Assignment #1 – Case Study

OPN – 605

Submitted by-
Ahmed Hossain
19264055
BBS, BRACU

Submitted to-
Hasan Maksud Chowdhury
Assistant Professor, BRACU

Submission Date: March 1, 2022

Case 1

1.ans: The case is about a tv company which shift its business from price oriented to service
oriented, or in a simple sentence it went from quantity focused to quality focused.

2.ans: Yes, I agree with the methodology adopted by the company for becoming a ‘quality
organization’ from a price centric organization. In this modern era where service is the real
deal, one company can’t sustain without major upgradation in its product’s post purchase
service. For example, think about the xiaomi phone market in our company, it’s a Chinese
brand, in superiority xiaomi is still not close to Apple or Samsung (high end phones). In our
country Bangladesh, Apple don’t have much post purchase customer support service and the
price is also high so relatively Xiaomi high end phone purchase rating is also high let alone
it’s mid-range phones. And the reason behind it is its amazing and available customer service.
Now let’s move back to the topic of our case again. SS tv is a very old company so it’s quite
the management was following the old technique which is SELL AS MUCH AS YOU CAN,
regardless of the quality and post sell service.
Once it has started to see its true emerging competitors taking up the place quickly, the owner
had to intervene and change the policy from quantity focused to quality. Because there was
no other option to survive in this tough competitive market without putting much effort on
quality and service of the product. After shifting the policy, the company started to see its
massive upgradation in both popularity and revenue and yes its very obvious now a days,
people or customers want service much not the product itself only.

3.ans: The firm’s “indicators of quality” means those quality aspects based on which the
company stands on today. There are multiple indicators we can indicate. Let’s draw some of
those-
 Higher customer satisfaction – Higher Customer satisfaction indicates quality of
product. Bills paid on time by customers, Accounts receivable days outstanding is
improved by 30% within 6 months.
 Reliable services – Product and service reliability also shows the quality of the
product, here in ss Retaining customer returned at 70%
 More productivity & profit – More quality product means more sells and more sells
means more profit and capacity of productivity.
 Better morale of work force – Morale of workforce is a very important thing,
satisfied workers and employees will hard work for the company which will result the
ultimate company success and high quality products. Here in ss Turnover rate
brought down by 3% in 6 months time, absenteeism is lowered by 10% and employee
satisfaction survey indicating a level above 95%.
 Less wastage costs – Quality products means low wastage cost also.
  Less Inspection costs – Quality products don’t need to be inspected much, but
frequent inspection also assures the quality.
 Improved process – Improved process will ultimately produce quality product or
service.
 More market share – Quality product will end up bringing more market share, here
in this case ss the share price also went higher with 30%
 Spread of happiness & prosperity – Best quality products brings happiness to its
users also by selling with good pricing the employees of the company will also get
incentives which would make their life easy also.

4.ans: Before finding few quality indicators to measure quality effectiveness for a company
gearing towards TQM lets discuss what’s the difference between quality management –

Quality management is product oriented where TQM or Total Quality Management is service
oriented, Decisions are short term in quality management and long term in TQM, Quality
management is only manager based system where TQM is a team based system and there
further more differences between QM and TQM.

Quality indicators to measure quality effectiveness for a company gearing towards TQM-

 The SS tv manufacturing company was a product oriented organization and later it

turned itself to a service oriented organization which indicates its moving towards
QM to TQM. Obtaining ISO certification was a major success there.
 The procurement decisions were previously made on the basis of cost only but now
the company also considers the life cycle time of the raw materials, which results less
production cost and less wastage.

There are many more indicators are there which can be seen as the reason why the
company shifted itself from quality management system to TQM.
Case 2
1.ans: The case is about a college of Chennai with a reputation of 50 years which losing its
quality recently. Students and parents aren’t happy with the management and its old staffs.

