INTRODUCTION

The objective of quality management program will determine the purpose or the reason of any organization who want to embark for any quality management program. The quality objective basically are the consequences or the results that the organization are be able to achieve when they implement the quality program or the consequences at the end of the program, which will benefit the individuals within the organization and also the organization as a whole. Quality management objective can be explained in a short term or in the long term. In a specific or short term aspect, quality initiative results can be seen in a particular task or work unit where the quality are being ensured and it will benefit the entire process of the organization either in manufacturing or services context. In long term, the consequences of quality program will benefit the entire activities within an organization, the final product that being produced by the company and also, that would reflect the image of the organization as a whole.

The general benefit of quality program should be able to be seen in either manufacturing of product context or in service delivery organization. The benefit of quality program can be enjoyed by the people within the organization who were always considered as the internal customer of an organization, and also the external customer, who are also the customers or buyers of the product or the services, who will be satisfied with the product or the service provided. The benefit of the quality management program can also be evaluated by the third party of the organization who are the auditors of the operation and also it can be evaluated by the internal auditors for the purposes of controlling, monitoring and ensuring the quality objective are able to be achieved.

SPECIFIC QUALITY MANAGEMENT OBJECTIVES

The quality management objectives are basically the main reason why the quality program supposed to be implemented and must be conducted properly so that the ultimate outcome of the program can be achieved. With a clear reason of why we should do the quality program in a proper way and to enjoy the benefit of the quality initiative in the end will motivate the people who are involved in the quality management program. And they are very clear on the outcome of their involvement within the process.

The first benefit of quality management program is to minimize or eliminate errors, rejection and rework within an organizational task and process. The more the errors and rejections that can be reduced, the lesser the time required to complete a particular process or to produce a particular product. Errors and rejections are also will reflect a negative image of the activities, performance of the unit and also the organizational reputation. If there is any errors or rejection that's happened based on customer complaints or the quality monitoring outcome, quality monitoring results, the rework activities is necessary and it will take time and require additional cost for the activities. Therefore, by having a proper systematic well design quality program, errors, mistakes and rejections can be minimized to improve the efficiency of the process.

The second benefit of having quality program in place is to minimize or eliminate poor or low value processes within the entire organizational activities. The main reason why we need to reduce or eliminate low value processes or activities is to minimize costs of operation to shorten the processed time and also to avoid unnecessary cost that would contribute towards low value to the final product. As far as service is concerned, a poor or low value activities within the service delivery will cause delay in the process, which may not be pleasant or accepted by the customer. The low value processes in the end would affect the overall outcome on the activities and finally it will affect the quality of the final product or the overall service quality that is provided to the customer.

Thirdly, the benefit of quality program is to ensure that all activities within the organization are effective, which means that it should help the organization to achieve their expected goals and performance. Being effective is to ensure that the quality program that involve input and materials that being used within the process will achieve the expected results that being determined by the management as expected by the stakeholder and what being specified to every employee within the organization.

The other aspect of the process besides the effectiveness is the efficiency as the main benefit of most quality program. Efficiency can also be defined and evaluated based on the cost effectiveness of any activities involve within the organizational activities. Efficiency based on quality program will ensure the shortest time possible in producing a product, the minimum cost of activities either in manufacturing of a particular product or services and also finally, will determine the optimum utilization of resources provided for the activities. Quality management in the end will determine that all organizational objectives can be achieved that will need the effectiveness and also will ensure the optimum level of organizational activities to produce the lowest cost of production of a particular product and service delivery activities.

The quality management program and initiative supposed to be able to reduce and avoid unnecessary costs. Unnecessary cost actually resulted to unnecessary activities within the activities of the process of production and also service delivery. Unnecessary activities can be considered as the activities that is not productive, not contributing towards the ultimate outcome of the product and also the activities that may delay the cycle time of the operation and unnecessary cost in the end will determine higher cost of operation and production that will resulted to higher price that going to be charged on the product price. Ultimately, it will cause unhappy customer and a loss of competitive advantage to the competitors, especially when the price of their product or services is being compared by the customers.

The fifth benefit of quality initiative is the ability to apply and utilize the available technology and facilities to the optimum level of capacities. The technology and facilities are considered as the cost to the organization and with quality initiative that will ensure the optimum utilization of every equipment and technology that is available within the organization will ensure the efficient use of the available resources and in the end will improve the efficiency of the operation. The optimum use of the technology and equipment within the quality management program will also support the quality of the final product and the pleasant service that can be provided to the customer as far as service delivery is concerned. Employee interaction with technology that is determined in the quality design will ensure optimum level of productivity within the workers and also more efficient interaction of people in machine to produce high quality product and better level of service quality.

