Saturday, January 25, 2020

TQM and Business Process Re-engineering

TQM and Business Process Re-engineering Total Quality Management and Business Process Re-engineering Introduction This article going to discuss about Total Quality Management (TQM) and Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) which are the most expressions of an increasing sophistication in management techniques and principles in recent years (Christian 1997). There are some ambiguous constructs between TQM and BPR. On the one hand, there are claimed that the management innovations might be restore competitiveness and back to traditional, such as bureaucratic organizations. On the other hand, TQM and BPR are normally concerned to only to the managerial common sense (Fisher 1994). This papers goals to explode the reasons and benefits relate with managers and workers around the BPR and TQM. Total Quality Management (TQM) Total Quality Management (TQM) has its roots in Japan, because of the original Japanese words Quality Control (QC) which means the development of quality improvement activities, due to the translation problems about QC from the original Japanese words(Boaden 1996). So, QC and TQM have same meaning, for example the principles were universally accepted as a means of continual improvement in quality overall organizational performance. Furthermore, there are aim of TQM which means for customer satisfaction, and improved flexibility (Ruth 1996). TQM often rely on a statistical base through mathematical foundation of quality control (Ruth 1996). At the begin , TQM started in 1950s and 1960s, it was attributed by Deming and Juran who promoted quality processes in Japan. Although the radical concepts of TQM were developed in US and Europe during 1980s and 1990s the growing international competition led many UK and other companies to adopt TQM, especially focus on quality by management gurus such as Peters and Waterman (Ruth 1996). There are some common quality principles of TQM, including customer orientation, substantial cultural change, top management leadership of the quality improvement process, focus on continuous improvement, respect for employees and their knowledge, and reduction of product and process variation with an emphasis on defect prevention rather than detection. Especially continuous improvement for example, it is often related with Kaizen which is one of the basic principles of TQM (Ruth 1996). The results of TQM processes generally are improvements in mistake rates, reduced time needed to save money, worker capital and increased efficiencies (Christian 1997). Another example of Customer orientation is one of soft systems of TQM. I t is usually flexible forms of work organization with the intensification and insecurity that come in its wake. TQM as an inclusive management practices that using methodology to set up models of organization and amplifies. Some aspects of TQM were obviously incorporated more easily than others. For instance, problem solving by teams, conferencing, and training. After finished the TQM training, managers were able to offer an intellectualized report of TQM (Chritian 1997). However, it was not mean that managers were understood of practical by their level, and they could sure what the elements exactly could mean in their working climate (Chritian 1997). For instance, senior managers might lose sight of the ball. They kick the ball into play, and when it has some problem or the ball is not working as fast as they think they would like change the way to find another job better than before (christian 1997). In addition, managers focused on the mechanisms- training, meetings. Because of TQM become a more efficient and modern company it was enabled managers could self-referential, especially in official company discourse (Christian 1997). And most of senior managers have had an opportunity to achieve a multitude of sometimes conflicting or objectives, who were choosed by consultants and management gurus. TQM principles, practices and techniques are have benefits to workers. Such as teamwork, group skills, continuous training and learning techniques as role clarification and group feedback (Christian 1997). For example, there are lots of quality management rules such as TQM, just-in-time, Quality Control systems are used by the operational workers in Denso Company, this are increasing and improving work efficiency and effectiveness. In spite of the benefits of TQM, there is failure paradigm of the Quality Management. For example, according to Kearney survey that there are 80% of the companies surveyed might not point to a dramatic improvement in implementation, and research from 1992 by Arthur D. who reported that TQM had a remarkable impact on their activities and habits are considered merely by the third of studied companies (Christian 1997). Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) The Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) replaced Total Quality Management (TQM) as the hottest topic of organizational processes and structures, always following the introduction of new information technologies into an organization. â€Å"BPR is the fundamental thinking and redesign of business processes, to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service and speed† (Hammer Champy 1994). On the other hand, BPR is contrasted with process simplification that it is considered involved in fundamental change, led by a view, involving new frameworks and technology and changes in habits and attitudes. In addition BPR was developed as a radical concept for fundamental change in an organization, relied on total redesign of an organizations programmers, and taking into account the full power of modern technology (Ruth 1996). BPR could make the small change in each department for example in marketing sales department, but return the huge benefits for the organization. For instance, structure change related with people and technology, it plays a crucial role in organizing people, technology, decision-making, control, and management. Bad organizational structure can reduce the success of the redesigning effort. These might involve multi-functional teams, product teams, and the flattening of the management hierarchy (Delvin 2002). In the technology facts are pointed that it might includes the relationships and controls in various technologies. The main features of BPR includes simple to multi-tasked work, empowerment of employees, change of focus from management towards customer, flattening hierarchies and managements habits from supervising to coaching, and switch from functional department to process teams ( Grint 