Total Quality Plan Implementation

Total Quality Plan Implementation Paper

David Fessler

University of Phoenix

MGT 449 / SPMO404

Quality Management and Productivity

Maurice S. Pickett

December 1, 2005

Total Quality Plan Implementation

Workshop Five

Total Quality Implementation Paper

This paper will talk about the phases of implementation and a gap analysis of the new process for billing procedures. It is going to be about bill disputes and how they are handled now and what will be happening in the future and it will also talk about the difference between "as is" and "to be" flow charts. It is going to talk about a gap analysis and it will give a summary of the requirements of implementation and will talk about how long it will take to implement the new process. It will close with a brief summary.

Phases of Implementation

The implementation is going to be very simple. We are going to eliminate the owner of the business from getting calls about disputes and have them call the office directly. This will free up a lot of time with the owner and let him focus on other things and let his billing department take care of things unless there is a serious problem he does not need to get involved. It will make things a lot easier for him also. He will not have all the interruptions on his work day for things he does not need to have to be bothered with.

There will be only phase to implement it. A letter will be sent out to all vendors to ask that they call or email or fax the office directly and skip the owner all together. This sounds simple but there have been people that have worked with him for years. It would be great but a lot of them will still call him directly. In having the processes in place he (the owner) can direct them to us and we will handle it.

The key to this is for the owner to refer all disputes to the billing department. If this is done the vendors will be in the habit of making the direct contact will the billing department and will have to deal with the billing department.

There are actually very few disputes that go on with the jobs in general and it is not a big problem at all but, this time savings can be great if everyone follows the plan. This way the boss will be able to concentrate on other things that may need his attention.

The benchmarking process compares an organizations practice, processes and outcomes to standards of excellence in a systematic way. It is a process that can also be used to design a new system or model. The best practice indicators are standards of excellence to help you identify and plan your own program possibilities and enable you to identify what exemplary sites in our study you would like to match or exceed. "Benchmarking is an activity which organizations use for discovering best practices and to establish a leadership position. By identifying world-class organizations, products (both goods and services), and business practices and then evaluating the reasons for their world-class status, companies can achieve a superior status among there competitors."

( http://www.juran.com/lower.cfm?article_id=29)

What benchmarking is going to do is regularly compare aspects of performance, which can be functions or processes with the best practitioners of other companies. Some ways of benchmarking are to look for identifying gaps in performance. Seek fresh approaches to bring about improvements in performance. Follow through with implementing improvements. Also, follow up by monitoring progress and reviewing the benefits of the program.

Benchmarking requires being open to new ideas and learning from what others do best, whether they are inside or outside the industry, domestic or foreign. Understanding the competition's strengths and how they operate will enable you to adapt and build upon their excellent practices for your own organization's use. Benchmarking helps you improve your organization's effectiveness and make the changes required to be the world-class/industry leader.

Each complaint or dispute needs to be recorded so there will be a data base of items that can be tracked and made sure that they are not from the same person repeatedly or that a process being utilized is not the cause of them. The new process in place should stream line and get disputes turned around in less time than before but, it will be documented now and it will be able to be looked at and told on average how long it is taking. There will be upper and lower limits set to ensure that all disputes are falling in the average and not above or below the set limits.

The benchmarking will start with the new process in place. Each call or dispute faxed in will be logged and we will begin to look at other companies and see if they are doing anything different then we are currently. We will check the data for a pattern of action. Each job will help build the data base and make sure that we have the proper training in place and to ensure we are doing everything we can to ensure that there are fewer errors each month that this new process is in use.

Gap Analysis

First it would need to be benchmarked against other companies and the gap analysis would be where we are going to be in a few months. Not having any formal written process in place it is hard to say we are here. After implementing the process we will be able to bench mark our selves against other companies and then we will have a starting point. This is more than just a complaint process or a process to take care of disputes with vendors. It is all about having processes in place to deal with things that come up and implementing new processes to ensure we are able to grow with the company as it does. Each day as things come up we will be able to make sure that we are ready to implement new processes and or procedures.

After installation of the new process we will be able to benchmark ourselves and then we will be able to do a gap analysis. It will not be a long process to make sure we are doing better than before. We will be able to administer a gap analysis as soon as we bench mark ourselves.