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C.M.Sedani Page 1
Chapter VI: SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, RECOMMENDATIONS,
LIMITATION OF STUDY AND SCOPE FOR FUTURE WORK
“Any thing experienced in terms of general cause and specific effect must be an illusion, because such causes and effect exists only relative to each other. Indeed, whatever has a beginning must have either real or unreal end.” - Swami Prabhupada, Shrimad Bhagavatam, (224, pp. 124) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This research examines how a firm should select and adopt “good quality
practices” to improve the manufacturing performance in SMEs as well as large
enterprises. Currently, no framework or model is available, which integrates ISO
9000, TQM and Quality Awards, and decisions regarding quality performance
initiatives are based on ambiguous judgements of quality managers. In past,
Research has had little to offer the manager in this regard. This research aimed
to fill this gap by exploring quality practices and performance measures and
their assessment through a proposed model for “Good quality practices and
Performance”. The study also provides the relationship of different performance
measures with quality practices, to indicate the difference between SMEs and
large enterprise.
This chapter summarises and discusses the knowledge gained from this
research and identifies areas for further research. Section 6.1 presents the
conclusion and summary of key evidence of research findings of previous
chapter. Section 6.2 suggests several recommendations based on empirical
examination of this research in the areas of QM and adoption of initiatives for
quality practitioners. Section 6.3 presents the limitations of this research, and
finally section 6.4 suggests areas of future research. The thesis ends with the
conclusion.
6.1 Summary of Research findings of this study
Studies on service quality assessment have attracted the attention of
researchers since 1970s. The researchers mainly focus on issues of measuring
performance through several manufacturing and quality inputs. However, the
measurement of performance is largely influenced by the expectations and
C.M.Sedani Page 2
perceptions of customers because they are directly utilising the manufactured
product.
The quality practitioners across the India have shown their interest in
adopting ISO 9000, TQM and QA model guidelines to manage the quality and
continual improvement in their organization, with an assumption that ISO 9000
is mainly for SMEs and TQM/QA largely applicable and practiced in LE. There is
no such model is available which integrates ISO 9000, TQM and QA models.
The selection of quality typology in Indian scenario is dependent on rise in
competitiveness and increase in sales turnover
Further, in SMEs it was observed that firms are reluctant to implement
TQM in their organizations, due to its long term process of implementation and
fear of failures of TQM programmes. They also view QA model guidelines as a
part of winning the award only, with spending the huge amount of time and
capital and even not aware with the fact; that SMEs can also participate in QA
winning procedures. This, is probably due to the two most recognised business
excellence models, the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence (CPE) and
the European Foundation for Quality Management Business Excellence Model,
being developed in the West, and their use in Asia following later. Moreover,
manufacturing practices and performance differs in many ways with different set
of mind of expectations (before manufacturing) and perceptions (after selling)
across the industries. Performance measures require a different model of
quality practices; that are even antagonistic in their nature since maintaining
paradoxes; can be one of the biggest challenges for organizations in
competitive environment.
Hence, it was desirable to develop a model for adopting good quality
practices in industries to assess the impact on manufacturing practices and
performance (performance measures) to enable the managers with self
assessment of quality practices and performance measures in ISO 9000
certified firms, TQM practicing firms, and firms willing to apply for Quality Award.
Therefore, in this dissertation work, attempt has been made to provide a model
for designing the instrument suiting to both SMEs and LE and to identify the
bottlenecks for measuring the performance measures. The proposed model of
adopting good quality practices in industries to asses the impact on
manufacturing practices and performance, was in aligned with several
C.M.Sedani Page 3
frameworks of past. However, unlike past frameworks; the advantage of
proposed model can be obtained in both ways: measuring the performance as a
single construct with eight constructs of quality practices, and measuring five
performance indicators (product quality, process improvement, financial
performance, customer satisfaction, and employee satisfaction) with single
construct of quality practices. This dual advantage differentiates the proposed
model with all past empirical frameworks. The proposed model of quality
practices and performance measures provided the scale stability as reliability
and validity assessment, mentioned in Chapter IV of this thesis has shown that
model is statically significant for empirical investigations. Table 6.1, further
provides the summary and checklist of reliability and validity assessment of
model.