The next benefit of quality initiative is the program will ensure that the product that being produced or the service delivered will meet the customer requirement and expectation. Every customer always expect the best level of quality of the product that they are buying and the superior level of service quality that they expect to enjoy with the price that day. Therefore, the quality program and initiative is necessary to make sure that every single customer requirement and expectation of being considered within the design or work activities within the operation of manufacturing of a particular product, and also the customer interaction within the service activities to make sure that whatever the requirements are being taken care within the service delivery activities.

Meeting customer requirement and expectation are fundamental in quality management program because in the end it will ensure the customer satisfaction level. The more that their expectation are being fulfilled, the more they will satisfy with the product that they are buying and also the service that they expect from the organization.

The next benefit of quality program is to ensure that the product that we produce and the service that being delivered to the customer is going to be right at the first time before the product actually reaches the customer. This is very important because customer evaluation and assessment on the quality of the product that they buy is going to happen or what we call as the moment of truth where the product and services are going to be assessed and evaluated by the customer. If the product that they have bought having a problem, defect or not according to what they expect, certainly that will lead to customer complaint and if it is not being handled properly, that will cost customer dissatisfaction. Customer dissatisfaction is the worst thing that is expected in quality program and somehow the service recovery or the handling of the customer complaint is so important to turn the unhappy customer to satisfy customer. It is also part of the quality management program, to make sure that ultimately the product and services actually going to satisfy the customer.

Most quality management program initiative will take into consideration the safety aspect of the product, and also the healthy working environment of the workers. As far as the product is concerned, quality management initiative will ensure that the products are being produced, actually going to be safe to the customer in terms of the effect or the product utilization or the defect of the product performance that may affect the safety of the customer. The quality management initiative ensures that every product that we produce and before it goes to the customer has gone through a quality check, testing and verification to ensure that only safe product supposed to be to leave the manufacturing plants.

In terms of service delivery, most activities within the services quality program will take into consideration the safety of the customer, the security of the product or the customer’s own product and also the safety of the employees involve in the process. A comprehensive quality management program will ensure the traceability of the production activities to make sure that corrective action can be done wherever the mistake or defects are being identified. This will ensure that the same mistakes or errors is not going to happen again.

The next quality management benefit is related to people aspects. Quality program always involve teamwork, task force, quality circle and interaction of people within an organization to ensure the success of each program. Therefore, the quality management program is supposed to ensure staff motivation that everyone within the team will ensure that the quality performance can be achieved by the group of workers. The team performance will be evaluated based on the products that they produce and the reputation of the work team is based on every performance within the working group. As far as service is concerned, most service activities involve several themes based on the process or activities that involves within the entire service delivery. Therefore, the performance of each team and also the overall organizational team is so important to ensure that the high level of quality performance can be offered to the customer.

Quality management program always recognized the contribution and commitment of teamwork rather than relying on the individuals’ performance. Finally, the benefit program will lead towards quality decision making where the decision is supposed be able to address the issue, to overcome the problem and to provide solution to any customer complaints or the results of quality monitoring exercise. The impact of effective quality management program will require innovative ideas of every individual involved in the decision making process to make sure that the ultimate quality performance can be achieved either based on a particular work unit, work in progress and the outcome of the final product or the overall service delivery performance.

GENERAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT IMPACT

The broad benefit of a quality management system where it is implemented properly according to the well design quality management program and also a proper execution or implementations of a specific quality programs can be seen on every aspect of the organizational activities. One aspect of the quality management system is the document of procedures, guidelines, work manuals and instructions for every activity within the organization. A proper quality management system will ensure that the document of quality related activities is well written, kept and to be shared by every individual involved within the organization and it is supposed to be in consistent to the expected quality output of the organizational activities. The quality document that supposed to be as the part of the quality program finally will determine and it will be referred by every people involved within the process and it is going to be the item to be use in the monitoring and audit process. Most quality management system will involve with corrective action and preventive action, which somehow rather will ensure that proper actions are being taken wherever and whenever any errors, defect, or mistakes that being identified. Preventive action will ensure that the same mistakes are not going to happen again and the precaution action will ensure that the process is going to be the most efficient in this future.

Another benefit that will be directly being enjoyed by the quality management activities is the ability to detect and also proactively respond to the customer complaints and to ensure that every issue that being put forward are being addressed accordingly to ensure customer satisfaction. Customer complaint and feedback are very useful platform that supposed to be use for continuous improvement activities within a particular quality program. The earlier the defect, mistake and problems that being identified in the quality and monitoring process, the more likely that the cost of operation can be reduced.

The quality management improvement benefit in the end, supposed to be able to reduce the cost of the entire operation that would lead to the higher efficiency of the process and finally that will lower down or minimize the cost of operation and productions. The lower the cost of the operation will lead towards the lower price that we can offer to the customer as a competitive advantage of the operation or production and also, that will determine the margin or profit that supposed to incur from the business activities. Any issues that being identified along the quality management program, it is not necessarily to solve a specific problem in a particular time, but it should help the organization to ensure that the benefit cause to enjoy the long period of time when the same mistakes are not going to happen again, to put those corrective and preventive action within the system is to ensure better value of operation either in product manufacturing activities or service delivery performance.

