The Total Quality Management Approach

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management approach which could have assist in the better planning of all the resources and the opinionated infrastructures that should have been in place; implementing and delivering a project must engage entire team working, workers empowerment and creative problem solving to undertake goals.

Firstly they could not coordinate their banquette on time due to which waterlander has to countenance the problem and they could not full fill the customer need due to the communication gap. The main trouble lies while taking the task in hand as the employee of the hotel did not took appropriate care of the order place by the customer and also did not revised the need and expectation of the customer.

Six Sigma has been one of the tools of Total Quality Management and is extensively used in manufacturing and services industries crossways the world. Its standards have been promoted and attained through five key stages known as define, measure, analyse, improve, and control and each of which must be done in sequential order.

The solution to the problem is very simple when any employee while dealing with the customer should at least make out what customer wants, what are the customers’ expectations and what customer exactly want. The employee of the company should first of all always understand the importance of the customer and the quality of hospitality offered by the hotel and should mostly concentrate on qualitative part and should know that in what a customer main purpose lies, and should plan everything in advance that what will be the timeline, what are the customer’s expectation and analyse the whole order place by the customer and revised it once with the customer before finalising it. For example, if a customer have booked an hall for a wedding party so the manager should finalise everything with the customer that what number of guest the customer has invited, what is his budget, at what time the food will be served, what will be the time of dinner, how much time after dinner the desert should be served, will it be a buffet or have to arrange for a dinner tables and chairs at the time of ceremony what kind of starter will be served. All should be kept in mind and should be confirmed with the customer before finalising the order. What else is customer expecting from the hotel and what kind of service will be given.

The Waterlander Hotel is part of major international hotel chain. The senior management have received the subsequent account of one corporate clients practice at the Waterlander Hotel: The previous evening’s banquet for Plastix International had been a complete adversity, and Walter Hollestelle, the hotel General Manager, was still recovering from the series of telephone conversations of that morning. … The delegate from Plastix International did not seem to state clearly adequate what they necessary accurately, and the staff at the hotel from the head chef to the head waiter did therefore were not observant of the standards that Plastix International accepted It is also quite difficult to identify the blame for the disaster because as Walter Hollestelle is phoning and speaking to the line managers implicated, they are all stating that they were not given full demands and as a result couldn’t give the highest level of quality, as accepted by Plastix International. TQM – [Total Quality Management] How could it be useful to the hotel? Total Quality Management refers to a quality accent that encompasses the entire organization from the supplier to the customer. (Heizer, Jay, Operations Management 1999, Fifth Edition pg 82). … Total Quality Management would be enormously useful to the Waterlander hotel because it ensure that it positively influences each of the 10 decision made by operation managers. … Edwards Deming quality improvement can be implement in the following ways: – 1. Construct Quality into the product – the Waterlander hotel should stop depending on inspection to grab problems. … Incessantly improve product, quality and service – this would ensure that the Waterlander Hotel is widely regarded as a high quality organization. … Break Down barrier between departments – this would benefit the Hotel greatly as one of its major problems was miss-communication. … Above are just five points taken from a possible 14 that Deming introduced so that business could improve quality throughout their organization. If the Waterlander Hotel was to implement most of, if not all of, the points illustrated above, disasters like the one encountered with Plastix International would be avoided. Discussion Document for meeting with Managers Devise a discussion document that outlines the difficulties and problems arising out of different organisational perceptions of quality. It is a widely known that different organizations have different views when it comes to excellence. It is also well known that consumers have a different approach towards quality than an institute. However, it is less well known that different employees in an organization have disparate aspect and definition this can cause a problem for the organization because if an member of staff has a low perception of quality then the product or service accessible would be unsatisfactory to the consumer, thus invoking a grumble, as what occurred with Plastix International. If the Waterlander hotel decisive on what move towards to quality their organization is operating under, then they could recognize the trouble and then eliminate it. The Waterlander could drop under any of the subsequent categories of approaching quality. inspirational approach – this approach views quality as being identical with superiority, for example the Hilton Hotel is viewed as being the best hotel chain in the world which offers the highest level of quality existing. A problem that the Waterlander Hotel organization has if it adopts this method is that if the hotel falls underneath the standard likely through lack of training and service offered. … For example, easy jet is not alleged as being in the same association as BA flights, but it is seen as a quality product because it meets customer’s opportunity.

