OPS909 TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT REPORT 1 SAMPLE
Task
How would you implement a quality management system complying with ISO 9001?
You have been appointed as the Quality Manager of a company of your choosing and have been asked to implement a quality management system into the company.
You must choose a specific industry and show how you could apply the requirements of ISO 9001:2015 to establish a quality management system in that industry in your home country.
Your answer must show that you understand the application of the requirements of the ISO 9001:2015 standard. It must include any aspects of change management that would be necessary to implement the program and must be supported by literature references. At least 5 of the references must be journal articles, preferably post 2015.
Your report must include the steps that you would take to implement the system. You have been given 6 months to implement the system. Your report MUST include a Gantt chart setting out the activities that you would undertake and the order and timing in which you would complete them. You may use a previous company that you worked for but you cannot use a company that has already been certified. If you have not worked for a company before you can choose an industry and make up your own company.
If you choose a company in the food industry you must consider the requirements of ISO 22000 as well as ISO 9001.
Solution
Introduction
Wesfarmers is a conglomerate company located in Australia and the headquarter of this company is situated in Perth. It predominantly is accredited with the multiple industries of Australia and New Zealand like chemical and fertilizer, retail, safety products, and many more. The products and services of this company are very popular among the citizens of Australia and New Zealand. University Assignment Help, As a result, this company is rapidly growing in these countries by generating sufficient revenue.
In this assignment, the context of the Quality Management System will be analysed and discussed based on the functions and operations of the company Wesfarmers. A few literary pieces will also be reviewed to collect information and to do the research to know whether this company follows the QMS rules and guidelines or not. University Assignment Help, Finally, the overall contexts of maintaining QMS on Wesfarmers will be evaluated in this assignment.
The quality management system is a very important part of business operations in the context of doing legal trade. In this assignment, the context of QMS and ISO 9001:2015 has been discussed specifically on the Australian company Wesfarmers. A detailed background of the company has been provided in this assignment. Therefore, literature research has been done to know the different perspectives of scholarly authors on QMS. In the next section of this literary part, the needs of QMS have been discussed on the functions and operations of the Australian conglomerate company Wesfarmers.
Company Information
Since the establishment of the company, Wesfarmers in the year of 1914, this company is popularly known as the cooperative company for the western Australian farmhands. Wesfarmers is commonly known as the leading listed company in Australia and has developed its business as one of the biggest listed companies in Australia. This company mainly operates diverse operations in its business condition which cover, outdoor living, home improvement, general and apparel merchandise, office supplies, and industrial division in terms of the business that include different types of product-related business. The different and various types of products related businesses are fertilisers, chemicals, retail, energy, safety and industrial products and many more. Wesfarmers has the biggest number of their employees which is approximately 12k. The company maintains a base of shareholders that includes approximately 484,000 (Wesfarmers, 2023). The fundamental objective of this company is to supply its shareholders with an adequate return. The business of Wesfarmers has the predominant interest in New Zealand and Australia. Its main competitors are Associated British Foods PLC, BHP Billiton and Vedanta Resources, and many more, having the nearest amount of profit margin. Wesfarmers tries to seek a business strategy that operates with business sustainability. This type of operation covers a focus on the utilisation of natural resources, through the management of the business with predominant awareness of carbon emission and decreasing the company's negative impact on the environment.
Literature Research
Company/ industry
According to Hichri & Ltifi, (2021), quality management systems are part of corporate social responsibility for a company or an organisation. So, each company is responsible to follow the guidelines of ISO 9001 to provide quality products to their customers. At the same time, they are also responsible to remain aware of both the positive and negative impacts of their products on the health of their consumers. Apart from that, the weather also states that the QMS plays a very crucial role in the context of deciding the success rate of a company. As a result, companies like Wesfarmers have a chance to acquire customers' trust and sufficient revenue by practising providing quality products to consumers (Tortorella et al., 2021). The author also stated that it is very sure companies that do not maintain the guidelines of managing the quality of the products do not have chances for long-term success. Finally, it can be said that QMS plays a very significant role in helping companies to understand the significance of maintaining the guidelines of ISO 9001.
According to Kemp, (2021), QMS have a greater role in business industries in the context of meaning balance between corporate ethics and financial performance. There are a few companies that do not follow the guidelines of quality management to earn money by influencing customers in the wrong way. There are also a few companies that are still unsuccessful though they maintain the guidelines of QMS. So, along with maintaining QMS, it is also very important to make the consumers aware of this role and its significance on their health and lifestyles. The capability of companies in meaning these responsibilities decides the success rate and also revenue rate companies are going to achieve from the markets and its consumers. As opined by the author, companies that maintain QMS systems are most likely to provide quality products at a reasonable princess to the customers. So, it can be said that, on the one hand, companies benefit from these systems. On the other side, customers also will get benefit by having the chance to purchase quality products and services at reasonable prices (Freitas, Vaz-Pires & Câmara, 2020). Maintaining these guidelines improves the overall corporate culture. Finally, it can be said that maintaining the QMS rules and guidelines can help companies like Wesfarmers to handle all kinds of issues and challenges.