2.ans: Quality is defined as the fitness for use/purpose at the most economical level.
Quality can be quantified as Q=P/E where, Q-quality, P-performance, E- expectations.
“Quality is a predictable degree of uniformity and dependability, at low cost and
suited to the market”- Deming
“Quality is fitness for use”- Juran
As market has become much more competitive, quality has become a key ingredient for
success in today’s business. Quality has become the prime focus of business attention
because of the impact it has on sustained performance and customer satisfaction. So, as a
quality enthusiast my recommendations for the college management would be-
1. The management system of the college is quite outdated; they need to upgrade it.
2. The management must focus on the needs of students, primarily they have to address
those problems and work accordingly to solve those problems.
3. According to the case, the quality of the education is falling resulting poor results
from students’ day after days.
4. The issue which was raised by a parent about the mistreatment of him/her should be
dealt quickly otherwise they might lose a lot of students in the process.
5. As the one man investigating committee found the scarcity of coordination among
college staffs, this should also be addressed and solve as fast as possible.
6. Blaming each other (students and staffs) must be stopped, if there’s any fault from the
students’ side that should be taken consideration as well.

3.ans: Highlighting five critical areas with reasons where focus is needed-

Outdated management system: SS college in Chennai still practicing the age old out dated
management system to run their institution, which clearly not suitable to run in this modern
era where quality means a lot.

Aging staffs and teacher: The staffs and teachers in the institution are quite old, most
probably they didn’t recruit for a long time. Fresh bloods are needed to run things smoothly
with the latest management techniques.

Poor results of the students: This is enough to ruin a very famous and old institutions
reputation.

No coordination among staffs: There’s almost no coordination among the staffs which was
found by the investigating committee.

Less facility compared to the tuition fees: According to the students and parents, they
aren’t getting the quality education in compare to the fees they are giving.
4.ans: I would say we can try THE TRANSITION MODEL here first, if its working then we
can move on to the INTEGRATED MODEL later on. Let’s talk about the transition model a
bit first.

There have been cases where success has been recorded with simultaneous focus given to
both the system component and the human component. In this model it is suggested that the
system component be given the first preference and the next human component. In this case
the SS college needs to identify its lacking and shortcomings first, for example less funding,
less quality education etc. Continuous improvement strategy has been identified as the corner
stone for representing the system component. The system component includes technologies,
procedures, resources such as machines. etc. Here in SS college they still not having the
advantages of using technology for example online class system for remote students, online
billing process or online student care services. For example, however continuous
improvement strategy has been identified as the critical constituent.

Figure: Transition Model

This is based on the current need in industries. More than anything else, the institution here
is required to produce better quality education or products aka students at reduced costs in
future. This will be possible only when the continuous improvement strategy is given greater
importance. The next factor to be highlighted in continuous improvement is creativity. There
should be enough opportunities provided for introducing creative ideas into the system. This
will augment continuous improvement. As a third factor, the Deming wheel namely the
PDCA cycle is recommended. This will be helpful in sustaining the continuous improvement
efforts. Involvement of everyone is the corner stone that represents the human component aka
students in this case. The human component of TQM includes quality culture, training of
personnel (here, teaching staffs), attitude. etc. However, involvement of everyone is
considered as the corner stone because the need of the hour is team working or coordination
among the staffs which is rare to be seen here. This is one single component which stands
between the success and failure of TQM implementation in any industry. It is so critical and
at the same time so difficult. Every effort should be taken to inculcate team spirit among
employees/teachers/staffs/students or wholehearted involvement of everyone has to be
ensured for successful implementation of TQM. The importance of teamwork and the
synergic effect of the team work are known to everyone. Still in many industries this remains
a dream. Various efforts taken to bring people together and make them work together, either
becomes a failure or a short-lived success. Both are not desirable in TQM context.

5.ans: Implementing TQM here in SS college in this case won’t be an easy task, but it has no
other option to either. So according to the transition model the focus must have to be on the
customer here it will be the students. And to make this model successful there need to be a
synchronized teamwork or staff coordination which is very much not to be seen here in SS
college after a one-man investigation team started its work.

Begins with Principle and staffs: As the principle and teachers are old enough not to
understand the true benefit of implementing this model, this might get tough. But if the
education board takes proper action this can be solved.

Timing of the implementation process: The implementation of the model need to be quick
but accurate. There are many tasks in this process so one miscalculation might put up the
whole thing in jeopardy.

Formation of Quality council: This council or team or committee will help the post process
works, this will also help to identify whether there’s any loophole remaining or not, if yes
they need to fix it and move on.

Team leader from both sides must be involved with TQM plans implementation: Team
leader here means the representative from both sides like staffs and students needs to be
friendly with the TQM model implementation.

Every staff/teacher in the college needs to be trained in quality awareness and problem
solving: Training is a big issue, with proper training the staffs and teachers will be able to
any problem which they might face in future which might be related with both students or
staffs.