MBA SEMESTER IV QM0018 Quality Development Methods - 4 Credits (Book ID:B1351) Assignment Set- 1 (60 Marks) Note: Each

h question carries 10 Marks. Answer all the questions

1. What is meant by performance analysis? Describe the job performance needs in an organization. Performance Analysis - Performance is a situational concept associated with the experience which is being studied. For example, in the context of organisational financial performance, performance is considered as a measure of the change of the financial state of an organisation, or the financial outcomes that result from management decisions and the implementation of those decisions by members of the organisation. Performance analysis is an assessment of process, equipment, employee, or any other factor to gauge progress towards predetermined goals. It is guided and assessed by effectiveness, efficiency, and equity. Front-end performance analysis is one of the most important investments that the organisations should make to achieve maximum return on all other investments in human performance. Performance analysis provides a fresh view and direction for the organisation in a practical and systemic manner. A thorough performance analysis: - Identifies elements of effective management for performance under review. - Develops required training and non-training performance improvement programs. - Provides cost-effective ways for significant potential to improve performance. Performance analysis explores organisational effectiveness. Letts, Ryan and Grossman2 suggest five main capacities for organisational effectiveness Job Performance Needs - This is the second need in performance analysis. There is a slight difference between business needs and job performance needs. Business needs work on the future needs or visionary needs whereas job performance needs normally look at what is required right now. Business needs are future oriented whereas the job performance needs work towards the present needs. Job performance mainly deals with job processes, environment, and actual performance versus need performance. It always links the person who is performing with the organisation. This evaluation is further divided into three types: - People - Things - Data

On the basis of these three types, job performance analysis is done in a simpler way. To make sure that all the job performance needs have been completed, the analysis should focus on the process level to evaluate the performance (Behaviour) of the employees of the organisation. After completion of the business and job performance needs, one must know the whole concept of the current and the future requirements. There are some tools used for this analysis which has been listed below: - Performance Gaps: The difference between the actual or present performance and optimal performance is gauged with a formula. Here the present behaviour noted as (B) is subtracted from the standard that is desired (S) to measure the performance gap (G). The measurement, S-B=G needs to shortened in order to achieve objective. The formula can also be used to determine future standard also. - Analysis Information: The data gathered out of the four levels of evaluations are scrutinised for further decomposition into templates. - Jobs and Tasks: The five components describing Jobs are analysed. This consist of a description of the person doing the job, the duties (which can include one or more tasks), task which is identified by a definite beginning and end, the elements(which contain 2 or more KSA) and the Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes (KSA) - Tasks: Task is an action that contributes a specified end result and accomplishes an objective. Whenever there is a new process or equipment, when job performance is below the standard, task or need analysis is performed. Here task frequency, task criticality, the difficulties in learning, the importance to train, task difficulty, overall task importance are all described - Analysis Templates: Through the use of analysis templates it helps to gain an understanding of the system, such as department or process analysis. These templates help analysts and developers a background to work upon. - Various Approaches to Needs Analysis: It combines different methods like People-data-things analysis, tabletop analysis, Cognitive task analysis, Hybrid methods, observing the expert analysis, functional analysis etc. 2. Describe Porters Five forces model. Porters Five Force model : Michael E. Porter developed the Five Force Model in his book, Competitive Strategy. Porter has identified five competitive forces that influence every industry and market. The level of these forces determines the intensity of competition in an industry. The objective of corporate strategy should be to revise these competitive forces in a way that improves the position of the organisation

Forces driving industry competitions are: Threat of new entrants New entrants to an industry generally bring new capacity; desire to gain market share and substantial resources. Therefore, they are threats to an established organisation. The threat of an entry depends on the presence of entry barriers and the reactions can be expected from existing competitors. An entry barrier is a hindrance that makes it difficult for a company to enter an industry. Suppliers Suppliers affect the industry by raising prices or reducing the quality of purchased goods and services. Rivalry among existing firms In most industries, organisations are mutually dependent. A competitive move by one organisation may result in a noticeable effect on its competitors and thus cause retaliation or counter efforts. Buyers Buyers affect an industry through their ability to reduce prices, bargain for higher quality or more services. Threat of substitute products and services Substitute products appear different but satisfy the same needs as the original product. Substitute products curb the potential returns of an industry by placing a ceiling on the prices firms can profitably charge. Other stakeholders - A sixth force should be included to Porters list to include a variety of stakeholder groups. Some of these groups include governments, local communities, trade association unions, and shareholders. The importance of stakeholders varies according to the industry. 3. Define Strategic Quality management? Explain the steps in strategic quality planning. Strategic quality management can be defined as a process of establishing long-range customerfocused goals and defining a strategic approach to meeting those goals. It defines quality as being driven by customer and environmental needs and looks to identify critical factors that will determine the survivability and competitiveness of a firm in the near future.

