QUALITY IMPROVEMENT METHODS

Week 12 Topic

3 COMPONENTS OF QUALITY IMPROVEMENT METHOD

• Product Improvement

Product improvement is the process of making meaningful product changes that result in new customers
or increased benefits realized by existing customers. The two most popular ways to make product
improvements are to add new product features or improve existing ones.

How?

1. Adding New Features

Adding new features expands the scope of the existing product, often making a big marketing splash,
getting a version bump, and resulting in some press releases. Often the fanfare attracts new customers
and new use cases for the product. Typically, new features are the only improvements that outsiders (i.e.
non-customers) will ever hear about.

New features are risky. You have to be very confident they will be valued, as they’re like children; you
have to love them and support them no matter what.

Ask your customers “Would you like a [Calendar|TimeTracker|Gantt Chart]?” and they’ll reply yes. It’s a
one-way “something or nothing” offer. They haven’t had to make a trade-off between competing
priorities. This leads to customers saying they want stuff that they don’t really want.

Asking your customers “Would you rather that we made the product much faster, or that we added more
labelling features?” and you’ll get a different answer. Everyone values speed.

2. Improving Existing Features

You can improve an existing feature in three different ways: you can make it better (deliberate
improvement), you can change it so customers use it more often (frequency improvement), or you can
change it so more people can use it (adoption improvement).

Let’s specify.

✓ Deliberate improvements
Make deliberate improvements when you know why customers use an existing feature and what they
appreciate about it. A deliberate improvement seeks only to make the feature better in ways that will be
appreciated by the current users.

Use when: There is a feature that all your customers use and like, and you see opportunity to add
significant value to it.
✓ Frequency improvements
These are improvements you make to get a customer to use the feature more often. Adding more items
to an activity feed, or more options to a search tool means that people read it more often, or use it for
more tasks each day. This type of improvement can turn a once-a-week feature into an everyday feature.

Use when: There is a feature that the majority of your customers use infrequently, and you believe they
would benefit from using it more.

✓ Adoption improvements
Adoption improvements target customers who don’t use a feature. For example, if you have a calendar
feature that only half of your user base is using, an adoption improvement aims to win over the remainder.
By adding ICS file import or a Google Calendar connection, you don’t improve it for all users…but you
make it more likely that the non-consumers will now adopt it. When you hear phrases like “I’ll use this as
soon I can...”, then an adoption improvement might help.

Use when: There is an important feature that a good chunk of your users have yet to adopt, and you see
some obvious integrations or changes that will make it easier for them to get on board.

• Process Improvement

Process improvement, also known as business process improvement, refers to the practice of finding ways
to make existing processes faster, more accurate, more efficient, and more reliable. This practice should
be considered an ongoing exercise rather than a one-time action.

What is process improvement in business?

Process improvement in business is usually a practice that aims to identify problems or opportunities in
existing processes, create solutions, and then apply those solutions to processes so as to optimize them.

Why is process improvement important?

Every company relies on different types of business processes to power its operations. Whether it’s your
employee onboarding, issuing or receiving payments, or resolving issues in IT systems, there is a process
behind everything your business does.

If your business processes take a long time to complete, require more resources than planned for, or
produce inconsistent results, you’re likely experiencing a process breakdown that’s making your business
operations less effective. Inefficient or inaccurate processes cost businesses up to $1 trillion each year.
Process improvements can solve that.

Process improvement benefits

Process improvements goals are typically a combination of any of the following: improve productivity, gain
agility or visibility in order to adapt to market changes, streamline workflows, increase profits, patch
security gaps, achieve operational excellence, or create better user experiences — both internally or
externally.
There are several ways process improvement can benefit your business, including:

1. Time savings

A fundamental benefit of process improvement is a decrease in the time it takes to complete tasks through
streamlining and reducing the number of steps involved.

2. Better results

Process improvements instigate better results like enhanced employee performance or clearer process
milestones and tasks.

3. Improved customer satisfaction

Faster and more effective customer service, a high-quality standard, and hitting every deadline: it’s all
possible with process improvement and can help improve customer outcomes across the board.

4. Increased transparency and alignment

Understanding and clarifying all stages in a process ensures that all your team members know their
responsibilities, and it makes it easy for them to share information and collaborate efficiently.