GAP Analysis:

Customer’s satisfaction and Manangement:

There are so many complaints that provided by hotel’s staff to the customer, for example wrong table arrangements, unpleasant adornments, poor quality of food, delay in offering supportive services, bad quality of microphone, poor services throughout the function, and most importantly extremely lower hygiene standards. Management have to take seriously all this problem and should try to find convenient and most appropriate ways to find it. For the organization like Waterlander hotel which is a part of hospitality industry all the schedules have to be followed in suitable way as failure in any one of them could be a reason for failure in all other services. As this sort of competence requisite for hotel industry, the employees employed at lower level of management and the employees working at higher level both have to be accurate. The manager’s responsibilities comprise of the various activities including recruiting the right persons required for the position of different level and to train them.

CUSTOMER’S SATISFACTION AND SERVICE PERFORMANCE:

There are so many factors which affect the success of the organization and the Customer’s satisfaction is one of that in fact it is the most essential aspect for the success of any business that too not only for survival but for achieving progress also. None of the organization carries out its activities just to survive and that is why survival should not be the only goal for any organization particularly in current competitive state of the market and growth or progress should be the final destination for any organization. To become a progressive organization the system needs to maintain and update the standards and it has to perform accordingly. As I studied the every detail related to this case, I have found that there is a noticeable distance in the service performance of the hotel and customer’s satisfaction. Because of the previous memorable experience the customer had in past, they expected the better services from the hotel than they have enjoyed previously, but disappointed with the performance they found at day of the event.

SERVICE PERFORMANCE AND STANDARD:

The organization should be conscious of the external competitiveness, because the organization has to generate new ideas and adding up innovative services products or offers. The manufacturers cannot do modifications often but the retail and service industries has to do it continously. It seems that the state of the market all the organizations continue raising the standards in accordance to the prerequisite of the market. In case of Waterlander hotel, their service performance in the sales conference of Plastix Internationals was very lower than the standard performance. assortment and employment of the expert employees is one of the necessary requirements for meeting the standard requirement of an organisation. Failure of activities of the employees working at top level to bottom level had failed the organization too. The operations performed at all the level were relatively far from the standard presentation in other words the gap between these two is too wide and as soon as possible it should be narrowed.

SKILL AND MANAGEMENT

The manager has to be expert in dealing with daily activities and able to tackle nicely with different people.All the managers should know how to organize and synchronize. He should have the abilities of a planner, organizer, leader, facilitator, and controller for the group of the people and operations. Waterlander hotel’s manager requirements to posses all these virtues in hospitality background. Management must have clear goals and must have abilities to extend the excellence operation management. So it is but obvious that gap between skill and management is extra large.

STNADARD AND SKILL:

In this time when the market has the space only for those organizations aggressive attitude, the manager must have an range of skills which he or she requirements to bring up to date them according to the wants of the principles of the market.

Benchmark presentation way the set of operations which is suitable for contiguous market and the organizational performances are compared with it. Principles of the hospitality industry recommend that quality and quantity of the services and products should be produced at demanded time. In service industry time is the generally considerable aspect in all the operations. To accomplish these principles, skill is the most significant factor. It can be seen in case of Waterlander hotel that the staff performed the extreme below than the values set in market. This has happened due to the lacks of the abilities. The degree of unfortunate quality of presentation of Waterlander Hotel, suggests that the gap between standard and skill is too large.