Primary objectives of Strategic Quality Management are - To foresee business value in the future, to eliminate the possible risks in the environment, and to look for the changing markets trends - Analysing business strategy based on mission statement of the organisation. - Incorporating strategic analysis in the business excellence model. This is done to identify comparatively weaker areas in the business and to improve them. - Using means of quality management methods and then to acquire knowledge about the business excellence model. This is done to locate the particular areas in business that need to be improved. Strategic Quality Planning - The process starts with the principles that quality and customer satisfaction are the centre of an organizations future. It brings together all the key stakeholders. The strategic planning can be performed by any organization. It can be highly effective, allowing the organizations to do the right thing at the right time, every time. There are seven steps to strategic quality planning: 1. Discover customer needs 2. Customer positioning 3. Predict the future 4. Gap analysis 5. Closing the gap 6. Alignment 7. Implementation 1. Discover Customer Needs: The first step is to discover the future needs of the customers. Who will they be? Will your customer base change? What will they want? How will they want? How will the organization meet and exceed expectations? 2. Customer Positioning: Next, the planners determine where organization wants to be in relation to the customers. Do they want to retain, reduce, or expand the customer base? Product or services with poor quality performance should be targeted for breakthrough or eliminated. The organization needs to concentrate its efforts on areas of excellence. 3. Predict the future: Next planners must look into their crystal balls to predict the future conditions that will affect their product or service. Demographics, economics forecasts, and technical assessments or projections are tools that help predict the future. 4. Gap Analysis: This step requires the planner to identify the gaps between the current state and the future state of the organization. An analysis of the core values and concepts is an excellent technique for pinpointing gaps. 5. Closing the Gap: The plan can now be developed to close the gap by establishing goals and responsibilities. All stakeholders should be included in the development of the plan.

6. Alignment: As the plan is developed, it must be aligned with the mission, vision, and core values and concepts of the organization. Without this alignment, the plan will have little chance of success. 7. Implementation: This last step is frequently the most difficult. Resources must be allocated to collecting data, designing changes, and overcoming resistance to change. Also part of this step is the monitoring activity to ensure that progress is being made. The planning group should meet at least once a year to assess progress and take any corrective action. 4. What are the various concepts and tasks that help you to build a strong partnership with suppliers? The following concepts and tasks helps to build a strong organisation and partnership with the suppliers: - Togetherness - Ex-employees as Vendors - Vendor Control - Vendor Incentive - Vendor Rating - Vendor Selection and Capability Togetherness: It establishes an emotional bond on sound ethical business lines to promote understanding, cooperation and long-term interests of the organisation and its suppliers. You can build the spirit of togetherness through the following: - Mutual respect between the organisation and its suppliers. - Mutual recognition of the need for each other. - Fair and open dealings. - Reasonable price, mutually acceptable terms and conditions linked with quantity and service. Ex-employees as Vendors: It introduces the potential candidate with all the details about the product to be supplied right from its material of construction to all its specifications, and their importance. After some time, an enterprise will have a number of employees who will be competent and capable with proven track record, deserve to be promoted but cannot be, due to organisational limitations. You can handle this situation by making these employees as vendors of the enterprise. There are many advantages in this approach, important being the existing togetherness will be reinforced, time and effort to train new vendor is not required. Vendor Control:

This is the most crucial phase in the assurance of procurement quality. Here, the control is by vendor on himself .The purpose of control is to: - Work on re-inspection/evaluation of materials in the enterprise. - Accept materials supplied on the basis of certification given by the vendor. - Attain a stage where materials are used immediately without being reinserted, stored, and reissued with all the assistant documents at different points of transaction. Vendor Incentive: You should encourage vendors. Incentives should be given to the deserving ones and the recipient must also feel its need and derive benefit through them. Some of the different incentives practiced are: - Favourable terms of payment. - Bonus on quarterly or half-yearly basis. - Extending the business to other items. - Recommending to other organisations. - Providing technical help. - Extending financial support through financing and/or as guarantor. The emerging vender incentive is providing a large portion of an order to those who have won national awards in quality achievement. Vendor Rating: It is a quantification exercise. It is a means to arrive at a composite score which covers price, quality and service associated with the product supplied. The maximum score is 100. Rating close to 100 indicates that the supplier has performed well on all the scales of the rating. You should note that vendor performance rating (VPR) is different from product rating. VPR is used to review, compare and select vendor. It helps to identify vendors to be dropped from approved lists or who need assistance to improve their performance. VPR provides a comparison and indicates the area of improvement for each supplier. Vendor Selection and Capability: The qualification process should assess the vendors quality capability through some or all of the following means: - Information supplied by or available on the vendor - Vendor plant survey - Trial order/sample

Capability has to be assessed with care and thoroughness. Apart from financial stability, economic performance, business standing in the society etc., the following need to be considered to rely on quality suppliers: - Technically competent and skills are available. - Responsible and adapt to the changing needs. - Follow process and are capable to the meet product specifications. - Follow quality system and procedures. 5. Explain the concept of Value Engineering. Mention some of the areas around Value Engineering. Value Engineering as a systematic and a powerful problem-solving tool that has the ability to bring desired functions of the product, a process, a system or a service at minimum costs and time without compromising on the quality, reliability, performance and safety. Value Engineering is termed as an in-progress use of a methodology by various cross functional teams in order to accomplish the goals and objectives of an organisation. Value Engineering can be introduced in any situation of the life cycle of the product, systems or procedures. On employing the techniques and concepts of value engineering an organisation derives numerous benefits. Some of them are: - Reduced costs and assure cost effectiveness. - Enhanced Quality. - Reduced and eliminated unwanted and imprecise design elements. - Foster innovation and enhance productivity. During the1940s Value Engineering emerged in the United States. It was first initially conceived by Lawrence D. Miles. He discovered that if value was methodically managed then General Electric could possibly gain a competitive edge in the marketplace. Miles understood that the products were bought either for their ability to perform, or for their aesthetic qualities. Using this as a foundation principle, he concentrated on the function of the component being manufactured. His inquiry to achieve the function by improving the design of the process or by using an alternate material or using an alternate approach gave birth to value analysis. In the year 1954, the U.S. Navy Bureau of ships applied the concepts of Value analysis in various procurement activities. This activity held by the bureau of ships named the alternate method of finding the best quality solutions with maintaining lesser cost investment as Value Engineering.

Areas around Value Engineering There are 12 areas around Value Engineering. - Design Optimisation: The area of design optimisation of value engineering refers to the application of various numerical algorithms, techniques and concepts to the engineering systems. This ensures that the performance, reliability and cost of the Value engineering system are improved. The methodologies and concepts of design optimisation can be applied during the product development phase in order to ensure that the completed design has the highest quality performance, reliability and low cost. - Material Optimisation: This area facilitates in optimising and finding a shape to the process in order to ensure that it minimises a certain amount of cost and resources while still satisfying the given and defined constraints and variables. - Weight Reduction: This area facilitates in reducing the weight, cost and hence, results in better enhancement of the product quality. It ensures that minimum load is carried on to the process execution so that any associated failures are identified and eliminated. - Variant Reduction: This area around value engineering refers to a procedure that is used to enhance the precision of the estimates of the products to be produced. This can be achieved for any number of iterations defined. Thus, in order to attain award winning levels of value of this simulation effect, and to achieve a greater precision for the output, various variance reduction techniques are employed in value engineering methodology. - Feature Enhancement: It is that area of value engineering that provides additional and alternate features to the existing product and process version. It also helps in distinguishing an enhancement of already existing capacity of the product from a totally new capability. This area provides with enhanced and other sophisticated features of the existing process. - Performance Improvement: Improvement of performance is an area of value engineering that is best used for establishing and analysing various problems of performance and setting up systems in order to ensure enhanced performance. It is applied largely and efficiently to various groups of employees within the organisation or performing same jobs. Thus, performance improvement is a procedure and an area for achieving the desired results of both the individual and the industry. The major objective of value engineering performance improvement refers to the essentials of enhanced services that are measurable. The results are achieved through a process that considers the organisational context of the employees and various concepts of value engineering. This concept describes the desired performance, identifies gaps between desired and actual performance, identifies root causes, and selects interventions to close the gaps and measures any associated changes in the performance in order to increase the outcome of VE. - Assembly Problem solving: In certain cases where the traffic of the processing and operation functionality is high, it will naturally lead to congestion thereby resulting in errors or problems in the manufacturing process. This area of VE ensures that crisis identified and associated with the assembly line is analysed and consequently solved. An assembly line is a manufacturing procedure

