Business Strategy Series

Sustaining a quality management system: process, issues and challenges

Sanuri Mohd Mokhtar Sany Adiana Hiau Abdullah Nur Kardi Nordin Idzwan Yacob Mohd
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Sanuri Mohd Mokhtar Sany Adiana Hiau Abdullah Nur Kardi Nordin Idzwan Yacob Mohd , (2013)," Sustaining a quality management
system: process, issues and challenges ", Business Strategy Series, Vol. 14 Iss 4 pp. 123 - 130
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 Sustaining a quality management system:
process, issues and challenges
Sany Sanuri Mohd Mokhtar, Nur Adiana Hiau Abdullah, Nordin Kardi and Mohd Idzwan Yacob
Downloaded by KING MONGKUT UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY THONBURI At 19:14 21 February 2017 (PT)
Sany Sanuri Mohd Mokhtar
is based at the Institute of
Quality Management,
School of Business
Management, Universiti
Utara Malaysia, Kedah,
Malaysia. Nur Adiana Hiau
Abdullah is based at the
School of Economics,
Finance and Banking,
College of Business,
Universiti Utara Malaysia,
Sintok, Malaysia. Nordin
Kardi is based at the
Universiti Pendidikan Sultan
Idris Malaysia, Tanjung
Malim, Malaysia. Mohd
Idzwan Yacob is based at
the Institute of Quality
Management, Universiti
Utara Malaysia, Sintok,
Malaysia.
DOI 10.1108/BSS-12-2011-0032
Introduction
The impact of globalization and technology advancement has created a tremendous
pressure for organizations to perform in the industry and seeks for excellence. Globalization
has opened up the world market into one and technology advancement has made
globalization become easier as the delivery system is faster and efficient. Due to this
development, organizations have to face the demand from external groups such as
customers and the public to perform. This led to the emergence of quality management in
the industry to meet these demands. The concept emerged in the 1980s when the US
organizations introduced quality management in their product development in order to
compete with the Japanese organizations that have invaded the US and world market
(Besterfield et al., 2003; Oakland and Sohal, 1996).
Since then, quality management has been regarded as the source of competitive advantage
and strategic planning tools for organizations to excel. Today, many organizations have
embraced the quality management concept in their practices as research has found that the
implementation of quality management system has led to higher organizational performance
(Mokhtar and Yusof, 2010; Prajogo and Sohal, 2006; Sun, 2000). Besides the manufacturing
industries, which have employed the concept for many years, it has also gained popularity in
other sectors and one of them is education.
Education providers such as higher learning institutions place the importance of quality due
to demand from the learners and stakeholders of high quality education. Furthermore, an
emergence of new higher institutions has intensified competition among institutions to
provide the best education to the learners (Bayraktara et al., 2008). This has led to a number
of higher education institutions including Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) to introduce
quality assurance program or system to their processes in order to fulfill the demand of
learners and stakeholders for higher quality services and products. UUM is a university
specializing in management studies established in 1985, whose vision is to be the eminent
management university. Hence, UUM has embarked on the quality management system or
better known as ISO 9000, an international accreditation of quality by a third party. UUM
does not regard ISO 9000 as a replacement for Total Quality Management (TQM) or as an
ultimate tool to achieve organizational excellence but adopting it to complement TQM. UUM
believes that ISO 9000 is one of the management tools that could lead organization to
achieve excellence (Sun, 2000).
Quality management system certification
UUM pursue its journey to obtain the quality management system certification through the
appointment of internal consultant team from the university Quality Management Centre
(QMC) to lead the ISO certification process. QMC has been established by the university
since 1991 to provide consultancy and assistance to organizations in aspects of quality
VOL. 14 NO. 4 2013, pp. 123-130, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1751-5637 j BUSINESS STRATEGY SERIES j PAGE 123
 management, and in moving towards the implementation of total quality management. Its
mission is to become the reference centre in the field of quality management in the region
through the provision of training, research and publication. In the University ISO certification
process, QMC supports UUM through the establishment of Internal Quality Unit (IQU) in
January 1999. Among the roles of this unit are to coordinate, monitor and implement quality
related training programs such as the installation of ISO 9000 quality management system in
UUM. Activities are also design to promote quality awareness and to inculcate quality culture
among the employees.
The process of obtaining ISO 9000 certification involved long hours of training programs and
system development. It started out by providing intensive training programs to the university
top and senior management. The training was essential in order to obtain their leadership
commitment in driving their departments to pursue the process of certification. Among the
topics discussed in the training session include the strategic direction of the university in
achieving the eminent management university vision and its relationship with the ISO 9002
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certification (Yusoff and Mokhtar, 2003). After obtaining the agreement from the senior
management to implement the certification process, a series of training involving selected
staff from each department was carried out. The training involved understanding basic
quality management principles related to the requirements of ISO 9002 standard and
acquiring the necessary skills to identify critical process requirement in their unit for
documentation purposes.
Based on a series of workshops held, a total of 230 processes were identified and
documented. These processes cover three core business processes of the university:
teaching and learning; research, consultancy and publication; and other university support
services. After developing the quality management system, awareness and implementation
training was carried out to all staff in the university. Selected staff was identified to be the
internal quality auditors and went through intensive internal quality audit training. Having
trained the internal quality auditors, an internal quality audit process was carried out to all
departments in the university. After corrective actions and management review meeting
were held, UUM went through the external audit process by SIRIM and were awarded the
ISO 9002:1994 quality management system certification in 2001.
In the year 2003, UUM went through the process of conversion from the 1994 to the 2000
version as it was required by the ISO body to ensure continuing suitability of the standard in a
fast changing environment. The new version of ISO 9001:2000 emphasised on process
based approach and were based on eight quality management principles: Customer focus;
Leadership; Involvement of people; Process approach; System approach to management;
Continual improvement; Factual approach to decision making; and Mutually beneficial
supplier relationships. By November 2003, UUM obtained the ISO 9000:2000 certification. In
2010, another conversion requirement by the ISO body brought UUM to its ISO 9000:2008
certifications.

