History Of Managing Quality And Service Delivery

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Introduction:

This assignment tackled all about managing quality and service delivery. First on task 1 we need to understand how to identify and meet stakeholder needs in the service delivery by identification of stakeholder groups and their expectations for service delivery; the impact of poor service quality for the organisation and stakeholders; analysing how stakeholder needs are being met. Under task 2 we need to understand how to manage quality of service delivery such as analyse the concepts of quality and quality standards; evaluate approaches to quality management; explain how quality standards are set and monitored. Lastly task 3 I need to understand how to promote continuous improvement of service delivery by analysing the concept of continuous improvement; evaluate the need for continuous improvement; explain how continuous improvement can be implemented. Under this I am given a task to present a proposal on the process that I will use, so that significant improvements can be achieved and promote continuous improvement of service delivery in the organisation that I am currently work for or organisation of my choice.

Task 1

Stakeholders are persons or any individuals, groups and this group can be divided into men, women, ethnic group and locality or the community and organisation or institutions with interests and will be affected in a policy, programme or project. There are two types of stakeholders; Primary stakeholders are immediate communities of interest; which can be the directors, managers, employees, shareholders, customers, suppliers, advisers, consultants, and competitors. Secondary stakeholders are the intermediaries in the process, and may include government agencies and other institutional bodies and even media. Knowing the different stakeholder groups, it helps in the identification of its specific role in the achievement of its purpose. Stakeholder groups differ mutually in terms of their interest in the business activities and also their authority to impact business decisions.

Here is the summary:

Stakeholder group

Main Interests

Power and influence

Shareholders

Income growth, Share price growth, dividend, have interest of the success of his/her business

Selection of directors

Banks & other Lenders

Interest rate and principal to be pay back, sustain credit rating, new contracts, liquidity

Can impose loan covenants

Can withdraw banking facilities

Directors and managers

Income ,share options, job satisfaction, status

Make decisions, have detailed information

Employees

Salaries & wages, job security, job satisfaction, motivation, respect, and truthful communication.

Staff turnover, industrial action, service quality

Suppliers

Long term contracts, without delay in terms of payment, growth of purchasing, equitable business opportunities

Valuing, quality, product readiness

Customers

Reliable quality, value for money, product availability and ethical products, customer service

Revenue / repeat business

Word of mouth recommendation

Community

Environment, local jobs, local impact shares, truthful communication

Indirect via local planning and opinion leaders

Government

Operate legally, tax receipts, job slow unemployment, truthful reporting

Regulation, subsidies, taxation, planning

I am previously working at one of the care home of Barchester at Lynde House Care Home. I have identified and categorized its stakeholders into six main groups: Employees, customers, investors or shareholders, suppliers, community and, the latter including both authorities and society at large.

For the employees, an employee contributes labor and expertise to an endeavor of an employer and is usually employed to perform specific duties which are wrapping up into a job. In most recent economies, "employee" refers to an explicit distinct relationship among an individual and a corporation, which is different from those of customer or client. Every employee has to have a better knowledge and qualification in their specific field; in order for them to give good quality service to the service users. Employees provide labor in response for respectable salary and conditions, better management and job security but are not restricted to withdraw their labor if they have a valid grievance or may try to find occupation in another place if the possibilities favor them more. Barchester has managing director and board of directors includes representatives elected by and among the employees in United Kingdom. The executive management has established a well-adjusted structure for relevant and regular information and consultation.

A shareholder or stockholder is an individual or institution (including a corporation) that lawfully possesses any part of a share of stock in a public or private company. They were the investors who own the stock, but not the company itself. Stockholders are given extraordinary privileges depending on the type or in what category of stock they were belong. And what are those rights of the stockholders; they have right to trade their shares; right to elect on the directors selected by the board; the right to recommend directors (though this is very difficult in real setting because of minority protections) and propose shareholder resolutions; the right to have monetary gain on investment if they are acknowledged; the right to buy another shares/stock issued by the corporation; and the right to have the remaining assets if the company doesn’t want to pursue the business or after declaring bankruptcy. Another thing about this matter, shareholders provides monetary support to increase the value of their investment but then, they may pull out their support if the actual or expected financial return is no longer gaining.

Customers include all those who use Barchester’s care services as well as distributors and agents. Barchester is committed to making sure all customers and end users receive the quality care for the right purpose with proper information on how to use it, regardless of whether they are locals or immigrants. Barchester engages with its customers in various ways in different markets, like adult with dementia, disabilities and nursing. Furthermore, customers in any sector offer income in exchange for the benefits that ownership of the product or service brings but refunds should always consider if the product does not fulfill the need and without any restriction their benefaction can be withdrawn permanently if they are displeased with the service or product.