in which the indistinguishable and identical parts and components are added to a product in a sequential manner. - Field failure problem solving: Value engineering systematically identifies the likely failures in the field process and solves them. This area helps in enhancing the reliability of the product, reduces design lead time, develops trouble free manufacturing process, eliminates expensive engineering charges, predicts and solves potential and unavoidable problems and errors of VE. - Alternate material: This area helps in producing alternate materials in case of shortcomings such as material shortage, faulty material and any other unexpected need for alternate material commodity. This becomes useful, as in any case of failure, alternate materials do not cause the processing systems to halt or terminate the operations of the VE systems. - Alternate manufacturing group: Various manufacturing strategies of Value Engineering rely on both the product as well as the process technologies. It ensures that alternate groups are available for the process of manufacturing in case of shortage of inventory, elapsed inventory delivery time and other crises. - Alternate assembly: This area of Value Engineering refers to a manufacturing process in which various alternate parts such as the interchangeable parts are added to an existing product in a sequential manner. - Alternate design: It is a very important area of value engineering. It depicts that an alternate and an interchangeable design should always be available to support the systems of Value Engineering in case of crash/failure. It also becomes useful when the defined or the implemented design of the Value engineering system is not meeting the requirements of the end users or not supporting the framework of the organisation. 6. Describe the steps involved in innovation process in an organization. Our former President Mr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam had said, A nation has to evolve as a knowledge centre through innovation and creativity. Creativity and Innovation has a great role to play in nation building, so also in the organisational functioning. Innovation can be defined as the application of an idea, a change in the thought process for doing something, or the useful application of new inventions or discoveries. Innovation is doing new things. Innovation happens at the crossroads of two important uncertainties. They are: - Uncertainty about the future. - Uncertainty about what suits best for the organisation. Steps Involved in Innovation Process In Organisation Establishing an innovation process in your organisation requires many steps and given below is a checklist of those steps:

1. Analyse the current situation: The first step in innovation process is to determine what is impeding innovation at present. It can be a lack of vision or a self-satisfied culture, or maybe a difficult approval procedure for new ideas and thoughts. 2. Set goals and objectives: Set appropriate goals and objectives which help you to calibrate the organisational progress. The types of goals and objectives you select will certainly depend on your circumstances. These circumstances must be quantifiable and they must have timescales. For example: five new products that should be brought into market within the next year, 20 prototypes to be examined with customers, two new routes leading to market or a new logistical techniques that are executed to decrease the inventories by 30%. 3. Design and train: An innovation process is designed, and the staffs are involved at all levels of innovation process. This step involves dealing with the problems raised in the Innovation Audit, and it will determine the activities to achieve the goals. The leaders and innovation champions present throughout the organisation are trained in the tools and techniques required to make innovation an accepted part of the organisational activities. 4. Run innovation programs: Implement the innovation programs that are created to accomplish the goals. These might usually include: a company intranet site construction required to support all innovation processes, implementing ideas and campaigns for both individuals and teams, recognising internal and external sources for ideas, and establishing idea evaluation and execution systems. 5. Assess, evaluate, and implement: The ideas must be promptly assessed and evaluated against clear criteria because these ideas come from the Innovation Programs. An innovation funnel is launched and the most capable ideas and concepts enter this funnel and get a thorough analysis and support. Shortly, innovative products, techniques, procedures, and partnerships are shifting from trial stage to full implementation stage. 6. Measure, communicate, and adapt: It is evident that progress against the goals is measured and successes are achieved. Everyone in the organisation is considered regarding developments. The innovation program is adapted and improved to make it more efficient and to maintain it fresh in people's minds.