Assessment Analysis Final Items Observations Conclusion
Reliability Eight constructs of Quality Practices and One Constructs of Performance Measures (Means of all 24 constructs)
For Quality Practices N=40, For Performance Measures N=24,
The Cronbach’s α Value is ≥ 0.7
The α Value more than 0.7 is acceptable for New Scale. The analysis provides the conclusion that scale provides the internal consistency and content validity for measurement (Nunnally,1998)
Reliability All constructs of Quality Practices are considered as single Construct to measure five dimensions of Performance Measures
For Quality Practices N=40, For Performance Measures N=06,
The Cronbach’s α Value is ≥ 0.7
The Value more than 0.7 is acceptable for New Scale. The analysis provides the conclusion that scale provides the internal consistency and content validity for measurement (Nunnally,1998)
Unidimensionality Analysis
Eight constructs of Quality Practices and One Constructs of Performance Measures (Means of all 24 constructs)
For Quality Practices N=40, For Performance Measures N=24,
All GFI Values are ≥ 0.9
The GFI Values more than 0.9 provides the scale maintains the evidence of Good fit (Bentler, 1990). The Cronbach’s α Value ≥ 0.7 & GFI Value ≥ 0.9 for composite score of all nine constructs indicating that there is no evidence of a lack
Table 6.1: Summary & Check-list of Reliability & Validity Assessment
C.M.Sedani Page 4
of Unidimensionality for all constructs (Hair et al. , 2005)
Unidimensionality Analysis
All constructs of Quality Practices are considered as single Construct to measure five dimensions of Performance Measures
For Quality Practices N=40 (as a single construct) For Performance Measures N=06,
All GFI Values are ≥ 0.9
The GFI Values more than 0.9 provides the scale maintains the evidence of Good fit (Bentler, 1990). The Cronbach’s α Value ≥ 0.7 & GFI Value ≥ 0.9 for composite score of all nine constructs indicating that there is no evidence of a lack of Unidimensionality for all constructs (Hair et al. , 2005)
Discriminant Validity
For Quality Practices & Performance Measures
For Quality Practices N=40, For Performance Measures N=24,
The confirmatory Factor Analysis and Chi-Square Value for Test of Independence of all constructs ≤ 0.05
The CFA Model with KMO value ≥ 0.6 along with statistical significant value of chi-square ≤ 0.05, exhibits that constituent items estimates only one construct to maintain Discriminant validity of a scale (Ahire et al., 1996)
Criterion-Related Validity
For Quality Practices & Performance Measures
For Quality Practices N=40, For Performance Measures N=24,
The composite score of all nine constructs is indicated by Co-generic Model with Pearson co-relation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)
The scale score of quality practices is co-related with performance measures shows statically significant correlation between two variables
This research provides the model for adopting quality practices in industries and
questionnaire for self assessment of quality practices in industries. The
suitability of our questionnaire can be mentioned as:
It provides the self assessment to ISO certified SMEs, for evaluating their
performance. Most SMEs start their quality journey from ISO certification,
and after receiving the certification they do not continue the quality
journey due to lack of awareness for TQM implementation and QA
guidelines. This questionnaire will provide the evaluation of quality
practices and performance in their firm, and will suggest the area of
improvement. The questionnaire includes TQM elements and QA
guidelines for assessment, which will provide them focus on attempting
the quality initiatives in their firm, beyond ISO 9000 certification. Such
C.M.Sedani Page 5
initiatives will provide them adoption and implementation of good quality
practices in their firm, which is part of TQM philosophy and QA
implementation strategy. Thus ISO certified firms, in more or less will
start/ continue their journey towards “Total quality” and continual
improvement.
TQM practing industries, shows more rigorous approach for managing
quality in their units; than ISO 9000 certified firms. However
implementation of TQM is quite challenging; since the philosophical
framework of TQM, do not provide any concrete strategy for continual
improvement. Our instrument includes several items based on QA
criteria, which will provide them certain guidelines to focus their efforts
and strategy from old paradigm of TQM to emerging paradigm of winning
the Business Excellence (Quality) Award. Our instrument also contains
the items of ISO 9000 certification, and it will provide the self assessment
to those firms, have applied for ISO certification. Thus our instrument will
provide the evaluation to TQM firms, where they actually stand for
winning the quality award and how far they are from receiving the ISO
certification.
The research instrument also provides certain guidelines and self
assessment to QA winning firms. The participation in and winning of
business excellence awards appears to be a key issue for many
organisations that have adopted business excellence. The QA category
indicated that the awards have different guidelines for SMEs and LE. Our
instrument also contains the criteria of high profile LE and thus provides
the evaluation to QA winning SMEs for their next objective of winning the
Quality Award in LE category; in recent future. It also provides them an
assessment for attaining the ISO 9000 certification.
For QA winning large enterprises (LE) the association with winning the
award is representation of high degree of prestige. In addition,
participation in awards was seen as a way of validation or getting
independent assessment of the organisations. However, our concern is
that there are a number of barriers to long-term commitment that need to
be addressed. Significantly, the most significant barriers are internal and
C.M.Sedani Page 6
relate to a lack of development of a business excellence culture, unclear
benefits from business excellence and a lack of resources. Firstly, the
failure to fully educate the majority of staff in business excellence may be
partly to blame for the failure to develop a business excellence culture.
Secondly, the focus on short-term plans in some organisations and the
failure to fully understand the long-term benefits of business excellence
means that some organisations are unwilling to commit resources to
business excellence. Thirdly, national award administrators may be
focussing too much of their time on running the awards process rather
than educating organisations on the meaning and benefits of business
excellence and how to develop a business excellence culture in their
organisations. When organisations were asked what BE administrators
should focus on improving or undertaking, more often the responses
were adoption of best/good quality practice as the highest priority
activities. In addition, and rather alarmingly, 60 % of surveyed companies
believed that the prime purpose of a BE framework is to assess a
company’s management systems and performance so that an award can
be given to the “best company” which indicates that understanding of
business excellence can be improved. Our instrument recommends to
QA winning firms, to opt for world class level of TQM adoption, beyond
the business excellence.
The research design was developed in three phases: establishing
conceptual back ground, developing the framework and testing of research
instrument (theory building), and conduction of explorative survey to obtain the
empirical investigations (theory testing). The detailed design was already
described in Chapter III of this dissertation. This research has examined several
hypotheses related to quality practices and manufacturing performance. The
key evidence of findings were mainly focusing the significant relationship
between quality practices, impact of length of time, approaches to quality
implementation, impact of other factors on manufacturing performance
(measured as manufacturing practices and performance or performance
measures). Along with newly designed model, this dissertation also provides the
evaluation methodology which incorporates length of time with quality
implementation, order of implementation of quality typology, impact of other
C.M.Sedani Page 7
factors on performance to provide several investigations along with defining the
relationship between quality practices and performance. The evaluation is not
just relating the comparison of an apple (ISO certified firms) with another apple
(QA winning firms) but provides the systematic empirical examination for ISO
certified firms in two groups ( ISO certified and TQM practicing) and QA winning
firms, have just turned into LE from SME. Thus the outcome of this dissertation
provides the empirical assessment for only ISO certified SMEs, ISO certified
and TQM practicing SMEs, and SMEs who bagged QA recently and turned into
LE. This evaluation is compatible to provide decision aid to any quality
practitioner, adopted any of these typology or all the three typologies in his firm,
irrespective of its belonging to SME or large manufacturing unit.