1994). BPR have benefits both of managers and workers, including a non-bureaucratic and informal management structure, a flat organizational structure, tight control of day to day works for example someone absence, and little management of authority. To achieve these might via the three fields, such as reengineering technology, organizational structure, and communication (Delvin 2002). Firstly, the advantage aspects of reengineering technology to managers are including standard managerial processes which trend to integration all the information: share databases, function, network, and improving quality in operational processes (William 1996). Such as, the most important processes in a manufacturing or service company and distinguish the following steps: order flow, strategic process, product, marketing or sales, services, accounting, personnel, and technology (Marta 1999). These could via information technologies systems to achieve them. Information technologies, namely, personal computers and internet communications allow workers to work far away from the office. Employees may work at home or other areas. Multimedia communication programmers, which receive email or messages, and review news and get information is very convenience and quick. And computer systems can integrate multi-functional of business processes, sharing data resources, internal and external information. These processes not only reduce cost and improving the accuracy of exchanging information, but also increasing work efficiency and effectiveness (Marta 1999). Such as Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP) which is one of popular software systems, it is widely used in most of companies in recent years. Secondly, organizational structure which is really difficulties in redesigning procedures especially to managers, they might less autonomy due to the formal constraints and regulations of organization (James 2000). For example managers may less decision-making and flexibility. On the other hand, the hierarchical or bureaucratical of organization might become flat levels. And their changed the management habits and attitudes from supervising to coaching or training. As well as towards pay more attention to the customers instead of management. Organizational structure change to workers, the organization needs encouraged employees who accept changes, share, and motivate their new style of working processes. On one hand, the organization must in-depth training and motivation their employees, such as provide the team work knowledge and creative new type of jobs. On the other hand, the organization must encourage their workers via incentive systems and involvement in the decision-making process (Marta 1999). Lastly, communication issues to managers are more crucial in the organization. For example, in most of the companies, they employees are working for the company, it is not only for the better paid, but also really focus on the senior managers who are respect or take care them as a word or a gesture. While these are absolutely small changes to managers, but to workers are really more respects or thanks to managers, prompted them to performance well, these are without money issues, each worker needs esteems and trusts. Communication processes involved in all departments and people at all levels of the organization (Winklhofer 2002). People should be kept as open as possible to ensure success. It can help higher management transform information about the business and BPR progress across the organization and make workers more ensure and understand what exact their role in the change process (David 2005). It will be reduce resistance of change process and give feedbacks to the higher level managers, such as the training issues or promotions, employees cannot be controlled, they can be encouraging innovation, sharing information, and providing a change blueprint (David 2005). However, there were 70% of BPR projects failed (Ralph 2000). It had have many reasons about failure of BPR, including have â€Å"ill-defined scope and processes defined, inaccurate information and data, lack of executive commitment and sponsorship, limited guru to proceed and fast changing technologies† (Ralph 2000). One of the typical unsuccessful example of BPR in the organization, management risks involve operational problems such as lack of customer focus, transaction issues, and lack of time to execute the project. Conclusion In conclusion, this paper provides general theories and examples about Total Quality Management (TQM) and Business Process Re-engineering (BPR). Although there are many critical articles about TQM and BPR, and the high rate of failure cases. While, it is not deny that BPR established on the TQM programmers, there are similarities both of them such as high quality, continuous improvement, and working efficiency. However, there are basic different between TQM and BPR. For example, TQM do not changing the existing processes, it is focus on continuous improvement and customer satisfaction. In contrast, BPR is changing the existing processes, reengineering the whole processes, set up the new processes instead of old one. References Boaden, R.J. (1996) What is TQM †¦and does it matter?, Total Quality Management (in press). Christina, D. C. (1997) TQM and BPR: Beyond the beyond myth Journal of Management Studies 34:5 September 1997 David, P., Ruey-Dang, C. (2005) The State of Business Process Reenineering: A Search for Success Factors. Total Quality Management Vol. 16, No.1, 121-133, January 2005 Delvin, G . (2002) A Wider View of Business Process Reengineering. February 2002/Vol.45, No.2 Fisher, L. (1994) Total quality: hit or myth? Accountancy, 50-1 Grint,K. (1994) Reengineering history: social resonances and business process reengineering. Organization,1, 179-201 Hammer, M. Champy, J. (1994) Reingenierla De La Empresa ( Redesign of the Business), Barcelona, Spain: Parram6n, 1994 James, Y.L., Thong., Chee-sing,Y., Kin-lee, S. (2000) Business Process Reengineering in the Public Sector: The Case of the Housing Development Board in Singapore. Journal of Management Information Systems. Summer 2000. Vol. 17, No.1, pp. 245-270 Marta, F, O. (1999) Information Technology in Business Process Reengineering March 16-23, 1999 Ruth, J. B. (1996) Is total quality management really unique? Total quality management, Vol, 7, No.5, 1996, pp553-570 Ralph, L. K. (2000) Risk management for business process reengineering projects pp71-73 William, J. K., James, T.C., Subashish, G. (1996) Inforamtion architectural design in business process reengineering Journal Information Technology (1996) 11, 27-27