MBA SEMESTER IV QM0018 Quality Development Methods - 4 Credits (Book ID:B1351) Assignment Set- 2 (60 Marks) Note: Each question carries 10 Marks. Answer all the questions
1. Write a brief note on Qualitative research method. Qualitative research methods are one of the foremost research methods which find out what people do, know, think and feel. There are multiple ways of gathering information. Qualitative method is different from quantitative method mainly because their end result is different. The results of qualitative methods help in the continuous improvement activities. Overall appreciation of an occurrence, highlighting interesting aspects, and generating specific theory are the goals of qualitative research. A preliminary explanation of an incident is provided by the researchers of qualitative methods. Some of the examples for qualitative methods are group focus, observation, survey, interviews, naturalistic, analysis of the content, and the case study. The ultimate aim of qualitative research is to offer a perspective of a situation and provide wellwritten research reports that reflect the researcher's ability to illustrate or describe the corresponding phenomenon. One of the greatest strengths of the qualitative approach is the richness and depth of explorations and descriptions." 1 "A major strength of the qualitative approach is the depth to which explorations are conducted and descriptions are written, usually resulting in sufficient details for the reader to grasp the idiosyncrasies of the situation." 2 In simplified terms, qualitative research is non-numerical data collection or explanation based on the attributes of the graph or source of data. For example, if you are to explain a multi-coloured thermal image in qualitative terms, you would explain the colour differences rather than the heat's numerical value. Qualitative research has three characteristics. First, it is the study that consists of texts and conversations. Second, it is the study of the interpretive principles that people use to make sense of their symbolic activities. Third, it is the study of contextual principles, such as the roles of the participants, the physical setting, and a set of situational events that guide the interpretation of discussion. The main strength of qualitative research lies in its ability to study phenomena that are not available elsewhere. Quality methods are defined based on the organisational needs which in turn depend on the organisational maturity and the need of the changes. Aims of the organisation have to be clearly defined to devise appropriate qualitative methods and improvise them.

There are a variety of methods that are common in qualitative measurement. Some of the more common methods include: Participant observation: This is one of the most common and most demanding methods for qualitative data collection. The systematic observation of organisational settings, the behaviour amidst teams and their interactions is highly useful to explore quality issues. This method is highly popular in organisations. The researcher becomes a participant in the culture or context being observed. It often requires months or years of intensive work as the researcher must be accepted as a natural part of the culture to be able to assure that observations are of natural phenomenon. Participant observation for a researcher includes entering the context, performing the role as a participant, collecting and storing field notes, and analysing field data. Direct observation: This is different from participant observation in a number of ways. First, a direct observer does not typically become a participant in the context. However, he strives to be unopinionated as he does not want to be prejudiced in the observations. Secondly, it enables a more detached perspective. The researcher watches the phenomenon rather than participating in it. As such, he can make use of technology as part of direct observation. Thirdly, it tends to be more focussed in nature since the researcher observes certain sampled situations or people rather than immersing in the entire context. Finally, it does not take long periods. Unstructured interviewing: This involves direct interaction between the researcher and a respondent or group. It is different from traditional structured interviewing in many ways. First, formal structured instrument or protocol does not exist, though the researcher may have initial guiding questions or core concepts to begin with. Secondly, the interviewer can freely move the conversation in any direction as the interview progresses. As such, this is particularly useful for exploring a topic broadly and thoroughly. However, lack of clear structure is a flaw in this method. As each interview is unique by itself with no predetermined set of questions for all respondents, it is usually very difficult to analyse the data accurately, more so when synthesizing across respondents. Qualitative methods have also been used in philosophy, sociology, and history for centuries. One such qualitative method is the case study. Most of the content of psychology, for example, is built on these case studies. The oldest qualitative method is naturalistic observation. This has been used by biologists and sociologists. The idea of naturalistic observation is to step back from the condition and make effort not to interfere. One of the most valuable qualitative techniques is interviewing. It is frequently a part of all of the preceding methods. Interviewing is not an easy task as it is believed by many people. However, you can find arguments for and against the use of qualitative methods. The most common criticism of qualitative methods is the problem of bias. You find biases more easily in qualitative studies than in quantitative ones. 2. What is meant by benchmarking? Mention the different types of benchmarking. What are the barriers to successful benchmarking?