Suppliers are the one who is delivering/supplying products and services in exchange for payment in agreed time, make orders again and respect. On the other hand suppliers may decline to supply or stop delivering if the terms and conditions of transaction are not honored or they believe they are being mistreated. Suppliers offer as well a better margin, to attract the owners in the channel to drive the product rather than its contenders. Barchester is regularly in contact with a wide range of suppliers, from gloves, pads, aprons and even the supplier of cleaning materials.

The society provides a license to operate in exchange for benefits to the community as a whole and a revere for ethical values, people and the environment but can disapprove the organization’s doings through demonstration, pressuring the groups and in due course the regulatory bodies if these activities or doings are believed to be harmful to the community. Moreover, community takes on a life of its own, as people become free enough to share and secure enough to get along. The sense of connectedness and formation of social networks comprise what has become known as social capital. Effective communication practices in group and organizational settings are very important to the formation and maintenance of communities. Through the community, we can select a prospect employee if they are fit into the job. But the main concern of in the community is to have a safe environment for them to live in.

Barchester works with a variety of organizations, professional and non-governmental, as well as with a number of governments, such as Commission on Social and Care Inspectorate and now it is called the CQC Care Quality Commission to create a better understanding of how the company’s business deal with the service user in the best quality of care in the United Kingdom.

Not all the time the good quality care was handed to the service users or customers. There is an impact of poor service quality. Let me define first what this poor service quality is. It is a universal problem that impacts on the bottom line and profit margins in all types of industries, businesses and services throughout the world. I can say that I have personally experienced bad customer service numerous times as I am sure you and most other people have as well. To narrow down what is the primary cause of bad service and what irritates individuals is not easy simply because what may upset you intensely might not necessary upset someone else. To answer this question we looked at many different bad service scenarios in a number of different business and hospitality sectors and concluded that bad customer service is principally caused by one or more of the following:

Poor product or service – can relate to quality of product or service and the texture of the selling product, how it is presented, and more importantly the price.

Bad after sales service – can relate to delivery service like mis-handling of the product and poor packaging, not receiving items on the specified date of delivery, replacement of faulty item will take a long time with additional delivery charges.

Being placed on hold by an automated voice and told to wait for a long period of time and in some occasions it will be hanged up.

Having your phone call lost or transferred unnecessarily and you will be charged accordingly.

Unhelpful and impolite staff. This is a common story to every business establishment. They don’t have proper training for customer service.

A ‘can’t be bothered’ attitude of staff. They don’t have concern to the people around them and even to the product that they are selling.

Waiting in a line of people to be served because of insufficient or shoddy staff. In this, poor quality service has been implicated. 

Poorly trained staff lacking knowledge and skill. Training should be address to those staff that does not have qualification but they are working as such. They hire those staff maybe just to pay them below minimum salary rate.

Through this poor service quality, the organization and the stakeholders are the one who are affected mostly by these poor services. We don’t want this to happen, so let the organization choose the qualified staff in every department and provide training if necessary.

Every stakeholder has a need to be met. We can achieve this through stakeholder analysis it will help you determine the various stakeholder groups, their needs, and how you will satisfy their needs. We can use the following process for stakeholder analysis.

Identify Stakeholders. Start by identifying all possible stakeholders. These could be individual persons or stakeholder groups.

Knowing the importance of each and every stakeholder. Look at each stakeholder and determine how important he or she is to the success of your project. You might categorize each stakeholder in terms of high/medium/low importance. This evaluation is important because sometimes you spend too much time and efforts working with stakeholders that are of low importance to your project, while short-changing the time you spend on stakeholders that are very important.

Identify the interest of the project for each stakeholder. This is where the analysis starts. Stakeholders have a stake or interest in your project. Now you have to identify what this stake or interest is. In some cases the stakeholder might need something from your project team. In other cases, you may need something from them.

Determine how you will engage each stakeholder. For each stakeholder, you should identify a set of activities or even an overall approach for getting them engaged. You should identify activities that help you to achieve your interest while also recognizing the relative importance of each stakeholder group. Obviously you will spend more time working with stakeholder groups that are important to your project and less time on groups that are of low priority.

Gain agreement when necessary. In some cases, stakeholders want things from your project. However, in other instances you need something from them. If you need something from the stakeholder or stakeholder group, make sure that they understand what your expectations are and make sure that they agree to provide what you need.

