ASSIGNMENT 2
1. Discuss the importance of quality partnering and strategic alliances.
Strategic alliances refer to agreements between companies who form a partnership to work together towards a common objective. It helps in continual improvement to products and processes, customer satisfaction and relationship between customers and suppliers. It involves the sharing of costs and pooling of resources and knowledge to make the best use of it.
In addition, it reduces the risk factor as instead of one there are other companies which bear the consequences. Sharing expertise of both the companies will provide them the required cutting edge to compete in the market.
2. Discuss the various forms of quality partnering and strategic alliances.
The different forms of quality partnering and strategic alliances are discusses below:
Internal Partnering: It refers to bringing the managers, employees, teams, and individual employees together to form mutually supportive alliances that maximize the human resources of an organization. The idea here is to fully utilize the potential of the workforce and improve quality continuously.
Partnering with Suppliers: The relationship between organization and it suppliers to create and maintain a loyal, reliable relationship so that both the parties win and continuously improve quality,productivity and competitiveness.
Partnering with Potential Competitors: Collaborating with competitors in a way that both the companies increase their productivity, quality and resultant competitiveness to levels beyond what individual companies could achieve by themselves.
Global Partnering: Partnership between companies that cater to the worldwide requirements to improve productivity and quality refers to as global partnering
Education and Business Partnership: The partnership between business organization and educational institutions in order to continually improve employee’s work skills
3. Discuss the importance of quality culture.
Quality culture is an organizational value system that leads to an environment that is favourable for the establishment and continual improvement of quality. It consists of values, traditions, procedures, and expectations that promote quality. An organizational culture refers to the everyday manifestation of an organization’s underlying values and traditions.
Quality culture is very important as it shows how employees behave at work, how they approach their jobs, what are their expectations out of the organization and each other. It is vital to establish a quality culture in an organization as it helps maintain an environment of mutually supported teamwork, and helps develop partneships amongst each other and external units for benefit of the company.
4. Explain the difference between traditional and modern quality culture
There are several differences between traditional and modern quality culture, these differences will be most noticeable in the following areas:
5. How do you understand who is a customer?
In a total quality setting, there are internal customers and external customers. External customers are people who buy and use products of the organization. Internal customers are people within the organization usually referred to as staff.
Hence, external customers define quality and internal customers produce it.
6. Explain customer defined value,value analysis and retention.
Customer-defined value refers to the sum of a customer’s perception of the following factors:
Customer value analysis refers to the process to determine what is important to the customers, what do they want from the organization and what is it about the company’s products and services that the customers value.
Customer retention: Organizations should not limit themselves to customer satisfaction but should focus on customer retention. The idea here is not if the customers are satisfied with products and services, but to see if the customer is satisfied enough to be retained.
7. Discuss product innovation models for customer retention.
The model for product innovation was developed by Praveen Gupta for organizations to keep their products up-to-date, attractive and relevant for customers. It consists of the following steps:
· Target the opportunity – Identify customer needs and use them to guide innovations
· Explore the idea – Conduct thorough research to ensure proposed innovation will be successful
· Develop alternatives – Develop several alternatives to determine the best
· Optimize the solution – Optimize the chosen alternative for production and delivery
· Commercialize the innovation – Develop and deploy efficient marketing program for the innovation
8. Discuss employee empowerment.
Employees with ownership are often referred to as empowered employees. They are given ownership of the processes they are responsible for and the products or services generated by those processes. It gives them the authority to control their work, and openly share suggestions and ideas with the organization. Since they are responsible for their activities, they have an urge to continually improve products, processes, and services and strive for customer delight. Empowered employees are usually more concerned about the quality of work than the CEO as it has “my signature” on the work. Employee empowerment helps not only the employees to get the best out of them but also the organization to increase its productivity and improve overall quality.
9. Discuss leadership for quality.
Leadership for quality refers to applying principles of leadership in such a way as to continually improve the performance of people, processes, and products. This is turn helps in improving the quality, value, productivity, service ,market share, longevity, business expansion and return on investment.