Benchmarking can be defined as the systematic process of comparing an organisations products, services and practices against those of competitor organisations or other industry leaders to determine what it is they do that allows them to achieve high levels of performance. Benchmarking1 allows you to evaluate the best practices regarding the products and processes, both within an organisation and outside it. Benchmarking is carried out with the intention of using it as a guide and reference point for improving the practice of one's own organisation. Benchmarking can take place within an organisation, when it forms a part of total quality management (TQM). It can also take place in relation to direct competitors, although such organisations may be unwilling to reveal the details of their practices. Benchmarking can also be carried out in relation to organisations in entirely different fields, in which case the main value of the practice is that it forces people to look outside their established patterns of behaviour. By the definition of the benchmarking, we know that it is a rational, structured method for constantly improving key business processes and practices through comparative measurement against best practice regardless of industry or location. The flexibility and applicability of benchmarking in all business processes have made it as a way of life in some of the world s leading organisations. When you utilise competitive analyses for improving your organisational position, benchmarking carries this forward and enables you to learn from the best, regardless of sector of location. Thus benchmarking enables you to achieve superiority in the key areas which are very important to the organisations continuous success. As a strategic tool, benchmarking is most successful when applied to processes which, when improved, would make a considerable contribution to the business's overall competitive position. Types of Benchmarking There are different Types of Benchmarking : Generic benchmarking - It is a form of external benchmarking. It is a performance enhancement process which refers to best practices, recognised nationally and internationally, or world-class organisations. Generic benchmarking involves analysis across different organisations. Functional benchmarking - Functional benchmarking involves the analysis of a particular function (core business function) which may be common within amongst the two organisations. There is no focus of direct competition, depending on the function that is benchmarked, the benchmark organisation need to be in a similar industry for the exact comparison. This is typical for automated processes that use commercially available software. Process benchmarking - Process benchmarking gives importance to the selected production processes in the business rather than on the entire business. The objective of this analysis is to determine best practice processes and to compare actual processes that organisations use; managers can improve the performance of sub-systemsleading to better overall performance. Product benchmarking - This type of benchmarking is commonly known as competitive product analysis. The main aim is to assess competitor costs, product concepts

strong and weak aspects of alternative designs and competitor design trade-offs which can be obtained by analysing competitors products Global benchmarking - As business is expanding on a global basis, not only for large but also for medium-sized companies, it follows that benchmarking studies will become more international. If an organisation has an objective of becoming an effective world competitor, it cannot benchmark against a local organisation unless it is the best. Moreover, advances in communications technology has reduced the cost and time required to benchmark organisations around the globe. Strategic benchmarking - Strategic benchmarking is carried out with the help of top management and it aims at long term results. This benchmarking is the most recommended type since it creates a context and rationale that enhances all other benchmarking efforts. Strategic benchmarking focuses on competition between the organisations and assessing the success of the strategies.

Barriers to successful benchmarking - The barriers to successful benchmarking can include: - Failure to analyse findings clearly. Benchmarking consists of various elements and procedural steps. It has to be supported by research that sets up quantitative indicators and qualitative analysis of best practice. - Being aggressive in the scope of the benchmarking exercise. - Refusal to dedicate the required employees and resources. It is important to make sure that the required human resources are available to complete the task. - Insufficient information about how to adopt the agreed best practice and make it work. - Lack of skilled resources to make and manage suggested changes resulting in the failure to implement best practice.

