on time delivery. Thus in service firms like car dealers time is considered to be an assemble quality or feature of the product.

 Thus the TQM process follows the cycle (Suganthi and Samuel, 2004):

Steps in implementing TQM at Sydney City Australia

 Implementation of TQM is very important because for TQM to take root successfully in the organization for a long term it should create positive influence on the behaviour of employees along with their attitudes and values (Ghobadian and Galleear 2001).Therefore Sydney City Australia needs to tailor its approach towards TQM mainly based upon its specific weaknesses and the unique strengths. Therefore we need to develop TQM implementation strategy which focuses on continuous improvement as it is fundamental to success in the global marketplace (Goetsch and Davis, 1995).

 Various steps need to be followed to improve the quality of services or products and these stages have been interlinked through PDCA cycle

The PDCA Cycle

 Improvement or TQM implementation can be done through four steps (Fields, 1993) which can be done through the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check and Act) cycle as depicted in figure below (Downey, Fraser and Peters, Thousand Oaks, California) (Goetsch and Davis, 1995):

The Four steps of PDCA cycle are:

 Step 1: PLAN

This is called the planning element of PDCA cycle (Early and Coletti, 1999) which entails a plan or process which helps in studying and then analysing the situation (Schmoker and Wilson, 1993). It involves identification and defining the problem, collection of valid data from sample and analysing the data in order to find out the causes and solutions (Downey, Fraser and Peters, Thousand Oaks, California).

Step 2: DO

It involves carrying out the plan (Early and Coletti, 1999) and preferable on a small scale (Schargel, 1994). Administering of feedbacks is done through methods like holding focus group interviews, make telephone calls, paying personal visits to the customers, conducting a survey, send questionnaires and tracking the complaints.

Step 3: CHECK

It involves checking or studying the collected data  regarding the effects which arise from implementation of TQM (Early and Coletti, 1999), because it is necessary to find whether the changes are working well in the organization and what steps need to be taken to make the job better (Schargel, 1994). Observation of plan needs to be done to find what happened when plan was implemented. Analyse the results and review the results to find the accuracy of data, data relationships and consistency. Find whether the desired results were given through the actions taken Try to prioritise the areas for improvement, resources and the main strengths of the organization.

Step 4:  ACT / ADJUST

 Action should be taken on whatever the small scale programme has shown. Action needs to be taken on the results derived. Implementation of remedial actions should be taken and results should be confirmed. The innovation  derived from the results can either be implemented  on a permanent basis in the organization or discarded completely or it can be referred back to step 1 through the proper modification of innovation and  collection of fresh data as we need to make the adjustments.

The PDCA cycle can be repeated till the desired results are month obtained as the project exists in order to provide continuous improvement.

There is a sequence for quality improvement which is followed (Juran, 1999). However it is quite obvious that diagnosis should always precede the remedy for the problem, but the outdated beliefs or biases always prove to be hindrances in the journey as can be seen from the figure below:

The sequence includes several steps that have been grouped into two journeys:

• The Diagnostic Journey : From Symptom to Cause
• The Remedial Journey : From cause to the remedy

STORYBOARDING

 For depicting systematic quality improvement Storyboarding is an effectual technique (McClaskey and Owens, 1997). The visual and orderly arrangement of theories regarding the possible solutions and the causes which finally lead to implementation of the solutions is called storyboarding (Juran, 1999) (Swift, Ross and Omachonu, 1998) It also helps in finding whether the problem has been overcome  standardisation of process an identifying the  future actions. Flowing steps are involved in storyboarding (Swift, Ross and Omachonu, 1998):

• Identification of problem area
• Observe and  Identify the causes of problem
• Analyse, Identify and  verify the root causes of the problem
• Plan and Implement actions which are preventive
• Checking the effectiveness of the actions taken
• Standardisation of process improvement
• Determination of future action

Regarding who will perform which duty the following organizational chart can be followed for effectual; implementation of the TQM process in the car dealership company:

Conclusion

Thus from the above explanations it is clear that it is not very tough to implement TQM but to manage the transition to new system for TQM implementation is a bit tough task for the managers. And in order to manage this transition smoothly there are few steps which can be followed in the Sydney City Australia:

• Identification of Tasks to be done
• Creation of the required management structure
• Development of strategies for  building commitment
• Designing techniques and mechanisms for communicating change
•  Assigning the resources

 Task identification can be done through assessment of the current position of the company which can be best done by doing the Force Field Analysis of organization. Based upon that the model for the desired state will be created, implementation of TQM through storyboarding will be done. Then the change goals will be announced to the organization and finally the responsibilities and resources will be assigned.

 Assignment of responsibilities and resources will require the help of outside consultation as well as training. Along with that someone from within the organization would also be required to oversee the efforts taken and this responsibility should be taken by someone from top management. AN organization wide steering committee could also be set up. It is very imperative that the leadership styles and the organizational culture of Sydney City should be congruent with TQM if they are not then the TQM implementation should either be delayed or avoided till the conditions turn out to be favourable .That is why TQM is considered to be purpose driven and is a tool for unleashing the creativity of employees, reducing the costs and bureaucracy and improving the services to clients as well as community.

Recommendations

 Like Sewall BVillage Cadillac, a big car dealership firm in Dallas created its total quality program around measurement and reporting program according to which the sales and services performance of its employees were publically displayed on board in the dealership in order to enhance the individual competitiveness amongst the employees. This can also be implemented by Sydney City Australia to enhance the competiveness and that too in healthy manner amongst its employees (Appelbaum and Batt, 1994).

 Commitment strategies can also be developed to handle the resistance conditions and envelopment of visionary leadership is required for successful implementation. For communicating the changes mechanisms which go beyond the regular existing processes needs to be developed. Like Sydney City Australia can call for all-staff meetings also attended by executives along with some inputs or dialog sessions can be utilised as kick-off medium for the TQM implementation. To keep the employees aware about the activities or accomplishments an ongoing communication tool in the form of TQM Newsletters can also be implemented.

 Management of the resources is very vital for the whole change effort while TQM is implemented thus external consultants would be required throughout the whole process. SO the consultant should be chosen based upon their previous experience and the consultant should possess commitment to adapt to the needs of the organization .The consultants are very valuable as they are needed for training the staff initially and developing the TQM system design. The involvement of employees in successful TQM implementation cannot be denied. These employees once trained can retrain the other staff members and effectively help in change management.

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