This report reviews the article “Organisation development quality improvement process: progress energy’s continuous business excellence initiative” by V. E. McCuiston and A. DeLucenay. Both of them reside in the United States of America. The content type is a journal article. The journal article is dated November/ December 2010 (McCuiston & DeLucenay 2010).
The journal contains an abstract that gives a summary of the article. The summary reflects on the recession intensification. This forces organizations to review their operational processes. The evaluation mainly targets efficiency and quality enhancement. The process of changing operational attributes to become efficient and have quality is believed to involve the rise in expenses, productivity, and confidence. It consists of several factors but does not include downsizing. The process was meant to reform and restructure the work process. This was to emphasize quality and improve efforts, leadership, and employee engagement. The blockages are solved through Six Sigma, while the excesses are solved by lean work management initiatives. The article outlines process documentation. It summarises the improvement process with an organizational development model. This model is a section of continuous quality improvement. The journal also provides managers with implications of actions in this regard (McCuiston & DeLucenay 2010).
The article provides an introduction that reviews the intensification of the recession and its impact on organization work processes relating to efficiency and quality enhancement. It analyses the quality and lean trends. It reflects the deployment of quality and continuous-improvement strategies by surveyed organizations. The article shows that most organizations were forced to adopt the deployment of quality programs. This was aimed at bringing efficiency to organisations. The organisations were presumed to have targeted the significance of quality programs. This increased expenditure on the application of the qualities. The qualities were implemented in both public and private sectors. The qualities involved strategies, which were intense on the identification and removal of blockage and excesses. The lean trend was employed as a strategy of continuous improvement. This trend was implemented by many manufacturing plants. Its implementation by the majority does not imply that the lean trend is principally a gradual solution to avoiding and saving costs. This is because it is essentially different from traditional management. This trend requires the capability to motivate the process to be more on passion, teamwork and strategic innovation (Lindsay & Petrick 1996).
The article is vital in comprehension of the principles of quality management. It analyses the management tools and trends, quality management movement and continuous business excellence (Smith 1998, p. 28).
Through management tools and trends, one understands the state of the industry. Economic changes over the years have caused economic panic. Industries are forced to review their strategic guidelines in order to keep up with changes in the economy. These strategic changes involve the alteration of management tools in businesses and organisations. The reviews are mainly done by executives of businesses and the organisations that they manage. Many organisations have implemented the quality and continuous-improvement strategies in a plan to strategise against the economic worries. However, the implementations of the strategies by organisations have different levels of usage and satisfaction around the globe. The quality and continuous-improvement strategies involve the total quality management aspect as the essential factor. It is the most used quality tool deployed by many organisations. The top management tools include traditional quality management tools. The traditional quality management tools consist of lean Six Sigma and total quality management. The changes in the economy have influenced the drop in usage of the quality management tools. There are 25 tools of management popular to organisations and their executives. The notable fact was that the satisfaction from organisations using lean Six Sigma increased. This was noted as the largest increase of satisfaction-rate among all the tools. The levels of satisfaction concerning total quality management did not change, but this affected its position on the tools ranking by a drop in position. It was noted that about half of the management tools were used. This indicated that the usage of the tools was decreasing. This was because the majority of organisations did not prefer to use the management tools for long term planning (George 2002, p. 14).
The article relates to quality theory by reflecting on lean management strategies and optimism about future growth. It recommends strong leadership as the way of building certainty. Through lean management strategies, organisations are believed to obtain the best results. As part of lean management strategies, lean Six Sigma is viewed as the best-ranked tool in satisfaction when it is a section of an essential process. On the contrary, when implemented on a limited way, it is the worst strategy. In order for Six Sigma strategy to be successful, an organisation has to change its culture entirely in order to accommodate the programs. This is driven by executives who obligate an organisation’s operation quality strategies. The executives are an essential factor in the implementation of the lean management strategies. They are responsible for establishing the Six Sigma culture within an organisation. They have to understand the organisation’s vulnerabilities and challenges inside the organisation and their competitive surrounding environment before launching the Six Sigma culture. With optimism about future growth, confidence is a vital factor. The process of productivity has to have confidence in order to provide self-reliance in the future of the economy. The possibility of certainty in an organisation can be ensured through employee engagement and a solid leadership (Cole & Scott 2000). The two are vital attributes of an organisation’s success.
The writers of the article have reviewed quality management movement and have come up with conditions for success. They have indicated the importance of effective quality and management in any organisation. The strategies, which include Six Sigma and lean strategies, have been implemented in all sectors. The lean and Six Sigma strategies have proved to be efficient and productive in organisations. The benefits of these strategies are productivity and innovation. The implementation of the Six Sigma methods is to produce benefits of improvements. These strategies can be implemented in practice by organisations in order to improve their productivity and innovation standards.
The article is significant in organisation development and quality improvement process. It recommends continuous improvement efforts as a quality of management. The article analyses and examines the necessary processes that an organisation can implement to achieve quality growth and advancement in its processes. This is essential for organisations aiming at the efficiency and quality enhancement in their organisations. It also states that the implementation of strategies that eliminate blockages and excesses are a key factor in increasing productivity and its confidence (McCuiston & DeLucenay 2010).
References
Cole, R & Scott, W 2000, The quality movement & organisation theory, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks Calif.
George, M 2002, Lean Six Sigma: combining Six Sigma qualities with lean speed, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Lindsay, W & Petrick, J 1996, Total quality and organisation development, St. Lucie Press, Delray Beach.
McCuiston, V & DeLucenay, A 2010, ‘Organisation Development quality improvement process: progress energy’s continuous business excellence initiative’, Journal of Business Case Studies, vol. 6, no. 6.
Smith, G 1998, Statistical process control and quality improvement, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River.