In addition, the length of time with quality implementation, adoption of
quality typology, selection of typology to win the quality awards and age of firms;
size of firm; type of manufacturing; and annual sales turnover also influences
manufacturing performance to large extent. Therefore, it becomes practically
difficult to set the standards and procedures for measuring and evaluating the
performance measures. The proposed model and research instrument of our
study provides the assessment for all above mentioned influencing variables on
manufacturing practices and performance. Thus it can be mentioned that our
questionnaire and research instrument provides multiple analysis for QM
practices to assess the impact on manufacturing practices and performance,
which provides an added advantage and comparison over previous frameworks.
The other aspects of quality practice significant to winning the quality
awards, and impact of quality practices on different performance indicators, and
empirical findings of manufacturing performance outcomes, is presented as a
summary and key evidences in Table 6.2.
C.M.Sedani Page 8
Table 6.2: Summary and key evidence of findings
Research Question Hypothesis To test / Findings Conclusion Key Evidence
R1: Do all quality practices provide positive and significant relationship with performance measure?
H1-1: There is significant and positive relationship between ISO 9000 quality practices and Performance Measure
Only process Management has shown positive and significant relationship with performance measure(t ≥3.0 and p ≤0.005)
H1-1: Rejected
There is insignificant relationship between quality practices and performance
H1-2: There is significant and positive relationship between TQM practices and Performance Measure
Only planning and customer focus have shown positive and significant relationship with performance (t ≥3.0 and p ≤ 0.005)
H1-2: Rejected
There is insignificant relationship between quality practices and performance
H1-3: There is significant and positive relationship between QA Model practices and Performance Measure
Only leadership, planning ,customer focus, people management, process management, and supplier relationship have shown positive and significant relationship with performance measure (t ≥3.0 and p ≤ 0.005)
H1-3 : Rejected
There is insignificant relationship between quality practices and performance
R2: Does a length of time with quality adoption provide significant impact on Manufacturing Practices & Performance?
H2-1: In SMEs, length of time with TQM implementation is significantly correlated with Manufacturing practices and performance.
In SMEs, length of time with TQM implementation has shown significant correlation ship with manufacturing practices and performance
H2-1: Accepted
Length of time with ISO certification is not significantly related with manufacturing practices and performance
C.M.Sedani Page 9
(Correlation found significant at the 0.01 level) ( MRA shown Adj. R
2= 0 .73
with ∆F=0.000 of TQM practices ≥ Adj. R
2= 0.54 with ∆F=0.000 of ISO
certification)
H2-2: In large firms, length of time with TQM implementation is significantly correlated with Manufacturing practices and performance
In large firms, length of time with TQM has shown significant correlation ship with manufacturing practices and performance (Correlation was significant at the 0.05 level)
H2-2 : Accepted
Length of time with ISO certification is not significantly related with manufacturing practices and performance
R3: Do different approaches to adopting quality in firm, provides significant impact on manufacturing practices and performance?
H3 : In SMEs, implementation of TQM before ISO 9000 provides significant impact on Manufacturing practices and performance
In SMEs, Implementation of TQM before ISO 9000 has shown significant impact on manufacturing practices and performance (ANOVA indicated that performance means of group implemented TQM before ISO 9000 was higher than other two groups)
H3:Accepted Implementation of ISO 9000 before TQM hasn’t shown significant impact on manufacturing practices and performance.
C.M.Sedani Page 10
Research Question Hypothesis To test / Findings Conclusion Key Evidence
R4: Which quality practice is significantly associated with winning the Quality Award?
H4: TQM practices are significant to win the Quality Awards
TQM practices are found significant to win the Quality awards
( ANOVA of QA winning firm with more years with TQM practices and less year with ISO certification has shown higher means over SMEs with more years with ISO certification and less year with TQM)
H4:Accepted ISO certification is not significant to win Quality Awards
R5: Is there any impact of other factors on manufacturing performance of industries?
H5-1: There is significant and positive impact of other factors on manufacturing performance of SMEs.
The impact of other factors was not found positive and significant with manufacturing performance of SMEs
The multivariate analysis has shown Pillai's Trace (F=2.361, P≤ 0.05), Wilks' λ (F = 2.904, P≤0.05), Hotelling's Trace (F=3.675, P≤0.05), and Roy's Largest Root (F = 11.133, P≤0.05) with partial eta square values for age of firm (0.33), size of firm (0.38), type of manufacturing (0.44) and annual sales turnover (0.70)
H5-1 Rejected
Only annual sales turnover provides significant and positive impact on manufacturing performance
H5-2:
There is positive and significant impact of other factors on manufacturing performance of ISO Certified SMEs
The impact of other factors was found insignificant and negative with manufacturing performance of ISO certified SMEs
Roy's Largest Root was comparatively smaller for ISO certified SMEs (value 0.39, F =1.56, P> 0.05) in comparison with other three variables to indicate at least one or two variables are negatively influencing the performance and all values of partial eta square were also found very low.
H5-2 Rejected
Both annual turnover and size of firm has shown negative impact on manufacturing performance of ISO certified SMEs.