Move the activities to the work plan. You don’t want to keep a separate stakeholder activity spreadsheet. After you identify the activities to engage the stakeholder groups, place all of the activities in the project work plan, along with who is responsible, the timeframe, estimated effort.

The stakeholder community should also be evaluated periodically to ensure that the stakeholders are being engaged successfully. If the stakeholders are not being engaged as you wished, you should update or change your activities. It is possible that you will also discover new stakeholders as the project progresses, and they should be accounted for in this process as well.

Task 2

The concept of quality and the quality standards in relation to service delivery pertains to the product or service that the customer is getting from the different organization or establishments. Let me define first what quality is; Quality as the totality of the features and characteristics of a product and even service that bears on its ability to satisfy the stated or implied needs of the customers. Quality concept started during the world war II where the Japanese first introduce the concept of quality. Americans like the idea of the Japanese in terms of dealing with quality, so in this, they ask assistance on how to improve their quality in terms of business. Americans like Deming which focused on "statistical process control; "cease dependence on mass inspection. Instead, require statistical evidence that quality is built in"; so in this concept people are more conscious and aware in the things that they are going to do. And also tha quality has been observed. Another concept from Dr. Joseph Juran, he developed "planning approach to quality improvement". In doing so, determining goals should be the first one to know; goal should be in accordance to the standards and policies of the organisation. Followed by evaluation of performance and compare goals. People who are part of the organisation should be appraised on a certain period of time in order to evaluate the quality of work in line to the goal. Identify resources required. For them to implement good quality product and services. He believed quality is associated with customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the product. He also added that awareness and need for quality improvement should build; set goals for improvement and be open for change; organise to reach the goals by prioritising things; provide training in every employee specially if they have new equipment or new knowledge that they think it would benefit the organisation; carry out projects to solve the problem; report progress in every activity that they have done, it may be positive or negative; give recognition for those who deserve so that they will be motivated to work hard; communicate result, communication is the best and main tool in the organisation in order have a better quality improvement; keep score of improvements achieved; and lastly keep the momentum so that there will be a continuous out flow of quality improvement. After improving the quality, you need to have "total quality control" according to Armand Feigenbaum. An effective system for integrating quality development, quality maintenance and quality improvement efforts of the various groups within an organisation, so as to enable production and service at the most economical levels that allow full customer satisfaction. It is not only to satisfy the customer in quality of product or service that they are receiving but the full satisfaction. So in this, he saw a business method and proposed three steps to quality which are quality leadership, modern quality technology and organisational commitment.

Dr Kauro Ishikawa made many contributions to quality, the most noteworthy being his total quality viewpoint, companywide quality control, his emphasis on the human side of quality. For him, if you have discipline, dedication and qualifications in your line of work that is the human side quality that you will be great assets to the organisations.

Another concept come out from Crosby that quality is "Free and Zero Defect". It means that quality is in accordance to requirements criteria that the organization has been set; the system of quality is preventions, there is a saying in medicine that "prevention is better than cure" same as in business, prevent from committing mistakes; the performance standard is Zero defect, as long as you are following the standards, there is no room for you to have mistake or error; the measurement of quality is the price of non-conformance, it does not necessarily mean that the product is expensive and you would expect that the quality is very good, it does not happen all the time and vice versa.

However, all of these concepts remain a concept, but an amazing help to the business industry; those concepts are shapeless yet all-pervading understanding of how things are when they are properly aligned and we experience them smoothly, without any negative reactions to our experience. This brings us to think that Quality is only subjective - each person has his or her own ways of measuring it and no objective ways of defining or measuring if it exists. Yet, we must not mystify this subject; in the study of Quality you will come across objective measurements that are defined by different thinkers on the topic. We must accept that there are ways of improving everything that we do in terms of delivering quality products or services.

Quality management standards provide a framework for a business to manage its processes and activities. They can help you improve efficiency by providing a best practice model for you to follow. To meet a quality management standard you need to set up systems to improve the key processes you use to provide your products and services - allowing you to deliver consistently on your premises.