5. Reduced waste

Cutting out redundant steps or entire processes that consume valuable resources is an easy and effective
way to ensure you’re wasting as little time and money as possible.

What can continuous process improvement do for your business?

Continuous process improvement helps solve process problems by breaking up improvements into
smaller, more manageable chunks that occur on a rolling basis, rather than in large sweeps or when they
become too large to manage. This not only saves companies time and resources, but it also helps teams
get ahead of potential, process-specific issues before they become larger company-wide risks.

Rather than wait for something to go from bad to worse, continuous process improvement encourages
teams to continuously seek and identify opportunities to strengthen or repair existing business processes.
And by implementing continuous process improvements as an ongoing practice, business processes are
able to run in a more efficient and effective manner.

• People – based Improvement

One of the most essential principles of quality management lies within the involvement of people during
all steps of the improvement process. As the most important resource within any organization, people at
all levels are the very essence of the organization. The involvement of people within each level is crucial
to allow their abilities to be used for the benefit of the entire organization. People or staff could be
considered the fuel that drives the organization, and a solid workforce relies largely on involvement – from
the entry level employees who action out strategies all the way through to management levels who set
goals and ensure that processes are implemented correctly. In this way, quality management relies on the
involvement of people for the ultimate success in all processes and strategies.
How the Involvement of People Aids Quality Management

People play an important role across all aspects of the quality management process, with each person’s
role playing a crucial part. The ways that the involvement of people assists quality management include
the following:

• Take ownership and responsibility to resolve obstacles – each person within the organization
takes full ownership of their own roles and responsibilities, ensuring a more effective problem
resolution process across the board.

• Actively seek out ways to make improvements, and improve competencies, knowledge and
experience – each person within the organization should have the chance to be proactive, by
finding ways that aids improvement. Each person should also have the chance to improve their
specific skills and experience to aid the company in achieving its goals and outcomes.

• Easily share knowledge and experience in groups – all people within the organization have a right
to share their knowledge, skills and experiences in groups. This facilitates a more effective
organization through the strengthening of departments and groups within the organization,
thereby assisting quality management by ensuring that departments are able to operate smoothly
and more effectively.

• Focus on the formation of value for customers – each person within the organization has a
responsibility to add value for customers, on all levels of the organization. Whether it is sales staff,
customer relations staff, entry level staff such as receptionists or management, each person is
required to create value for customers in any way that they are able to do so.

• Innovative in promoting the organization’s goals – even the most entry level employee in the
company should play a role in promoting the organization’s goals. Innovation plays a strong role
in finding new ways to further the organization’s objectives, ensuring return on investment for all
concerned.

• Improve the representation of the organization to customers, local communities and the general
public – all people within the organization need to improve the representation of the organization
to all its stakeholders, from customers to local communities and other audiences.

• Assist people get satisfaction from their work – people who are finding their work rewarding and
satisfying are far more likely to want to be involved in all aspects of improvement, as they have a
vested interest. This means that employees should be able to find ways to address any concerns
they have with workloads or tasks.

• Make people passionate and proud to be part of the organization – the final aspect that
determines how people are able to influence improvement is that they should be proud and
excited to be involved in the organization and its various processes. This will ensure that they have
a personal interest in quality management, thereby motivating them to adhere to processes on
their own accord.
 VARIED QUALITY IMPROVEMENT METHODOLOGIES