C.M.Sedani Page 11
H5-3: There is positive and significant impact of other factors on manufacturing performance of TQM Practicing SMEs
The impact of other factors was not found positive and significant with manufacturing performance of TQM practicing SMES
Roy's Largest Root was comparatively smaller for ISO certified SMEs (Value 0.15, F=2.08, P> 0.05) in comparison with other three variables to indicate at least one or two variables are negatively influencing the performance. The partial eta square values for age of firm (0.27), size of firm (0.65), type of manufacturing (0.07) and annual sales turnover (0.74)
H5-3 Rejected
Only size of firm and annual turnover of TQM practicing SMEs have shown positive and significant impact on performance
H5-4: There is positive and significant impact of other factors on manufacturing performance of large enterprise
The impact of other factors was found positive and significant with performance. The Roy's Largest Root was found higher for (Value 26.45, F=5.78, P< 0.05) All partial eta square values were observed above 0.8.
H5-4 Accepted
All factors have shown positive and significant impact on manufacturing performance
C.M.Sedani Page 12
Research Question Hypothesis To test / Findings Conclusion Key Evidence R5: (Contd.) H5-5: The impact of other factors on manufacturing
performance differentiates SMEs from large enterprises
The impact of other factors has shown the difference between SMEs and large enterprises
(The Regression analysis has indicated higher Adj. R2
values for all factors of large units over the Adj.R2 values
of all factors of SMEs)
H5-5 Accepted The age of firm, size of firm, type of manufacturing, and annual sales turnover provides positive impact on performance of large manufacturing units
R6: Is there any difference in performance measures of SMEs and Large Enterprises due to quality practice?
H6-1: There is significant relationship between performance measures and quality practice of SMEs
The significant relationship was found for product features, labour productivity, inspection cost, customer services and employee motivation (t ≥ 3.0, P≤ 0.05).
Defect reduction was observed insignificant with quality practice in SMEs
H6-1: Rejected There is insignificant relationship between performance measures and quality practices
H6-2: There is significant relationship between performance measures and quality practice of large enterprise
The significant relationship was found for product innovation, customer satisfaction, operation cost, labour productivity, and ROA/ROI (t ≥ 3.0, P≤ 0.05). However, Employee involvement has shown insignificant relationship with quality practice in LE.
H6-2 Rejected There is insignificant relationship between performance measures and quality practices
C.M.Sedani Page 13
The summary of key evidences of research findings also provides the
investigations to define cause and affect relationship, between quality practices and
performance measures. It was observed that SMEs are having less number of
adaptations of good quality practices in their firms, for example only process
management was significant to performance measures of ISO 9000 certified units, while
customer focus and planning; were found significant in TQM practicing firms. Table 6.3,
presents the plausible reasons for such differences in quality practices and performance
measures.
Table 6.3: Reasons for Insignificant relationship with performance
Type of Industry Variables
needed to
be improved
Plausible reasons for insignificant relationship
with performance measures
ISO certified SMEs Leadership
Planning
Customer satisfaction
Information Analysis
People Management
Supplier relationship
Employee
involvement
The characteristics of ISO certified SMEs have been recognized as obstacle to growth due to founder’s expertise and commitment in a particular area of the business. The behaviour of organisations management should create a clarity and unity of purpose within the organization to ensure that all organisational activities are aligned & deployed in a structured and systematic manner. In the absence of proper business vision and quality planning, these firms are only focusing the improvement in processes, and emphasizing the other important aspects of continual performance improvements.
Lack of core management practices, in the absence of formal TQM programmes, no formal education and training for quality deployment and performance improvement, insufficient and less efficient workforce, no emphasize on customer needs and value, inadequate facilities and quality infrastructure, lack of supplier relationship and employee commitment, will result only improvement in processes not in all other important aspects of continual improvement.
TQM practicing SMEs Leadership
Information Analysis
People Management
Supplier relationship
Most often, it is argued that TQM is a very long term campaign, which is characterised as “good” or “not so good”. The underlying cause of TQM deficiencies is that top management and managers failed to understand the concept of quality.
C.M.Sedani Page 14
Employee
involvement
To inspire purposeful change for improvement, mangers must have a clear understanding of quality and how “good quality practices” can help to improve the performance and competitive advantage. As recommended by Deming, TQM practices are related with a specific purpose to satisfy the customers; and our finding represents an example to his way of defining TQM to “develop quality plans for customer satisfaction”. It was observed that top management has taken these two variables as their “prime strategy” and ignored the other important elements of TQM such as employee involvement & motivation, developing strategic partners, commitment for business excellence, and operational performance improvement.
The Quality Award Models has formalized the assessment of TQM implementation into six/ nine categories along with impact on business results, and all quality practices are important to attain the business excellence. Thus present findings of TQM practicing SMEs indicates that relationship between two quality practices significant to performance measures, is due to their efforts to reach the short- term objective. Firms which have implemented TQM as long term strategy will have both operational and financial results along with satisfied employees and customers. Top management support and commitment represents anomalies in implementation of TQM as long- term strategy.
Quality Award winning firms
Employee involvement
Business Excellence (BE) is defined as, excellence in strategies, Quality practices, and related performance results. These models were developed from a set of core values and principles that are considered to be essential for long-term organisational success.
Organisations which score highly when assessed against a business excellence model are considered to be a BE organisation as they will have embedded many of the core values and principles of BE. However, there is no one route or road map to achieve this status. Organisations have decided themselves, after taking into account their business environment, culture and current position, how best to advance using the Quality Award model as a benchmark.
