Page 187 - DMGT501_OPERATIONS_MANAGEMENT

Unit 6: Quality Assurance and Control

essentially implies continuing improvements in products’ design and manufacture in the light Notes
of periodic surveys of customer experience, opinions and preferences.
Key facets of TQM’s integrative focus are the four PIs:
1. People Involvement

2. Product Process Innovation
3. Problem Investigation
4. Perpetual Improvement
The keynote of these four PIs is teamwork or cooperation. In TQM, however, the concept of
teamwork is larger and more inclusive. It implies that (a) employees are viewed as assets; (b)
suppliers are viewed as partners; and (c) customers are viewed as guides. Involving all three of
them intimately in the company’s team effort to accomplish TQM is a continuing thrust of the
company’s manufacturing policies.
The underlying assumptions or key premises of TQM may be briefly summarised:
1. Quality cannot be improved by investment in high technology alone.
2. Quality depends on and comes from, people.
3. Quality is the result of attitudes and values; it is the result of viewing quality as a ‘way of
life’.
4. Organisational culture and management style govern the quality of products and services
in a very basic manner.

Task Give example from an organisation about the role played by human behavior in
managing quality.

6.14 Determinants of Quality

Quality, quality management, quality control, etc. are not functions but products of sound
management. Principles and effective management of design, are – scope, specification,
documentation, cost, budgets and time. From inception to the completion of a construction
project, each function must be aimed at the achievement of quality, whether the function is
design, specification, documentation or procurement. Furthermore, the element of competition
and what it purports to achieve, must not be forgotten.
The traditional approach to competitive tendering involves the calling of tenders addressed to
a principal, which purports to carry out specified work and/or the supply of goods in return for
specified payment. In the evaluation of the tenders, the principal will seek a tender that best
suits the specific requirements of price, time and quality. From time to time, other criteria may
also apply. In recent South African experience, tenders submitted to the various state bodies
might also be evaluated on the basis of:

1. Affirmative action
2. Training
3. Labour content
4. Local materials
5. Community involvement.

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 181