Application of Expectation theory:

“High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.” Expectation is one of the method to decide the success and the failure or the degree of an organisation. If for once the customer becomes the habitual they start expecting more and more from the organization and there are advantages and the disadvantages of both. In this case also this had happened as Plastix International had so much expectations from the Waterlander hotel as they had very good experience with them at their earlier function on another location. The fact is that they had usual enhanced knowledge than the preceding one, but they originate the most terrible and of very low level than they usual. If they had not a sure level of prospect they might not have this much dissatisfaction. The manager must consider that the zone of the forbearance and the level of expectations different from customer to customer. The manager must be familiar with those levels and deal with with them therefore. Apart from that the expectations at personality level, opportunity for exacting profession also different such as for hotel industry it used to be superior even in relationship of other service industry also. The manager of Waterlander hotel failed to take in reflection all these probability theory and in the end faced the rage of the customer.

Development of Human Resources Development Policy:

The manager of Waterlander hotel have to implement the proper human resources development policy under which the processes related to the recruitment, training and designation performance are performed in a benchmark technique so that organization can depend on the skilled people for their operations.

Development of Quality Management System:

Manager should redefine their strategic goals and set them according to the present market condition and plan in that path. In present time any organization cannot afford to be immobile or cannot assume self-protective approach. With aggressive approach to face the market condition the management should structure an able system management in which all the operations take out according to the strategies with existing resources and in direction of the accomplishment of the strategic goals.

Development of Quality Culture:

The manager should extend a quality culture in Waterlander hotel in a method that all the workforce get inspirations to be the part of that culture. Apart from deciding the policy and regulations there should be clear understanding among the workforce for what is important for the organization and what is not and their operations should help the organization in that way.

Task-2

Introduction:

For task 2, of Quality Systems Management I have chosen another interesting case to study on it. The mystery shop is an organization well popular all over the world for its unique identity. The organization I have chosen Starbucks for its U.K. outlets to analyze its management. Starbucks is the world’s biggest coffee serving company having a wide spread business in almost 49 countries and thousands of outlets. Initially Starbucks was serving coffee but they now has started selling snacks, drink products and many other items like magazines, coffee mugs, CDS and DVDS of popular programs and movies.

Condition of Outlets:

Many customers now has experienced intolerable delay in services at many of the Starbucks Outlets. Customers had to stay for long time in a queue constant for giving their orders and they had to remain even longer to have their items. Customer do not like this situation at all. Another problem in some outlets of the Starbucks is accents of the employees as they are not good at English vey well. The customers and the employees cannot understand each other ideas and the communication gap creates trouble. Sometimes it happens that customers do not get the point of view of the employee like the employee says to the customer that his/her order is ready but customer don’t understand what employee has said and remain in queue for long time and this type of situation adapts unpleasant thought in customer’s mind. Many times the customers are provided the items which they have not ordered due to this communication gap. This type of problem creates issues not only between employee and customers but also between employees. Another most important problem at Starbucks is the unawareness of the employees towards the expansion of the system for maintaining stock as per demand. Due to this circumstances many times the customers have to go back and the company has to suffer a loss due to it while many items get ruined exclusive of being sold. This happens due to the synchronization between the employees working at counters and those who work at back. These types of incidences depart bad image of the organization on customers mind and if the same customers understanding the same circumstances with the organization the organization will have to bear from the loss of reputation. At the top of all the exertion the employees even don’t mind to make an apology to the customers for any sort of trouble.

Critical Analysis of Starbucks:

After critically evaluating the Starbucks, it has became clear that the customer are not satisfied with the organization and the gap between customers’ satisfaction and the service performance is significantly extensive. The gap between the standard performance and the current performance of the company is extremely broad because the organization’s existing performance is far away from the standard and advantageous performance. The management has been proved incapable to continue the quality system, quality culture and have not the organize over the operation processes. As a result of that gap between these too is getting wider and wider which is not the desirable state for any organization and must take steps to zero this gap at earliest. The main problem with the organization is that it is lacking the skilled employees which is the reason behind their deteriorating performance. Skilled people only can bring the standard performance with the help of their skill, which has not been possible for the case of Starbucks as the gap between these two is also extreme. The most important gap is between the customers’ satisfaction and the management. The lack of abilities on the management side is the reason why they are not enough keen or able to work for customer’s satisfaction which has widened the bridge between these two significant points for any organization.