C.M.Sedani Page 15
With respect to the deployment of BE, CEOs were not convinced by BE or TQM. They have their own way to run the company and have their own focus. From the respondents opinion it was observed that BE deployment creates extra loading on employees, and results from BE are not seen quickly. In other response, it was stated that integrating BE with other organisational initiatives is quite difficult and firms do not have the time to document and produce evidence as to why they follow a certain path and take certain actions. It was also noted that BE can be difficult to sustain due to staff turnover and lack of resources.
Although most of the respondents were trained, it may be considered a weakness that some of the organisations do not involve their employees as it is understood that BE is already embedded in their work practices of TQM and specific training is not required. Such weaknesses is indicative that BE practices needs to improve the employee involvement to move ahead for the next objective of becoming world class manufacturing (WCM) unit.
The difference in results of five performance indicators of SMEs and large enterprises,
due to implementation of quality practices; are summarised in Table 6.4.
Table 6.4: Impact of quality practices on Performance Measures
Type of industry Observations Performance Indicator
Plausible Reasons
ISO 9000 certified SMEs (N =189)
Improvements observed Product features Labour Productivity Inspection cost Customer services
Product Quality Process Management Customer Satisfaction
The process model of ISO 9000 QMS and documentation procedures is based on standardisation of activities and conformity to specification (sub clause 8.3) along with product realization (sub clause 7.1), monitoring and measurement (sub clause 8.1 and 8.3 of ISO 9001:2001). These clauses are partially associated with Process management , supplier relationship and Quality results of TQM elements (See Appendix 3.2), which provides improvement in product features, labour productivity, and customer services and reduction in
C.M.Sedani Page 16
Improvement are not observed Employee Involvement
Employee Satisfaction
inspection cost ISO 9001: 2008 QMS specifies the provision of resources (sub clause 6.1), human resources (sub clause 6.2), infra structure (6.3) and work environment (sub clause 6.4) which are partially related with TQM elements of HR management. The other clauses of Design and development (sub clause 7.3), production and service provision (sub clause 7.5) are associated with managing the process. All these clauses are related with short-term and bureaucratic approach of meeting the quality results. There are no long- term perspectives in ISO 9001:2008 QMS for defect reduction/prevention and employee motivation.
Insignificant Relationship was observed Financial Returns
Financial Performance
ISO 9001: 2008 QMS neither emphasize on increasing the ROI/ NPV and other financial indictors nor provide any measures for the same. It is generic model for process management, and managing the cost associated with it. Thus, it is not expected that certification will provide improvement in sales and other financial returns
Type of industry Observations Performance Indicator
Plausible Reasons
Quality Award winning Large Enterprises (N=40)
Improvements observed Product innovation Labour Productivity Operation cost Customer Satisfaction Financial Returns and Improvement in competitiveness
Product Quality Process Management Customer Satisfaction Financial Performance
The Quality Award model provides the guidelines for Approach/ Deployment of quality practices as ‘enablers’ and ‘results’ to measure employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction and other CPE along with scoring points. It provides the self- assessment methodology for measuring the performance. Due to item classifications and scoring dimensions, it is possible to visualise the organisational maturity stages and development. The QA model provides the implementation guidelines of core values like customer driven quality, competence development, long-range perspectives, process orientation, prevention, partnership,
C.M.Sedani Page 17
Improvement are not observed Employee Motivation
Employee Satisfaction
continuous improvement etc. and scoring system to assess the start-up, on the way, and mature stages. It is thus possible to observe the improvements in several quality dimensions and performance measures.
Most of the reasons were already described in Table 6.3
6.2 Recommendations to Quality Practitioners
This research has many recommendations for quality practitioners using ISO 9000,
TQM and Quality Award (BE) Model guidelines in their firms. Based on key evidence
presented in section 6.1., we would like to propose these recommendations to several
Quality Practitioners:
Applying ISO 9000 for internal reasons is likely to mean the same thing as
implementing quality practices. Companies applying ISO 9000 by external
motivation such as customer pressure or as a promotional tool saw fewer benefits
from it than those companies that were convinced of ISO 9000’s possibilities to
improve management practices and, consequently, performance.
The ISO certified SMEs has shown the mere focus on process improvements only
and the other important dimensions of employee involvement, customer satisfaction,
strategic planning, commitment from top management, supplier relationship and
information analysis was found ignored or underestimated. In contrast, TQM
practicing SMEs, also lagging in several dimension; has shown improvement in
quality (Strategic) planning and customer satisfaction. Thus it is recommended to
Quality managers to in cultivate the TQM practices in their firms and to think beyond
the process improvements.
The impact of length of time with ISO certification has shown insignificant
relationship with manufacturing practices and performance, which indicates that after
receiving this certification; most organizations haven’t continued their quality journey
C.M.Sedani Page 18
or stopped their quality improvement initiatives. The findings of this study
demonstrate that approaches to management of quality do impact on manufacturing
practices and performance in organizations. The length of TQM programme has
shown to affect the level of quality practices and performance measures. On the
other hand, the length of years with ISO certification failed to produce similar results.
In Indian industries, present research has provided that all 40 SMEs implemented
TQM/QA guidelines are now being recognised as large enterprises and maximising
the higher financial returns with satisfied customers. It is thus recommended to
Quality Managers of ISO certified SMEs, to focus on the quality efforts by start
practicing TQM and implementing QA guidelines to achieve the spontaneous growth
in competitiveness and continual improvement. Our study provides the evidence that
time serves as a proxy to the maturity of TQM implementation as well as impact on
firm’s performance.