QUALTIY IMPROVEMENT PROCESS USE AND APPLICATION EXAMPLE

METHOD
KAIZEN Kaizen, which means Kaizen is often used in For example, a
"continuous manufacturing but can be manufacturing company
improvement" in applied to any industry. It might use Kaizen to improve
Japanese, focuses on encourages small, frequent assembly line efficiency by
making incremental changes rather than large, involving workers in
improvements to sporadic ones. It involves identifying and
processes, products, or brainstorming, problem- implementing small process
services over time. It solving, and implementing enhancements, such as
involves all employees in solutions at the grassroots rearranging workstations or
the organization and aims level. standardizing procedures.
to eliminate waste and
enhance efficiency.
SIX SIGMAS Six Sigma is a data-driven Six Sigma is widely used in An example could be a
approach aimed at manufacturing, healthcare, healthcare organization
reducing defects and finance, and other industries. using Six Sigma to reduce
variations in processes to It relies heavily on statistical patient wait times in the
achieve near-perfect analysis and requires trained emergency department by
quality. It follows a professionals (e.g., Black analysing data, identifying
structured methodology Belts, Green Belts) to lead bottlenecks, and
known as DMAIC (Define, projects and implement implementing process
Measure, Analyse, improvements. improvements based on
Improve, Control) or evidence-driven decisions.
DMADV (Define, Measure,
Analyse, Design, Verify).
TOTAL QUALITY TQM is a management TQM can be applied across A service-oriented business
MANAGEMENT approach that focuses on various industries. It involves might implement TQM
continuously improving creating a culture of quality principles by regularly
the quality of products where every employee is gathering customer
and services through the responsible for quality feedback, empowering
involvement of all assurance. TQM often employees to suggest
employees in the includes elements such as improvements, and
organization. It customer feedback, process systematically addressing
emphasizes customer improvement, and employee any issues raised to
satisfaction, teamwork, training. enhance service quality.
and continuous learning.
LEAN MANUFACTURING Lean Manufacturing, Lean principles can be An example could be a food
inspired by the Toyota applied in manufacturing, production facility
Production System, aims services, healthcare, and implementing Lean
to maximize customer other industries. It focuses on Manufacturing principles to
value while minimizing streamlining processes, reduce inventory holding
waste. It identifies and reducing lead times, and costs by implementing a
eliminates non-value- improving overall efficiency. kanban system for raw
 added activities (waste) in Techniques like value stream materials, ensuring just-in-
processes, such as mapping, 5S, and kanban are time delivery to the
overproduction, waiting, commonly used in Lean production line.
unnecessary Manufacturing.
transportation, etc.
PLAN-DO-CHECK-ACT PDCA is a problem-solving PDCA can be applied in A retail business might use
methodology used for various contexts, including PDCA to address customer
continuous improvement. process improvement, complaints about long
It involves planning a quality management, and checkout lines. They would
change (Plan), project management. It plan and implement
implementing the change provides a systematic changes such as opening
(Do), evaluating the approach to problem-solving additional cash registers,
results (Check), and and ensures that monitor the effects on wait
standardizing the improvements are sustained times, and adjust the
successful changes (Act). over time. approach as needed.
5 WHYS ANALYSIS 5 Whys is a simple but 5 Whys can be used in For instance, an automotive
powerful technique for conjunction with other manufacturer might use the
identifying the root cause problem-solving 5 Whys to investigate
of a problem by methodologies like PDCA, Six defects in a particular
repeatedly asking "why" Sigma, or Kaizen. It is model. By asking why the
until the underlying cause particularly effective for defect occurred multiple
is revealed. It helps in addressing recurring times, they may discover
understanding the deeper problems and preventing that a supplier's
issues contributing to a their recurrence by substandard materials are
problem. addressing the root cause. the root cause, leading to
corrective actions.
BUSINESS PROCESS BPM involves managing BPM can be applied across A financial institution might
MANAGEMENT and optimizing business various industries and use BPM to streamline its
processes to improve functions. It helps loan approval process by
efficiency, effectiveness, organizations to streamline mapping out the current
and adaptability. It their operations, reduce process, identifying
encompasses activities costs, improve customer inefficiencies, redesigning
such as process satisfaction, and respond the process for faster
modelling, analysis, more effectively to changes in approvals, and
redesign, the business environment. implementing automation
implementation, where possible to improve
monitoring, and efficiency.
optimization.
RAPID CYCLE RCI is a methodology RCI is particularly suited for An example could be a
IMPROVEMENT focused on quickly dynamic environments software development
implementing and testing where rapid adaptation and team using RCI to improve
small-scale changes to innovation are essential. It is the user interface of a
processes or systems to commonly used in mobile application. They
drive improvement. It healthcare, education, and might implement rapid
emphasizes rapid service industries to address iterations of design
experimentation, immediate challenges and changes, gather user
learning, and adaptation drive continuous feedback through testing,
based on feedback. improvement. and refine the interface
based on user preferences
to enhance user experience
quickly.