3. Describe the two main pillars of Toyota Production system. The two main pillars of TPS: Just In Time and Jidoka JIT finds its derivation in Japan. It was developed by Taiichi Ohno of Toyota, who is referred to as the father of JIT. This ideology was formulated in order to meet or exceed the needs and expectations from the customers with as minimum delays possible. Just in Time manufacturing (JIT) is termed as a management beliefs and viewpoints aimed at eliminating and reducing wastes by producing only the right amount and combination of parts at the right place at the right time. Hence, this is based on the detail that wastes results from any commotion that adds cost devoid of adding value to the product, such as transferring of inventories from one place to another or even the simple act of storing them. JIT is termed as beliefs of continuous improvement in which various activities that do not add any value to the process are recognised and hence are eliminated for various purposes such as: - Reducing cost - Improving quality - Improving performance - Improving delivery - Adding flexibility - Increasing Innovativeness Jidoka is one of the two main pillars of TPS. It refers to the ability to stop production lines, by man or machine, in the event of problems such as equipment malfunction, quality issues, or late work. Jidoka helps prevent the passing of defects, helps identify and correct problem areas using localization and isolation, and makes it possible to build quality at the production process. The term jidoka used in the TPS can be defined as "automation with a human touch." The word jidoka traces its roots to the automatic loom invented by Sakichi Toyoda, Founder of the Toyota Group. Purpose of Jidoka Implementation - The purpose of Jidoka implementation is to diagnose the defect immediately and correct it accordingly. Now, human related judgment of component quality is minimized and worker will be only attentive, when machine will be stopped. This concept also helps in sequential inspection of components and ultimately good quality products are produced and also not much burden of final inspection is put on the shoulders of worker. Inspection is carried out by machine and when machine stops working, designated person or skilled person rush towards machine and try to resolve the problem. Jidoka focuses to investigate the root cause of that problem and make necessary arrangements so that this defect may not occur again 4. What is SWOT analysis? Illustrate with an example.

SWOT analysis helps to discover and manage your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This can be applied to both organisation and individual also. You can understand your weaknesses, and manage and eliminate threats. Moreover when you and your competitor are using SWOT framework, you can craft a strategy which helps you to distinguish yourself from your competitor so that you can compete successfully in the market SWOT analysis is a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths,

Weaknesses/Limitations, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture. It involves specifying the objective of the business venture or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieve that objective. The technique is credited to Albert Humphrey, who led a convention at Stanford University in the 1960s and 1970s using data from Fortune 500 companies. Setting the objective should be done after the SWOT analysis has been performed. This would allow achievable goals or objectives to be set for the organization. Strengths: characteristics of the business, or project team that give it an advantage over others Weaknesses (or Limitations): are characteristics that place the team at a disadvantage relative to others Opportunities: external chances to improve performance (e.g. make greater profits) in the environment Threats: external elements in the environment that could cause trouble for the business or project Identification of SWOTs is essential because subsequent steps in the process of planning for achievement of the selected objective may be derived from the SWOTs. First, the decision makers have to determine whether the objective is attainable, given the SWOTs. If the objective is NOT attainable a different objective must be selected and the process repeated. Users of SWOT analysis need to ask and answer questions that generate meaningful information for each category (strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats) in order to maximize the benefits of this evaluation and find their competitive advantage

Below is an example SWOT analysis of a market position of a small management consultancy with specialism in HRM

Strengths - Reputation in marketplace - Expertise at partner level in HRM consultancy

Weaknesses - Shortage of consultants at operating level rather than partner level - Unable to deal with multi-disciplinary assignments because of size or lack of ability

Opportunities defined market niche areas other than HRM

Threats minor level invade the marketplace

- Well established position with a well - Large consultancies operating at a - Identified market for consultancy in - Other small consultancies looking to

5. Discuss the concept of Kaizen. What are its key features? The word Kai refers to change and the word Zen means good. Thus, kaizen is a Japanese word meaning improvement or change for the better which refers to the beliefs or practises that focus upon the continuous improvement of various processes. Continuous Improvement Process, also termed as kaizen, is defined as a guiding principle that introduces small and minute changes in an operating business in order to enhance the eminence and competence of the process. This