The approaches for adopting the specific quality typology in firm, is one of the most
challenging issues in SMEs. Rather this topic remains the hot discussion in
academic literature to obtain the contradictory or complementary relationship of ISO
9000 with TQM. Present research would like to support the Quality Managers of
SMEs to keep continuing the TQM practices in their firms. The key evidence
supports that those firm implemented TQM before ISO 9000 are at better
competitive position, than those implemented TQM after ISO 9000. The study also
provided the outcome that firms implemented both ISO 9000 and TQM
simultaneously, are less competitive than other two groups, since it is quite difficult
to handle both quality practices simultaneously and to deploy these practices in
actual implementation. It is therefore recommended to have an early start with TQM
and later to think about ISO 9000 in manufacturing firms. Study also leads to the
conclusion that, only commitment to long-term TQM programmes differentiates firms
in terms of their quality practices and performance in relation to QM.
This study also supports to this notation that, “TQM practices are integrative
approach for winning the Quality Awards”. The key evidence suggests that more
years with TQM leads to winning the Quality Award in SMEs, and more years with
ISO 9000 is not significant with winning the awards. Thus message is clear to
C.M.Sedani Page 19
Quality Managers, to implement TQM and deploy QA model guidelines with a long
term vision, for winning the Quality Award.
From the response to open ended questions, it was found that most QA wining firms
have implemented the focus on Policy Deployment and Daily Routine Management
(DRM) to achieve their TQM implementation. As a result, these firms have redefined
its management of processes for New Product Development System, Manufacturing
Quality, Supplier Quality and Customer Quality. What does this example show? It
demonstrates that QA winning firms are capable of not only understanding how they
fit into the supply chain but also how the product is used by the customer. They are
interested and capable of both managing process improvement across the supply
chain, as well as, completing this process in a short time frame. The top
management goal of maximizing customer satisfaction means that employees and
managers do not need spend time authorizing engineers and other personnel to
tackle such problems. Suppliers and customers do not have to worry about paying
for such service. This provides QA winning firms with an edge over companies
without such top management commitment.
The analysis for impact of other factors has shown the difference in quality culture
of SMEs and large enterprises. The findings of impact of quality practice on several
performance measures also shown the differences in implementation and adoption
of quality culture in SMEs and LE. Comparing the empirical outcomes of SMEs with
QA winning large enterprises these difference can be summarised as :
1. Due to conscious or systematic attention to maintain the suitable firm size, with
cross functional team building objectives and existence of quality circles, large
units maintains the consistent performance outcomes.
2. The age of industry helps to create the brand image in market as well as among
the customers and other stack holders; since the growth of organization is known
to them through market shares and annual reports of Board of Directors.
3. The area of manufacturing is related with product launching and innovation as
the strategic introduction decisions are strongly linked to the company's (LE)
overall strategy and product planning, and includes all decisions associated with
strategic new product planning, and the newness of the product and market.
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Strategic launch decisions can be distinguished as being: product strategy,
market strategy, and firm strategy, As SMEs usually do not pay much formal
attention to strategy formulation in general, it is likely that these strategic launch
decisions, will not receive much attention either.
4. The annual turnover of a large unit is based on strategic decisions, and there
does not seem to be total consensus about the interpretation of tactical
decisions, since this set of decisions is associated with the general roles of the
different aspects of the marketing mix (product, promotion, pricing, and
distribution) which ultimately leads to improvement in financial performance.
5. The technological up gradation of workforce (type of manufacturing), with
necessary training and exposure to SPC; provides an opportunity in improving
the operation cost with less number of defects in manufactured product of large
firms. In SMES since human resources are insufficient and adequate
infrastructure and well committed quality culture is not available, it is not possible
to go beyond the improving the product features.
6. Customer satisfaction is key to benchmarking. Most of QA winning firms have
shown proper mechanism to obtain the customer feedback and communicating
the voice of customers to every level of organization. They involve both suppliers
and customers while designing the new product or improving the existing one. In
contrast, SMEs are merely focusing on resources to manage the processes and
do not involve the stakeholders while designing the process/product.
7. Financial performance of a firm is judged by many parameters, but for quick
overlook, the growth in sales rate; increase in ROI and ROA provides the
indication that firm is doing well in the business or not. For SMEs, relying on only
ISO certification; is not going to help them much in improving the financial
performance of firm, instead adoption of TQM programmes will provide the
visualisation of improvement in financial performance in their organization.
Finally, this research through its empirical findings and past review of literature;
provides the road map to quality managers, to move from ISO 9000 to TQM, and from
TQM to Business Excellence (Quality Award). Table 6.5 presents the roadmap for
C.M.Sedani Page 21
moving from ISO 9000 to TQM, and Table 6.6 shows the road map from TQM to
Business Excellence (Quality Awards)
C.M.Sedani Page 22
Table 6.5: Moving from ISO 9000 to TQM
Steps Focus on Road Map to Reach
Step I SWOT
Analysis
Identify the key areas of organizations: Strength, Weaknesses,
Opportunities and Threats (Where are we now?)
Step II Decide the
Goals,
Objectives
and Vision
Decide the benchmarks for continual improvements such as
improving product quality, innovation, customer satisfaction, Financial
returns, defect reduction, improvement in sales, labour productivity
and other key areas with TQM framework (Where we wants to go?)