Quality Management System will help an organisation not only achieve the objectives set out in its policy and strategy, but also, and equally importantly, sustains and builds upon them. It is imperative that the leaders take responsibility for the adoption and documentation of an appropriate management system in their organisation if they are serious about the quality journey. They really have to focus on the quality of service that they are going to provide to the customers. It says "it takes two to tango". Give good quality product or service, customer will be fully satisfied and at the end of the day profit will be on hand. And also, customer satisfaction is essential for any business. Working to recognized quality management standards can help you to meet customer expectations and ensure a benchmark for your product or service. The organisation should be register and have certification of ISO in order to make sure that the product will be in good quality at all times. The ISO 9000 series is the best known set of standards against which you can measure your quality management system. Achieving it could give you an edge over competitors. Equally, many large businesses and public sector organisations only offer contracts to suppliers with ISO 9001 certification. This guide explains how you can benefit from setting up a quality management system and achieve certification against a quality standard. Not only that, If you have a system in the organisation you can easily achieve greater consistency in the activities involved in providing products or services; reduce expensive mistakes; increase efficiency by improving use of time and resources; improve customer satisfaction; market your business more effectively; exploit new market sectors and territories; manage growth more effectively by making it easier to integrate new employees; constantly improve your products, processes and systems.

These standards focus on the safety, dignity, wellbeing and quality of life of service users. They are designed to address unacceptable variations in the standards of treatment, care and services and to raise the quality of services. This guide sets out what standards are and how they can benefit your business. It also covers the management system standards that can help you run your business more effectively.

The requirements cover a wide range of topics, including your supplier’s top management commitment to quality, its customer focus, adequacy of its resources, employee competence, process management (for production, service delivery and relevant administrative and support processes), quality planning, product design, review of incoming orders, purchasing, monitoring and measurement of its processes and products, calibration of measuring equipment, processes to resolve customer complaints, corrective/preventive actions and a requirement to drive continual improvement of the quality management system. Last but not the least, there is a requirement for your supplier to monitor customer perceptions about the quality of the goods and services it provides.

In addition, ISO 9000 series of standards is the main set of International Standards applying to the management of quality systems. It includes ISO 9001, the key internationally agreed standard for a Quality Management System. Businesses can be certified against this standard when they meet its requirements.

Achieving ISO 9001 certification could lead to new business. Not only can it help distinguish you from competitors, but many large businesses and public sector organisations require suppliers to be ISO 9001 certified. It's a globally recognised achievement, so may lead to a higher profile and increased business overseas.

Having discusses those we must know how to monitor the quality standards. Monitor and measure customer satisfaction. Both internal and external auditors will look for proof that a consistent and systematic approach has been implemented to deal with customer complaints. This will typically include defined responsibilities for logging and tracking complaints, clearing technical issues, determination of problem causes and actions that address those causes. Specific examples of complaints must be sampled. The link between the customer complaint process and corrective action also requires special scrutiny. Another thing to monitor is the internal audit; auditor’s role is to gauge how well this system is functioning by gathering of objective evidence of conformance. The auditee will often be a processes owner; they are the experts of that process and as such will provide an invaluable insight into the mechanics of that process. The auditor will verify that processes are documented, implemented and understood. He will also seek confirmation that each process complies with the necessary requirements, that the process is effective and demonstrates continual improvement. And last monitoring is to do the product checks. In doing so, they need to establish and define the process for inspection and testing activities to verify that products and materials conform to specified requirements throughout the product realization process by identifying appropriate:

References, e.g. specifications or legal and regulatory requirements

Methodology, e.g. random sampling, non-destructive testing or in- process monitoring

Documents, e.g. inspection and test plans

Acceptance criteria, e.g. defined by ISO standards, legal or regulatory requirements

Responsibilities, e.g. authority for acceptance

Materials, components, subassemblies and finished products should be prevented from use, assembly or dispatch until the required inspections are completed. Modified products should be fully re-inspected and re-tested against the acceptance criteria.

In the application of this task, I was assign to give a document that will cover how to manage the quality of service delivery. Since I was into the healthcare sector and working in the nursing home I will talk more off service users and service provider. In our nursing home ( Lynde House Care Home) I can say that they are providing good quality of service to the client. The best thing to do is to maintain the standards of quality care that they are giving to the service users. The question would be how to do it? From the concept of Ishikawa maintain "human side of quality". Through this, the organisation should hire qualified managers, nurses and carers. They should be dedicated, have a heart and compassion in dealing with the vulnerable adults. They should have knowledgeable and have skills in doing their specific job. After having said those, the employee should have proper training especially in first aid, moving and handling, infection control, fire training, food and hygiene, and safe guarding of vulnerable adults. So that, they will have confidence in doing the job and apply the best quality care. These training should be done at least 2-3 times a year. Employees appraisal is next, it should be every 3months. They can give some incentives or rewards for the employees and they will be motivated to work hard. And lastly, monitor and get some feedback for service users, colleagues and even from the relatives.