approach assumes that human resources are paramount for organisational enhancement and improvement, since they visualise the processes in action all the time. The Kaizen approach is applied in a wide variety of fields such as manufacturing, engineering, supporting business processes, healthcare, government, banking and many other industries, especially in Japan. The efficacy of the kaizen system lies in the fact that it motivates by means of pleasing a much larger proportion of the workforce on a more frequent basis and helps build a dialogue between the employees and management to converse any problems in an organisation. Key Features of Kaizen - One of the big advantages of the Kaizen principle is that it can be applied to personal life as well as to organisations. It specifically thus contributes to the employee s personal growth and thereby ensures greater productivity. Listed below are some of the key features: - It is widely applicable, that is it can be used in both manufacturing as well as non manufacturing environments. - It allows and motivates employees to obtain possession and ownership for their work and can help strengthen team working, thus improving worker motivation. - It is extremely efficient and results oriented. - It generates speedy and quantifiable results. - It establishes the baseline and measures any change occurring in the process. - It is highly team based and cross functional. - It helps six sigma and lean six sigma process implementation in the organisation. - It facilitates team members from various functions of the operating business. - It allows participation of the top level management as well as every employee participating in the process. - It allows improvements on many minute changes to a certain extent than the radical changes that arises from the Research and Development team. 6. Explain the concept of Six Sigma. Who are the key players in Six sigma? How do you calculate DPMO? Six sigma stands for six deviations from mean. It is defined as a metric of assessment, a standard comparison, a disclosure, beliefs, a procedural approach, a representation, a precise rate or an objective. It mainly focuses on quality improvement, cost reduction, cycle time reduction and improved delivery performance resulting in higher profits and customer satisfaction. It enhances the relationship between the management of an organisation and the employees. It is a methodology that provides various techniques and tools in order to improve the potential and trim down the defects in any process. It was initially started in the manufacturing division of Motorola industry. In due course of time six-sigma evolved and was functional to other nonmanufacturing processes of any industry. The applications of six-sigma are vast and can be applied

in many fields such as services, medical, insurance procedures, call centres etc. Thus, six-sigma provides a framework that unites various tools basic quality tools that improves process efficiency. Key players in Six Sigma Team In the hierarchy of six-sigma training methodology, roles are defined for all the employees who are associated to the business operations. Let us discuss in detail the roles associated with the process as defined in the hierarchy of six-sigma: Yellow Belts: It refers to the employees who have a little acquaintance regarding the quality and fundamental analysis tools. These are the masses that have an inclination in the direction of development and are termed as efficient information and facts collators in the process. Green Belts: It refers to the employees who have undergone mandatory training and are functioning on an enhancement project. They get help from the black belts and take part in analysis and information collation, functioning under a black belt. Green Belts are essentially assistants to the Black Belts in their job. Effective Green Belts have an understanding of statistics but dont have the expertise and experience with the Six Sigma tools and projects like Black Belts. Black Belt: They are employees who have undergone black belt training. They have a comprehensive perception of the concepts of six sigma and of various statistical tools and measures. They tend to identify small improvement projects for the green belts and also monitor them. Black Belts have a strong understanding of statistical methods of data collection and analysis and must have experience in past Six Sigma projects. Their full time responsibility is to Six Sigma projects. Master Black Belt: A black belt employee is considered eligible to become a Master Black Belt (MBB) if the employee has gained a minimum experience of having worked on at least 10 to 15 high priority black belt projects. They are also responsible for mentoring the black belt employees and act as a guide. The Master Black Belt can also evaluate project results and give feedback to Black and Green Belts on performance and implementation Champions: They are employees who regard quality as a critical element. These people should have worked on a mixture of enhancement and development projects and posses a minimum experience of 10 years in driving six sigma through various projects, trainings and so on. They are the final reference point in the chain of references for the six sigma process. They are at the top level of all other belts in the organisation. Hence, these are the people who are responsible for driving the six sigma culture in an organisation. The Champions are the persons responsible for instilling the vision of Six Sigma and communicating it across the firm. Defects per Million Opportunities (DPMO) - A defect is defined as any part of a product or service that does not meet customer specifications or requirements or causes customer dissatisfaction, or does not fulfil the functional or physical requirements. It should be noted that term customer refers to both internal and external customers.

The next step is to define the product/service units. A unit is something that can be qualified by a customer. It is a measurable and observable output of the business process. It may manifest itself as a physical unit or if a service, it may have specific start and stop points. In Six Sigma terminology, opportunities are the total number of chances per unit to have a defect. Each opportunity must be independent of other opportunities and, like a unit, must be measurable and observable. The final requirement of an opportunity is that it directly relates to the customer CTQ. The total count of opportunities indicates the complexity of a product or service. For example, a watch may have three opportunities of defects-it may not show the correct time, its glass may have scratches, or it may not show the correct date. Any one or more of these three defects may result in a watch being called defective. Defects per million opportunities (DPMO) are calculated as: DPMO = (Total number of defects detected) 1000000 / (Number of units produced * opportunities of defects per unit)