Step III Developing
the Quality
culture in
organization
To promote awareness of quality as an increasingly important
element in competitiveness
To share the information on successful quality strategies of
benchmarks, and the benefits derived from implementation of
these strategies
Step IV Focus on
Core Values
Customer driven quality
Commitment from top management (Leadership)
Continuous improvement of all processes
Employee participation and development
Developing strategic plans (Based on step II)
Fast response
Design quality and prevention
Developing Long-range plans
Management by facts
Partnership development
Step V Develop a plan to put elements of TQM in place
Providing training and education to all employees
Developing strong communication and information system
Developing Quality infrastructure
Formal documented QMS (Quality management system)
Step VI Develop commitment to TQM and advance the Process
Developing the linkage among quality practices such as leadership
and planning, planning and customer satisfaction, information
analysis and process management, process management and people
management, process management and supplier relationship, people
management and employee involvement etc. and focus the shift
towards results (based on step II)
Implementation of QMS
Demonstrate top management commitment and involvement
C.M.Sedani Page 23
Ensure employee commitment and involvement and launch
the reward scheme to motivate the employees.
Create continuous improvement culture
Steps Focus on Road Map to Reach
Step VII Measure Quality ( based on customers value, managed into
processes, seek synergies among quality, cost, schedule
and time)
All measures linked to customer value
Customer segments
Returns to Stakeholders
Product design (as per customers need)
Performance against benchmarks
Step VIII Feed back and
Control
Reward and recognition for quality performance
Take remedial actions for managing the quality for
improvement in performance , and customer value
Step IX Refocus on
goals and
Objectives
Redefine the goals and objectives (Based on feedback
and control)
Developing cross functional approach
Improvement in product design
Improvement in Technology to reduce complexities in
manufacturing
Refocus on strategic factors such as employee
involvement and human resource management
Role definition, bring necessary changes in quality culture
in organization and redefine the organization structure (if
required)
Step X Continual
Improvement
Accommodate the changes in QMS
Repeat the steps V to IX for continual improvement
Table 6.6: Moving from TQM to Business Excellence (Quality Award)
Steps Focus on Road Map to Reach
Step I SWOT Analysis Identify the key areas of organizations: Strength, Weaknesses,
Opportunities and Threats (Where are we now?)
Step II Decide the Decide the benchmarks for continual improvements such as
C.M.Sedani Page 24
Goals,
Objectives and
Vision
improving product quality, innovation, customer satisfaction,
Financial returns, defect reduction, improvement in sales, labour
productivity and other key areas with BE Model guidelines.
(Where we want to go?)
Step III Developing the
Quality culture in
organization
To promote awareness of quality as an increasingly
important element in competitiveness
To share the information on successful quality strategies
of QA winning firms, and the benefits derived from
implementation of these strategies
To improve the understanding of the requirements for
quality excellence (two basic interrelated elements of
conceptual model and institutional strategy)
Step IV Focus on
Two elements of
Quality Award
Strategy
The conceptual Model
Focus on Enablers (Organizational leadership, strategic
planning, and human resource management and
information analysis), Processes (Process
management) and Results (Employee satisfaction,
customers satisfaction, impact on society, and business
results)
Developing Institutional Strategy
i) Developing strong communication system to meet
generic requirement of QA criteria, information sharing
with diverse mix of organization (manufacturers, service
providers, suppliers, stockholders etc.)
ii) Developing assessment capability for self
assessment, assessment by third-party
iii) Broad involvement in QA programme through
participation from all sectors, geographical areas, and
other organizations.
iv) To promote the QA philosophy much more than a
contest, such as it is a symbol of national effort to
promote fundamental changes in organization and
achieving the quality excellence
Step V Develop a plan to put QA Strategy elements in practice
Providing self assessment training and education to all
employees
Developing strong communication and information
system
C.M.Sedani Page 25
Developing and extending the necessary quality
infrastructure
Preparing for the QA implementation guidelines
Launch rewarding mechanism for employees
Step VI Develop commitment to QA programme
Developing the linkage among enablers, processes and
business results (based on step II)
Implementation of QA programme
Demonstrate top management commitment and
involvement
Ensure employee commitment and involvement
Create continuous improvement culture
Step VII Start self Assessment
Separate assessment for enablers, processes and
results
Identify the scope for the improvements
Bring the necessary changes
Step VIII Full self-assessment line Manager/whole organization/ quality practices
Full self assessment on a scale from 0 to 1000 points in
three evaluation dimensions viz. Quality approach,
Quality deployment, and Quality results
Pin pointing the opportunities for improvement
Step IX Self-asses cycles
Assessment from external organizations, stakeholders
and third party assessment
Obtaining the score on a scale from 0 to 1000 and
comparing with internal self- assessment
Openness to accept the criticism, and implementation of
changes (if required)
Continuing self-assessment cycle till desirable outcomes
Step X Own self-assessment Linking to systems/ Business Excellence
Reward for quality performance
Focus on broader system, unending, proactive to
opportunities, big breakthroughs and small steps.
Adoption of scientific methods for continual
improvement.
Openness to response the errors.
Challenge status quo for strategic improvement.
Customer driven through vision, enablement, and
empowerment.
Focus on business results through capable systems.
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Shifting from old paradigm to new paradigm for
continual improvement.
Applying for Business Excellence (Quality Award)
6.3 Limitations of this Research
The following limitations of this research are worth mentioning.
One of the major limitations of this study is cross-sectional research design.
Although cross-sectional survey of quality in Indian industries has been carried
out with statistically significant response rate but it is not enough to generalize
the results in a vast country like India.
The other limitation of this study is, since present study involved the small
sample of central India-wide population due to several constraints of geographic
proximities and time; the comparative study for a larger sample will provide more
microscopic examination of relationship between quality practices and
performance.
For evaluation of quality practices and manufacturing performance in industries,
only expectations and perceptions of the stakeholders are considered. It is also
important to mention that the empirical outcomes of this study may differ with
respect to attitudes of quality practitioners in different manufacturing sectors, on
their locations and behavioural pattern.