10. How to lead for a better quality change?
A good leader is one who is committed to both the job to be done and the people who must do it, and strike an appropriate balance between the two. In order to lead, one must be a positive role model and have a positive influence on the one whom they are leading. Leaders should have good communication skills and the ability to persuade people to their point of view. Sense of purpose, self-discipline, honesty, credibility, common sense, stamina, commitment and steadfastness are some of the characteristics required in a leader to lead a change in quality. Following are the steps to lead a change:
· Develop a compelling change picture
· Communicate the change picture to all stakeholders
· Conduct a comprehensive roadblock analysis
· Remove or mitigate all roadblocks identified
· Implement the change
· Monitor and adjust
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF SOCIAL NETWORKING ARTICLES
This Robot Makes Doctor Visits Less Terrifying for Kids
The article talks about dealing with scary and painful procedures involving needles and how robots might help. These robots have been named MEDi and are well programmed to deal with cognitive behavior. MEDi helps coach kids through simple medical procedures that are likely to cause them pain and distress. A research was conducted in 2013 with a group of children with chronic medical conditions and a moderate to severe fear of needles. It showed that Medi could reduce pain and distress by up to 50 percent which is remarkable.
As per our discussion on Moodle, everyone is supportive of this new technology and innovation. We all believe it would be great if kids could be distracted and suffer less with the help of these robots. As a result, it would help the doctors to perform their work efficiently and would improve the quality of the ongoing operation.
I give thumbs up to MEDi!!!
Moodle link: http://njit2.mrooms.net/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=58791#p190697
Drones and Wearables App Store Launches
The article talks about the world’s first app store for Internet of Things (IoT) by the makers of Ubuntu Linux for devices that don’t have graphic user interface (GUI). The idea here is to load your Iot app in your drone or robot and use it as per your requirement. For example, a real estate agent could download a drone app that flies through the home and takes pictures of every room. An industrial user could use it for finding out and welding leaks in a pipe. As per the article, Ubuntu already powers smartphones and smart TVs and is developing its own smartphone brand.
According to me, anything which makes our life easy and comes at a good value for money is good deal. As long as I'm getting all my work done using the smart devices, I'm good to go. Group members on Moodle are quite positive about this new app store but are dubious about its success in this already dense smartphone market. The only problem I see here is standardisation. In order to make devices work with each other is to share a common platform or some a set of protocols which make unlike devices work together. A kitchen kettle incompatible of running the app makes the entire concept futile.
However, I'm really looking forward to this IoT and would really like to see how things shape up and help us in our super busy lives.
Moodle link: http://njit2.mrooms.net/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=59535#p191111
Cheap Gas Reignites America's Love Affair With The SUV
The video talks about increasing demand of SUV’s in America as a result of dip in gas prices. It shows that gas prices have gone down by $1.50 a gallon since the summer peak in June. Since then truck and SUV markets have really picked up. SUVs and crossover showed an increase of about 12% last year, whereas the sales of small and hybrid cars dropped by 8%.
The participants on Moodle have different take on this. One of them says that it’s the love of Americans for bigger cars along with low gas prices which is resulting in increasing sale of SUVs. However, another participant argues that the wealthier section of the society is the one who are not affected by the variable gas prices and constitute a very small portion of the society. However, according to me cheap gas is not the only reason for increase in the sales of SUV’s. As we all know, gas prices are not constant and keep changing with time. I’m not saying that gas price is not considered while buying a car, there are other factors too which are taken into consideration. I feel customers are always looking to a great fuel economy car. The video shows that the SUVs produced nowadays are 26% more efficient than what it used to be few years back. This shows that it’s not just the gas price or the love for SUV’s but also the efficiency of the cars which plays a crucial role.
Low gas prices along with increased efficiency of new SUVs are the reason behind increase in the number of sales of trucks and SUVs.
Moodle link: http://njit2.mrooms.net/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=62910#p191128
1. Discuss the importance of quality partnering and strategic alliances.
Strategic alliances refer to agreements between companies who form a partnership to work together towards a common objective. It helps in continual improvement to products and processes, customer satisfaction and relationship between customers and suppliers. It involves the sharing of costs and pooling of resources and knowledge to make the best use of it.
In addition, it reduces the risk factor as instead of one there are other companies which bear the consequences. Sharing expertise of both the companies will provide them the required cutting edge to compete in the market.
2. Discuss the various forms of quality partnering and strategic alliances.
The different forms of quality partnering and strategic alliances are discusses below:
Internal Partnering: It refers to bringing the managers, employees, teams, and individual employees together to form mutually supportive alliances that maximize the human resources of an organization. The idea here is to fully utilize the potential of the workforce and improve quality continuously.