Generally, the quality management program and activities will involve the effort of defining and refining the procedures and guidelines so that it will be updated based on the current and relevant requirement of the practices. Any activities that is obsolete should be made redundant because it will be considered as unnecessary activities that would cause higher cost of operation and production. The quality management initiative supposed to assist or benefit the employees when they have a clear reference of any particular activities that supposed to be done and to find answers or solution to any problem that may incurred or encountered. Any breakdowns, pick up or stoppages in a particular operation supposed to be able to be overcome when all procedures are clear and practically explain for every employee to refer when the incident happen.

For service operation, if there any activities that encounter a particular problem or obstacles, the win-win solution supposed to be well documented to ensure that the problem can be overcome and the customer will be satisfied with the service recovery action that being specified within the procedures. Most organization that implemented the quality management program will have a clear means of communication, information sharing and the effective information that supposed to be able to be accessed by every employee within the organization to execute their task and also to solve a particular problem along the process.

The general benefit of the quality management program or the overall quality management objective include to ensure the quality product and services because this will enhance the image of the organization based on the product and service performance. Related to the objective of quality management program on customer satisfaction when they assess and evaluate the performance of the program and service delivery is based on the completeness of product and service that may be beyond the customers satisfaction. What benefit for quality management program is customer retention and loyalty. Quality of services and product quality will ensure customer to repurchase or to make a repeat purchase for the same product or services, and in the long run, that will ensure the customer loyalty. The overall operation benefit quality management program will simultaneously minimize the defects, errors and rejections within the operation.

The other aspect of the benefit or the purpose of any quality program is to minimize wastage that in the end will leads to high cost of operation. Some aspect of wastage that commonly happened in operation of a particular product manufacturing is the excessive of materials, the idle space, the unproductive waiting time, the unused by product and the extra number of workers involve in a particular activity. The higher the wastage that involves within the operation, the lower the level of efficiency of a particular operation. This also will lead towards unnecessary cost that involve in operation and in a comprehensive quality management program will identify any aspects of wastage that supposed to be removed or at least to be minimized.

The operational performance of an organization, either in product manufacturing or service delivery ultimately will be measured based on the financial results or outcome. What aspect of the financial results of operation which the quality management program will ensure as long as possible, the costing to produce a particular product or to deliver a particular service. Another aspect of financial results is the revenue that will be generated based on the quality product and service delivery. The higher the revenue or sales that will indicate the more that products are being sold and also the product turnover rate.

Consequently, the main financial results that will determine the performance of the activities and the organizational performance is the level of profitability. The margin between the sales and cost of operation is very much determined on how much efficiency can be determined from the quality management program. For a long run, quality management program supposed to help the organization to sustain their level of performance to ensure that the businesses are be able to sustain their performance is by ensuring that they will gain competitive advantage based on the quality of product that they produce and the quality-of-service delivery given to the customer. In any business activities, customers will always compare the performance of a particular product or service that they are paying for between one organization to other option that they have available in the market.

Figure 3.1: Dimensions of Organizational Culture

Another ultimate objective of quality management program is to create quality culture (as shown in Figure 3.1). Quality culture can only be seen as a result of quality program, when every individual within the organization understands and believe that the quality management initiatives are very important on every aspect of their activities. Every people within organization from top management to every level of the employees should be clear on the benefit of the quality management program that will be the results of their involvement in the organizational activities. Finally, the quality management program supposed to benefit the society where the quality of the product being produced actually supposed to be the utility that should benefit the individual who are buying the product or paying product or services. Quality of product and services will improve the society’s quality of life in the long run.

Organizational culture can be seen when everyone in the organization is involved and committed to ensure that the quality benefits can be achieved not only in the short run, but also for the long period of time. The quality management understanding and belief supposed to be made clear line based on their behaviour, action and the practical aspect of their quality management activities. The quality culture seen in a particular organization when everyone in the organization having a common way of doing these in ensuring quality performance, and also everyone having a clear responsibility to ensure the overall organizational performance.

Figure 3.2: General Quality Management Objectives

Finally, the benefit or the ultimate objective of quality management program is to ensure organizational excellence performance. Every activity within the organization will resulted to the overall organizational performance, which require every individual of the organization from top management to every level of the workers in the organization to be committed towards achieving quality results in performance. Performance excellence can only be seen in the organizational perspective whenever any improving activities that would lead to value in the perspective of customers and stakeholders’ expectation will contribute towards the long-term effect of organizational performance.

Another aspect of organizational excellence can only be seen when the optimum capabilities of the organization are being used effectively and efficiently for the organization to achieve every performance indicator of the organizational performance either on the financial aspect or the non-financial aspect. Organizational performance excellence can only be achieved when the organizational learning that will happen in the organization, which involves every organizational member to be involved and committed towards higher level of performance of the organization.