Needs of QMS for Wesfarmers
Quality management systems can be considered as the collection of fair processes of businesses that are directly connected to organisations' strategic directions and purposes. Apart from that, this management leads organisations to meet customers' needs and necessities constantly to enhance customer satisfaction rates. Like every other organisation, the Australian conglomerate company also needs to practise these guidelines very carefully. The bends of maintaining QMS for Wesfarmers will be mentioned and discussed in the following points.
Product Safety
Maintenance of product safety uses of the products is one of the major significant roles of QMS. It helps companies to manufacture products with safe uses of substances. As a result, the company Wesfarmers will be able to manufacture the products without mixing any harmful products if they become more aware of QMS guidelines of ISO 9001:2015. These initiatives will be very helpful for the customers and consumers of this company.
Ethics and sustainability
QMS guidelines lead companies towards aching sustainability and ethics by doing fair business. As a result, companies like Wesfarmers need to become fully aware of the role of these guidelines to achieve sustainable business goals by practising business ethics (Ladewski & Al-Bayati, 2019). These kinds of initiatives will help customers to lead healthy lifestyles by using sustainable products.
Business growth
Maintaining the rules and guidelines of QMS of ISO 9001:2015 can lead companies toward ultimate business growth. So, the company needs to implement those sustainable practices to achieve the ultimate rate of business growth along with achieving the optimum customer satisfaction rate.
Implementation Process
Steps
According to ISO 9001:2015, the approach of four steps is used to evaluate the impacts of the standards on the organisational condition of this company. The four steps include understanding the chain of value, identifying the impression of standards, assessing the value drivers and deciding the operational indicators, and the last step is to assess and calculate the outcomes.
Understanding the chain of value
The initial step is to understand and make the position of this organisation in terms of developing its business with the use of a value chain of a wide range of industries. The value chain requires key business procedures with activities related to core values (Alexandra, 2020). Moreover, whether the key processes of this business can be covered is also to be understood and assessed.
Identifying The Impression of Standards
This second step includes the process of determining the activities and functions of this business in terms of understanding the value chain of the company where the ISO plays a major role. The existing documentations of this company such as organisational charts and relevant processes, quality manual, other departmental and corporate documentation and many more have to be utilised. The utilisation of these documents helps to understand the business activities and functions, processes of the operational activities of the various types of business (Craig et al., 2022). At this step, the experts of this company are cross-examined to establish which standardisations are actualised to which functions within the particular functions of the company.
Assessing The Value Drivers and Deciding The Operational Indicators
This step evaluates the value drivers of Wesfarmers which means the competitive strengths of this company. This step also decides the operational indicators that would be actualised to identify the impacts of the standardisation. Value drivers are considered crucial capabilities of this organisation that provide a competitive advantage to this company. Whether the impression of the standardisation can be evaluated in the functions that are closely associated with the value drivers, their impact on the creation of value can be importantly higher than the other functions. The operational indicators assess the impacts of results from the use of standardisations that exhibits the degradation or improvement of the company's performance.
Evaluating and calculating the outcomes
The predominant purpose of the entire assessment procedure is to quantify the impression of the standardisation and convert the proportions that result from the standardisation's use into the financial conditions. The predominant issues of Wesfarmers that are to be improved are mainly product safety, CSR activities and ethical standards and sustainability of the company. All the above-mentioned steps are helpful to enhance the quality management system that helps to improve the issues related to the mentioned issues.
Figure 1: Quality Management System
(Source: Craig et al., 2022)
Gantt Chart
Audit/ Evaluation
Internal and external issues
The audit question related to determining the internal and external issues of the business of Wesfarmers have been fulfilled through the identification and understanding of the relevant purposes that include the strategic directions of the company. These can achieve the proposed outcomes from its management system of quality. The company will have to review the information by monitoring the internal and external issues.
Requirements and Expectations of the Interested Clients
The audit questions of how the company will determine the requirements and expectations of the interested clients will have to be fulfilled through the answers related to the potential impact analysis of the company’s capability (Turnbull, Chugh & Luck, 2020). This capability can meet the customers' requirements and expectations to provide adequate services and products. The relevancy of the quality management system with the clients is to be measured by the business policies taken by the company to provide the proper answer to this question. In this context, the performance indicators such as the KPI including the net profit, and financial status yearly should be measured to establish the audit answers.