Friday, January 17, 2020

Flying Ashtray

First officer Rob Brydon left his home in south Essex to go to work at Heathrow. He was on the M25 when he heard a news bulletin on the radio informing him that said that mount fujmore had erupted 32km south of the Indian island. It was early when Rob arrived at the airport and entered the pilots lounge and prepared for his flight. Rob and his captain realised that his route would take him over the path of the ash erupted from Mount fujmore. They came to the conclusion that the ash would clear by the time they were near the mountain. As Rob walked into the gate he was worried that his decision would come back to bite him, but the captain assured him that in the 30 years of service he had flew in the same situation numerous amounts of time and that it would be fine. Rob and his captain were now on board the plane and had begun their pre-flight checks and were ready for clearance. As usual Rob was asking for clearance. Rob was unusually busy and didn't have time for this ands his look of the passengers, but he figured that he would take a look once he was cruising in the air. Before Rob knew it he was at cruise level and was eating breakfast, as a precaution just in case they were in a collision course with the volcanic ash. Soon after Rob had forgotten about the volcanic ash but what he didn't know was going to make his day much harder. As Rob crossed through the ash his whether monitor didn't pick it up because it was dry and could not see it because his blinds were down. The passengers saw the ash but informed the pilot but they discussed it and they said it was harmless. But then the planes started to have problems. The fuel indicators started to flash about low fuel and low fuel pressure. The auto pilot changed courses then changed back. They looked at their systems to see where they were and discovered they were near India. The plane stopped having problems until they noticed their engines were glowing red hot with some of the volcanic ash. They began to panic but soon they were on air traffic control asking for a clear landing spot, but there were east of the Indian Ocean and with no viable runway to land on. The closest one was in Thailand which was hours away from them. They began to start to calculate the damage that could be done to the plane when engine 3 shut down completely and they began to get warnings of low fuel and the filtration system was damaged by the volcanic ash. They then got transmissions and sent out warnings that problems could occur if you followed their flight path. All of a sudden over their radio they got the radio transmission they should have had before take-off. That the ash was dry which would explain why it didn't come up on the radar. They the had engine 2 shut down and had to descend to prevent them from stalling in mid air. They also decided that they should take their flight path out of the volcanic ash. They tried to change their course but all the ash had damaged the planes computer chips, they decided to ask tower what they should do. All of a sudden engine 3 went out and their navigation system went out so they had to rely on a rough idea of where they were. They were now 16,200ft above ocean level and it couldn't escape the crew's mind of abandonment of the plane in the ocean. Though it had never been done before on this model of aircraft the pilots knew that it was possible. Not long later the last engine went out and their fears of abandonment became a reality. But they had bigger problems on their mind such as how to control the plane, hen there is no power being generated. They decided to try to start the engines again but nothing happened. They tried to restart the engines 3 more times and all of a sudden engine 3 came on and quickly shut down again. At this point they were 10,000ft exactly about sea level and were assessing their problems when they came to an agreement to start the engines one more time before they seriously considered abandonment. They tried and waited. They waited more and engine 3 came to life and was immediately put on full power and they decreased their descent rate and started to restart the other engines, but only engine 2 came on and they levelled of their altitude and started to ask ATC where to land but it wasn't easy as there was heavy fog and ice in the area they wanted land in. They had permission granted and they were allowed to land at a nearby airport. As they started to line up with the airport they had to rely on the towers navigation system until they could see the runway lights. The task that was ahead of them was extremely big as they had only done thus in simulators. 19 miles away from the airport and 3,500 ft above the ground they had the correct configuration and all they needed was more power but the ash had clogged the engine intakes so that only a certain amount of power could be used at any one time. They started to sink too low and desperately needed power so for a short period the engines power was increased, but then they were overwhelmed and went red-hot. As they approached the runway they could make out the light of another plane coming onto the. They quickly contacted tower but the declined saying they had no report of a plane on the runway but they checked their navigation system and they were wrong. The captain quickly informed tower that they would be landing whether or not that plane was on the runway. They knew it was going to be a tight landing as they came closer and closer to the runway. The plane was now crossing the threshold. The point of no return and they narrowly missed the tail fin of the plane but they landed and swiftly evacuated.