Task 3

Total quality management is a management approach centered on quality, based on the participation of an organisation's people and aiming at long term success (ISO 8402:1994). This is achieved through customer satisfaction and benefits all members of the organisation and society. In other words, total quality management is a philosophy for managing an organisation in a way which enables it to meet stakeholder needs and expectations efficiently and effectively, without compromising ethical values. Total quality management is mainly concerned with continuous improvement in all work, from high level strategic planning and decision-making, to detailed execution of work elements on the shop floor. It stems from the belief that mistakes can be avoided and defects can be prevented. It leads to continuously improving results, in all aspects of work, as a result of continuously improving capabilities, people, processes and technology and machine capabilities. Continuous improvement must deal not only with improving results, but more importantly with improving capabilities to produce better results in the future. The five major areas of focus for capability improvement are demand generation, supply generation, technology, operations and people capability.

A central principle of total quality management is that mistakes may be made by people, but most of them are caused, or at least permitted, by faulty systems and processes. This means that the root cause of such mistakes can be identified and eliminated, and repetition can be prevented by changing the process.

We need continuous quality improvement in every organisations, it is helpful and beneficial like it can reduce waste due to early detection of defect. Improve product quality by checking all the time. Reduced rework time because it has been done before and small correction is needed. Faster response time by giving more customers their order on time. Becoming more competitive by driving down cost and with good quality that they are getting. Retaining /gaining customers through innovative products and services; customer satisfaction is always important.

Continuous process improvement is a democratic approach to business improvement. Rather than imposing solutions on the people who use processes, it uses their support and expertise to improve them. With training and guidance, the employees learn how to think about potential areas of improvement and, if the appropriate structure is there, turn the improvements into a reality. Before you can have continuously improving processes you must implement this system. Organize a steering committee to oversee the implementation of continuous improvement. If continuous process improvement is going to be successful the whole company needs to be involved, but in the beginning it is helpful to have the committee ensure that efforts are taken from start to finish. Once you complete the initial implementation the committee can be dissolved or redeployed. Next will be to identify areas of improvement. By analyzing and defining your company's processes you can find the ones most in need of improvement. Ask all members of the organization to make suggestions. All employees need to get into the habit of thinking this way. Remember, at this stage you are looking for processes that need improvement, not necessarily ideas on how to improve them. Then think of potential solutions for the problem areas that you have identified. Once you know the areas that need improvement, you can start brainstorming ideas on how to improve them. Involve all the people needed for the brainstorming. Afterwards develop a detailed solution for one of the problem areas. Include a budget outlining what the process improvement requires and start target measurements to determine if you met your goals. And then implement your plan. Involve every stakeholder in the implementation process from the highest level of management down to the workers who use the process on a daily basis. You must make it clear that continuous process improvement is a priority. Followed by evaluate your solution. Determine if you met your improvement goals. Keep in mind that you must improve every process continuously and that you cannot achieve perfection with one adjustment. And lastly repeat with increasing frequency. Diminish the role of the steering committee each time. Completed improvements often point you toward new areas that need to be addressed. Implementation is not that easy, needs collaboration of the whole organisation in order for these to be successful.

In Barchester (Lynde House Care Home) continuous quality improvement is also implemented. From the management side, she had a monthly meeting with the residents, employee and even with the relative of the service users. Discussing about the quality of care that the employees are giving to the service users. Through this agenda, we can improve the quality of care that we are giving to each residents who needs quality care at the care homes. In addition, they are also supplementing more activity to the service users like, bingo, beauty nail care, reading and listening sessions, and even the latest Wii they introduce it to those residents that are capable of playing this new technology. Not only the quality care are being given but also the quality of life that they should have while there should be in their own homes. On the other hand, for the employee’s side, training is continuous. They send staff outside the home to attend special training for first aid, dementia, wound care and food and hygiene. In Lynde house care home, continuous improvement is important for better care service now and in the near future.

Conclusion:

Having discussed task 1,2 and 3, therefore my conclusions in managing quality and service delivery; you cannot manage an organization /company if you don’t have knowledge, skills in all aspect of managing people and good traits of a leader. Having said that, every people in the organization should work hand and hand; towards the organizational mission, vision and their specific goal. They have to bear in mind that "full customer satisfaction" should always consider. And in achieving this, the quality of product or service must be in amazing condition through total quality management and continuous quality improvement.