Partnering with Suppliers: The relationship between organization and it suppliers to create and maintain a loyal, reliable relationship so that both the parties win and continuously improve quality,productivity and competitiveness.
Partnering with Potential Competitors: Collaborating with competitors in a way that both the companies increase their productivity, quality and resultant competitiveness to levels beyond what individual companies could achieve by themselves.
Global Partnering: Partnership between companies that cater to the worldwide requirements to improve productivity and quality refers to as global partnering
Education and Business Partnership: The partnership between business organization and educational institutions in order to continually improve employee’s work skills
3. Discuss the importance of quality culture.
Quality culture is an organizational value system that leads to an environment that is favourable for the establishment and continual improvement of quality. It consists of values, traditions, procedures, and expectations that promote quality. An organizational culture refers to the everyday manifestation of an organization’s underlying values and traditions.
Quality culture is very important as it shows how employees behave at work, how they approach their jobs, what are their expectations out of the organization and each other. It is vital to establish a quality culture in an organization as it helps maintain an environment of mutually supported teamwork, and helps develop partneships amongst each other and external units for benefit of the company.
4. Explain the difference between traditional and modern quality culture
There are several differences between traditional and modern quality culture, these differences will be most noticeable in the following areas:
- Operating philosophy: Organization with traditional quality culture focusses on return on investment and short-term profit. On the other hand, organization with modern quality culture focuses on customer satisfaction. It pays attention on what is necessary to exceed reasonable expectations of the customers.
- Objectives: Organizations with traditional culture develop short-term objectives. Organizations with modern culture develop strategic plan, having both short-term and long-term objectives.
- Management approach: In organizations with traditional culture, managers are seen as the bosses who give orders and enforce policies, procedures and rules. In organizations with modern culture, managers are seen as coaches of the team, who communicate the vision and goals, provide resources and seeks employee feedback and input.
- Attitude towards customers: Organizations with traditional culture are more concerned about their needs rather than the customers. In organizations with modern culture, customer satisfaction is the highest priority.
- Problem-solving approach: Organizations following the traditional approach, either put the blame on others or wait until someone solves the problem and later take the credit. However, organizations following the modern approach focus and try to identify and isolate the root cause of the problem.
- Supplier relationships: Organizations with traditional culture pressurize the suppliers to bring the prices and speed up delivery, which might result in adverse outcomes. However, organizations with modern culture, customers and suppliers work together as partners for good of the both.
- Performance-improvement approach: Organizations with traditional culture have an erratic, reactive undertaking approach for performance-improvement while modern culture focuses on continual improvement of people, products and processes.
5. How do you understand who is a customer?
In a total quality setting, there are internal customers and external customers. External customers are people who buy and use products of the organization. Internal customers are people within the organization usually referred to as staff.
Hence, external customers define quality and internal customers produce it.
6. Explain customer defined value,value analysis and retention.
Customer-defined value refers to the sum of a customer’s perception of the following factors:
- Product or service quality
- Service provided by the organization
- The organization’s personnel
- The organization’s image
- Selling price of the product/service
- Overall cost of the product/service
Customer value analysis refers to the process to determine what is important to the customers, what do they want from the organization and what is it about the company’s products and services that the customers value.
Customer retention: Organizations should not limit themselves to customer satisfaction but should focus on customer retention. The idea here is not if the customers are satisfied with products and services, but to see if the customer is satisfied enough to be retained.
7. Discuss product innovation models for customer retention.
The model for product innovation was developed by Praveen Gupta for organizations to keep their products up-to-date, attractive and relevant for customers. It consists of the following steps:
· Target the opportunity – Identify customer needs and use them to guide innovations
· Explore the idea – Conduct thorough research to ensure proposed innovation will be successful
· Develop alternatives – Develop several alternatives to determine the best
· Optimize the solution – Optimize the chosen alternative for production and delivery
· Commercialize the innovation – Develop and deploy efficient marketing program for the innovation
8. Discuss employee empowerment.
Employees with ownership are often referred to as empowered employees. They are given ownership of the processes they are responsible for and the products or services generated by those processes. It gives them the authority to control their work, and openly share suggestions and ideas with the organization. Since they are responsible for their activities, they have an urge to continually improve products, processes, and services and strive for customer delight. Empowered employees are usually more concerned about the quality of work than the CEO as it has “my signature” on the work. Employee empowerment helps not only the employees to get the best out of them but also the organization to increase its productivity and improve overall quality.