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

The Yellow Wallpaper And John Updike s A P - 2038 Words

AP The narrators in the following two short stories, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper and John Updike’s AP, share several traits in common, which divulge their narrative perspectives to be overly subjective and as such, not showing the real image of events that are taking place. While Gilman’s protagonist is a woman slowly descending into madness, Updike’s young man possesses a provincial outlook on life, and the statements and thoughts of neither can be taken at face value. Quite the contrary, the readers should be very wary of the narrators’ presentation of events, as they are marred by a highly personal and subjective perspective. When the readers meet the young, subordinated wife of a physician, who remains nameless throughout the entire story, perhaps hinting at the commonness of such situations where all those women are the same: faceless and nameless, this woman’s dilemma becomes obvious. She has been stripped off the on ly function a woman in those times had, the domestic one, due to the fact that she suffers from a mysterious illness which requires the infamous bed cure. Gradually, she is treated more and more as a child, unable and even forbidden to express herself in a creative way, namely to write, being persuaded that it cannot do any good to someone in her condition. This is why the protagonist (who is simultaneously the narrator), takes it upon herself to write a journal about her experiences and the mysterious woman that haunts her from theShow MoreRelatedThe Yellow Wallpaper, By Susan Glaspell, And A P Essay2143 Words   |  9 Pagesevidenced in â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, â€Å"Trifles† by Susan Glaspell, and â€Å"AP† by John Updike; they all illuminates on the submissiveness, the obedience of women to a man s authority that was considered unexceptional at the onset of the twentieth century because the themes of the inscrutability of wo men, domesticity, patriarchal dominance and female identity are present in all these works. Among the three works under scrutiny in the paper herein, â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† is arguablyRead MoreSummary Of The Yellow Wallpaper And A P1484 Words   |  6 PagesT In both, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and AP by John Updike, there are similarities and differences between the common themes and symbols in the stories. Furthermore, through the stories you can see the development of the characters. In general, The Yellow Wallpaper, the main character is about a young, middle-class, newlywed, and a new mother, that is undergoing depression. In the story, the narrator tells the story through a strict first person point of view. In which theRead MoreThe taste of melon by borden deal11847 Words   |  48 Pagesunder his arm. Everybody expected to lose a certain quantity of their watermelons to terrapins and a certain quantity to boys. It wasn’t considered stealing to sneak into a man’s melon patch and judiciously borrow a sample of his raising. T h e Ta s t e o f M e l o n 131 You might get a load of salt in the seat of your pants if you were seen, but that was part of the game. You’d be looked down on only if you got malicious and stamped a lot of melons into the ground while you were about it