The actual difference of relationship between quality practices (variables) and
organizational performance may not take place as a simple linear and
simultaneous model tested in this study; rather, it could work in a more complex
interrelationship among the elements of TQM practices.
Although the data showed a significant QM-performance correlation, they did not
strictly prove that QM caused performance to increase, but only that an
association existed. A longitudinal study would be required to support a causal
C.M.Sedani Page 27
inference strictly for high performance improvement in quality practicing
organizations.
The proposed model of this study although applicable to organizations in various
manufacturing sectors, from the literature is clear that models and frameworks
cannot take responsibility from management as to how to implement quality
practices. Therefore, the framework represents a guide for organizations starting
the implementation of quality practices.
6.4 Scope for Future work
Any research of this nature, particularly in the field of QM and performance measures is
required to be extended considering the limitations of the study. Some of these areas
where further research is required to be carried out to tackle the limitations of the
proposed approaches are as follows:
The study with large sample size will provide more microscopic examination of
relationship between quality practices and performance.
The comparison of ISO certified SMEs with recent QA winning SMEs will provide
more understanding of the impact of ISO certification and TQM/QA guidelines in
relation to performance measures.
The comparative analysis between TQM practicing SMEs and QA winning SMEs
will provide the similarity and differences between these two types of industries,
adopted TQM in their firms.
The comparative analysis of QA winning SMEs with QA winning large firms will
provide the comparison and assessment of quality practices and performance
measures.
A longitudinal study of ISO certified firms after implementation of “Good quality
practices” by the proposed model of this research will provide the assessment in
performance improvement of SMEs.
The assessment of performance measures of four national QA models with large
sample size will provide the comparison among them to indicate which quality
frame work (model) is better than other.
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6.5 Conclusion
India’s prospects for revolutionizing global industry hinge on the answers to many
crucial questions. Among these:
• How will Indian manufacturers fit into global value chains in terms of maintaining the
product quality?
• What are the critical areas where innovation in Indian manufacturing industries (for
example, operations management, process innovation, design or distribution) is starting
to lead rather than lag behind innovation by global manufacturers along with managing
the quality practices?
This research has examined the quality practices in Indian industries and would like to
provide the conclusion to sum up the certain issues related with deploying quality
practices in manufacturing units:
Top management support is expected to be integral to encouraging the practices
and behaviours that lead to quality performance throughout the organization. Top
management should accept its responsibility for quality and provide active leadership
through well-developed, focused strategy and encourage the development of strong
customer relationship. For ISO 9000 practitioners, the message is quite clear by
developing work attitude, through developing communication of clear strategy, with
more focused approach towards managing the customer satisfaction, involving both
suppliers and employees in quality panning , and providing them necessary training and
infrastructure, it is possible for an organization to progress slowly and steadily towards
quality performance. In short inclusion of “good quality practices” will provide the
necessary platform to them, to create long-term orientation and a managerial climate
that focuses on goal congruence for quality performance.
TQM implementation, have created tangible and intangible benefits for ISO
certified SMEs. Intangible benefits included role clarity so that each person understood
their role in the organization, their suppliers and customers, and their metrics. The focus
on competency and involvement resulted in a different approach to managing people.
The focus on management points and check points and the systematic approach to
planning (including catch balling or adjusting plans across roles) all resulted in a
C.M.Sedani Page 29
management system where charts, goals and current performance relative to plan all
became commonplace throughout the company. Also, common for every problem that
came up was a systematic analysis of the problem, steps taken to resolve it, impact of
the steps and learning from each observation. Elements of TQM can be grouped into
two dimensions – ‘management system’ or ‘soft’ part and ‘technical system’ or ‘hard’
part. Without both elements, TQM would not be successful. The TQM-weighted
scenario describes a situation that would be a possible outcome by strengthening the
strong areas and developing the weak ones brought forward in this study. In this
scenario, especially certain tacit, behavioural and intangible features such as an open
culture, employee empowerment and executive commitment, can produce an
advantage. There is increasing recognition of the importance of human factors in
successful TQM implementation. This way, TQM can be seen as a potential source of
sustainable competitive advantage. Based on our study, the message for other
organisations is that TQM’s highest purpose and its real contribution to business is
providing a framework that helps the company understand and acquire these resources
as part of an integrated business management. It is quite possible for companies to
prosper outside the confines of the TQM ideology, so long as they nurture the intangible
resources critical to survival and success.
In a new direction of quality, quality awards are used as organisational self-
assessment for the excellence in quality and business. The QA winning firms have thus
represented that their only goal to fly in the face of conventional wisdom is to “maximize
shareholder value”. We believe that this is a key choice for all these firms. In other
words, we have examined whether Indian companies that have won the Quality Awards
have delivered better metrics than comparable companies in the Indian marketplace.
Our results suggest that award winning company seem to have chosen a deliberate
strategy not to “milk the cash cow” (that is not to drain the firm of resources that fuel the
generation of ideas for the future) but instead focus on improving quality subject to
financial returns targets. This resulted in a deliberate choice to focus on how to compete
and manage the quality initiatives in QA winning firms. In the UK, more than 41,000
companies have tackled their quality problems by becoming registered to ISO 9000 (BS
5750). Elsewhere in the world, registrations are also increasing, with big growth in North
C.M.Sedani Page 30
America, Germany, China, Italy, Japan, India and the Pacific Rim. Many of these
organizations are now seeking to build on their success, and are turning to TQM. The
first UK award for Quality attracted entries from major firms like TNT and Rover. In the
USA, the Baldridge Award has been won by firms like Rank Xerox. If they take TQM
seriously, through following the guidelines of quality awards, Indian firms can also learn
the lessons from them.