9. Discuss leadership for quality.
Leadership for quality refers to applying principles of leadership in such a way as to continually improve the performance of people, processes, and products. This is turn helps in improving the quality, value, productivity, service ,market share, longevity, business expansion and return on investment.
10. How to lead for a better quality change?
A good leader is one who is committed to both the job to be done and the people who must do it, and strike an appropriate balance between the two. In order to lead, one must be a positive role model and have a positive influence on the one whom they are leading. Leaders should have good communication skills and the ability to persuade people to their point of view. Sense of purpose, self-discipline, honesty, credibility, common sense, stamina, commitment and steadfastness are some of the characteristics required in a leader to lead a change in quality. Following are the steps to lead a change:
· Develop a compelling change picture
· Communicate the change picture to all stakeholders
· Conduct a comprehensive roadblock analysis
· Remove or mitigate all roadblocks identified
· Implement the change
· Monitor and adjust
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF SOCIAL NETWORKING ARTICLES
This Robot Makes Doctor Visits Less Terrifying for Kids
The article talks about dealing with scary and painful procedures involving needles and how robots might help. These robots have been named MEDi and are well programmed to deal with cognitive behavior. MEDi helps coach kids through simple medical procedures that are likely to cause them pain and distress. A research was conducted in 2013 with a group of children with chronic medical conditions and a moderate to severe fear of needles. It showed that Medi could reduce pain and distress by up to 50 percent which is remarkable.
As per our discussion on Moodle, everyone is supportive of this new technology and innovation. We all believe it would be great if kids could be distracted and suffer less with the help of these robots. As a result, it would help the doctors to perform their work efficiently and would improve the quality of the ongoing operation.
I give thumbs up to MEDi!!!
Moodle link: http://njit2.mrooms.net/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=58791#p190697
Drones and Wearables App Store Launches
The article talks about the world’s first app store for Internet of Things (IoT) by the makers of Ubuntu Linux for devices that don’t have graphic user interface (GUI). The idea here is to load your Iot app in your drone or robot and use it as per your requirement. For example, a real estate agent could download a drone app that flies through the home and takes pictures of every room. An industrial user could use it for finding out and welding leaks in a pipe. As per the article, Ubuntu already powers smartphones and smart TVs and is developing its own smartphone brand.
According to me, anything which makes our life easy and comes at a good value for money is good deal. As long as I'm getting all my work done using the smart devices, I'm good to go. Group members on Moodle are quite positive about this new app store but are dubious about its success in this already dense smartphone market. The only problem I see here is standardisation. In order to make devices work with each other is to share a common platform or some a set of protocols which make unlike devices work together. A kitchen kettle incompatible of running the app makes the entire concept futile.
However, I'm really looking forward to this IoT and would really like to see how things shape up and help us in our super busy lives.
Moodle link: http://njit2.mrooms.net/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=59535#p191111
Cheap Gas Reignites America's Love Affair With The SUV
The video talks about increasing demand of SUV’s in America as a result of dip in gas prices. It shows that gas prices have gone down by $1.50 a gallon since the summer peak in June. Since then truck and SUV markets have really picked up. SUVs and crossover showed an increase of about 12% last year, whereas the sales of small and hybrid cars dropped by 8%.
The participants on Moodle have different take on this. One of them says that it’s the love of Americans for bigger cars along with low gas prices which is resulting in increasing sale of SUVs. However, another participant argues that the wealthier section of the society is the one who are not affected by the variable gas prices and constitute a very small portion of the society. However, according to me cheap gas is not the only reason for increase in the sales of SUV’s. As we all know, gas prices are not constant and keep changing with time. I’m not saying that gas price is not considered while buying a car, there are other factors too which are taken into consideration. I feel customers are always looking to a great fuel economy car. The video shows that the SUVs produced nowadays are 26% more efficient than what it used to be few years back. This shows that it’s not just the gas price or the love for SUV’s but also the efficiency of the cars which plays a crucial role.
Low gas prices along with increased efficiency of new SUVs are the reason behind increase in the number of sales of trucks and SUVs.
Moodle link: http://njit2.mrooms.net/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=62910#p191128