PROSPECT RESULT:

As we know the expectations play a major role in deciding the consequential effects of any matter. In the case of Starbucks, as the organization has immense reputation the customers’ expectation used to be too high which are not satisfied with the performance of the Starbucks. The management needs to take in consideration that being a world known company they have to perform to a standard to fulfil the customers’ expectation which used to be high with them.

SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT:

After the assessment of the case of the Starbucks, I have originated that Starbucks requires changing the entire system expansion of new strategies to recruiting new staff. They require to assign the creative and growth oriented staff. First of all the person perusing the tasks as a manager at head quarter of entire U.K. should be replaced with the person who has the capability to expand quality system and maintain it. The candidate having advance thinking, optimistic and aggressive approach to capture market, immense knowledge to handle such a big organization should be appoint as a manager at head quarter. He or she should be conscious of the international standards of the service industry and should be capable to expand that in Starbucks Outlets. He or she should have the abilities of leader also to organize all the operations at every level and manage all the processes. He or she must have the control on all the processes and must be able to coordinate all the processes. The Human Resources Development process must be done wisely and carefully. As for such industries human resources are as considerable as the products are used to be. They should be particular and recruited professionally. The people who are thought to work at counters must have superior communication skill, can speak logical English along with other abilities. Once the recruitment process completes effectively, the allocation process should be concluded will all the measures like the capability and the experience keeping in mind. The operative staff must be provided preliminary and time to time training to update their knowledge related to their work and the prevailing trends of the market. If all these matters are dealt correctly, the major will mechanically be resolute. Here are some suggestions to deal with such issues

The issue of Cleanliness Standards:

Issue like lack of cleanliness and lower sanitation standard always should be measured very sincerely and all the members of the staff should be qualified strictly to maintain hygienic and clean environment instructed to follow all the required measures for that at all the outlets. There should be surprise usual visits to checks all the outlets for inspection hygienic and service standards. The system must encourage all the employees to attach with the cleanliness standards in which ever circumstance

The issues of Stock:

Stock maintenance is one another major concern for any organization and should be dealt cautiously. For solving this problem, the manager must check the sale of each item for last three months. Such check will provide him an exact idea of the demand of all the items for different outlets and enables him to decide the stock criteria for different items and the range. One more thing to be implemented is the networking system which connects both the counters and the stock departments to avoid any kind of communication gap in system. All the people working at different level must be aware of that. Expiry date issue needs to be dealt with sensibly such as if some items are near to expiry date the authority of the respective outlets should declare some offers for that particular items to sale them quickly and to avoid wastage.

The issue of customers’ dissatisfaction:

The management of the Starbucks must adopt aggressive attitude and try to apply new strategies to increase the sale and their market share. To move ahead in that direction he or she should get the views of the customers in regards of their services and products, the environment of the outlets, their suggestions regarding any change which should be implemented the help of feedback forms on outlets and through internet survey also. By doing these types of activities the management can apply the changes based on the customer’s suggestions and get the benefit of the advertisements done by the satisfied customers.

IMPLICATION FOR EXPANSION:

Evaluate and Balance performance:

The current performance should then be measured. This current performance can be also compared with target quality standards to find the gap. Quality audit should be done on standard intervals. The management have to be alert about time to time confirm the performance done at all the level and strive to find the flaws of the system if there is any. This is recognized as quality system audit which should be done at usual basis.

Sporadic Analysis:

With the help of the proper dimensions evaluate the manager can the causes of the gaps between standard performance and the current performance of the company. The staff employed to work at diverse level should be encouraged to contribute in all the process of the system as in this way they can be concerned with the sort of quality culture.

Controlling Process:

Once the quality management system is set in Starbucks, the very significant most recent step to be taken to continue it is to have the organize the system and all the processes. All the operation process should be organize.