Determining the scope of QMS
According to ISO 9001:2015, the relevant question of how the company has the applicability and boundaries of the QMS been utilised to establish the scope of this company can be fulfilled with the assessment of the determination related to the solutions actualised for the internal and external issues (Barnett et al., 2020). It will also provide satisfactory answers by auditing the revenues minus the concerned expenses, the present ratio of the cash availability and the liquidity of the company. The evaluations and the audit process provide satisfactory solutions to the issues that Wesfarmers face in a wide range.
Process and system of quality management
The relevant audit questions are to be established by the answers that include how the company implements, establishes, maintains, and consistently improves the systems and processes of quality management.
Conclusion
From the above assignment, it can be concluded that QMS is one of the most significant parts of business operations. Companies which maintain their guidelines are most likely to conduct fair business operations. These guidelines help companies to become aware of the ethical guidelines of ISO 9001:2015 to manufacture quality products. This assignment discusses the role and responsibilities companies like Wesfarmers have to maintain the guidelines of QMS to manufacture quality products. Keeping going with the guidelines of both QMS and ISO 9001:2015 will help this company to deliver quality products to customers at a reasonable price. As a result, the customer satisfaction rate will also be increased along with the rate of revenue generation. The chances of achieving sustainability will also be increased as these guidelines have standard strategies for the companies to make them follow every sustainable business factor. Moreover, the overall business growth will be more satisfactory.
References
Alexandra, J. (2020). Processes and institutions for scientific independence: Reflections on land and water Australia. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland, The, 124, 49-62. Retrieved from: http://www.royalsocietyqld.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Alexandra_Web.pdf
Barnett, S., Harrington, N., Cook, P., & Simmons, C. T. (2020). Groundwater in Australia: occurrence and management issues. Sustainable Groundwater Management: A Comparative Analysis of French and Australian Policies and Implications to Other Countries, 109-127. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32766-8_6
Craig, A., Newman, S., Stephenson, P., Evans, C., Yancazos, S., & Barber, S. (2022). Hydrogen storage potential of depleted oil and gas fields in Western Australia. The APPEA Journal, 62(1), 185-195.Retrieved from: https://riscadvisory.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Hydrogen-Storage-Potential-of-Depleted-Oil-Gas-fields-presentation-3.pdf
Freitas, J., Vaz-Pires, P., & Câmara, J. S. (2020). From aquaculture production to consumption: Freshness, safety, traceability and authentication, the four pillars of quality. Aquaculture, 518, 734857. Retrieved from: https://digituma.uma.pt/bitstream/10400.13/4693/1/From%20aquaculture%20production%20to%20
consumption%20Freshness%2C%20safety%2C%20traceability%20and%20authentication%2C%20the%20
four%20pillars%20of%20quality.pdf
Hichri, A., & Ltifi, M. (2021). Corporate social responsibility and financial performance: bidirectional relationship and the mediating effect of customer loyalty: investigation in Sweden. Corporate Governance: The International Journal of Business in Society, 21(7), 1495-1518. DOI 10.1108/CG-10-2020-0472
Kemp, K. (2021). The Absence of Competition in the Privacy Terms of Online Marketplaces. Available at SSRN 3905693. Retrieved from: https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Dr%20Katharine%20Kemp%20%2816%20August%202021%29.pdf
Ladewski, B. J., & Al-Bayati, A. J. (2019). Quality and safety management practices: The theory of quality management approach. Journal of safety research, 69, 193-200. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ahmed-Al-Bayati-3/publication/332078711_Quality_and_Safety_Management_Practices_The_Theory_of_Quality_Management
_Approach/links/5ca8fb08a6fdcca26d04522a/Quality-and-Safety-Management-Practices-The-Theory-of-Quality-Management-Approach.pdf
Tortorella, G., Miorando, R., Caiado, R., Nascimento, D., & Portioli Staudacher, A. (2021). The mediating effect of employees’ involvement on the relationship between Industry 4.0 and operational performance improvement. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 32(1-2), 119-133. Retrieved from: https://re.public.polimi.it/bitstream/11311/1170409/1/The%20mediating%20effect%20of%20employees%20invo
lvement%20on%20the%20relationship%20between%20lean%20implementation%20and%20service%20
performance.pdf
Turnbull, D., Chugh, R., & Luck, J. (2020). Learning Management Systems, An Overview. Encyclopedia of education and information technologies, 1052-1058. Retrieved from:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1743727X.2020.1737002?needAccess=true&role=button
Wesfarmers (2023). Home. [online] Wesfarmers.com.au. Retrieved from: https://www.wesfarmers.com.au/.