Activities in sustaining quality management system

Since 2001, a number of programs had been initiated by QMC to support the quality
management system certification. One of the programs initiated was the implementation of
5S to all departments in UUM. 5S is a method of sorting out, arrange systematically, clean
and maintaining productive and quality working environment. Underlying the 5S philosophy
is that only a neat, organized, clean, safe and discipline working environment could
guarantee the establishment of an effective and efficient workplace in an organization
(Hirano, 1995).
The 5S program in UUM started with an awareness course on 5S practices conducted by
National Productivity Council (NPC), which is now known as Malaysia Productivity Centre, to
a group of representative from each department in UUM on 27th and 28th November 2001.
The main aim of initiating 5S was to maintain orderliness and neatness of the filing system.
This was important for the department especially during the process of auditing by the
external auditors as neat arrangement and placing of items systematically will ensure that

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PAGE 124 BUSINESS STRATEGY SERIES VOL. 14 NO. 4 2013
 the items required can be taken effectively and efficiently (Mokhtar and Yusoff, 2003). 5S will
also help to streamline the administration system of the entire department in the university in
terms of cleanliness and healthy working environment.
In 2002, a competition among departments in the university was initiated to increase the
motivation and morale of the staff to implement and maintain 5S activities. Three objectives
of the competition were to build and to develop a culture of clean, organize and pleasant
working environment and positive work culture so that quality and productivity can be
improved; to support the existing quality management system (MS ISO 9001) held by the
university; and to be a catalyst for a systematic administration and management. The 5S
competition was held annually in UUM which continue on until today.
Besides 5S, UUM had also encouraged the departments to set up ‘Quality Improvement
Team’ (QIT) or currently known as ‘Creative and Innovative’ team (CIT). CIT consists of a
small group of employees (six to ten persons) who meet regularly to identify, select and
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analyze work related problems. The objective of establishing CIT in each department is to
encourage the team to discuss projects that could lead to improvements on the system and
working style. The team project will move towards achieving quality and productivity
improvement as well as solving problems in their units or departments. At the same time, CIT
activities promote creative thinking among the work force, teamwork culture and an avenue
for individual employee to contribute towards quality improvement in the university.
To date, there were several projects by some of the CIT teams that have won awards for their
innovation. A team from the University Industry Linkage (UIL) Centre won an innovation
award for the public sector category in 2007 and silver medal at the Geneva Exhibition of
Innovations and Inventions 2008 for developing an effective, efficient and relevant system of
student internship placement. Another team from the Sultanah Bahiyah Library won a
special award for best innovation in 2008 at the Innovative and Creative Convention among
the public universities in Malaysia by introducing an online reference and information
system. These projects support quality management system towards continuous
improvement of the university which is fulfilling a clause of the ISO standard. It stated that
‘‘the organization shall continually improve the effectiveness of the quality management
system through the use of the quality policy, quality objectives, audit results, analysis of data,
corrective and preventive actions and management review’’.
In order to support the establishment of CIT team and development of projects, QMC with the
support of senior management had continuously organized innovative and creative workshops
to facilitate the team. One of the main objectives of the workshop is to provide the participants
with some of the analysis tools that could be used in identifying and solving problems in an
innovative and creative manner. Other than providing tools to participants, CIT workshop was
carried out to instill the importance of teamwork in carrying out a project successfully.

Challenges and strategies

In sustaining the quality management system, there are several issues and challenges that
the university had to face. These issues and challenges need to be overcome as they may
lead to a failure in the quality management system. Based on an interview with 15 of the
university internal auditors, which are approximately 13.4% of the overall sample size (there
are altogether 112 auditors), the issues and challenges that were raised are presented in
Table I.

Table I Issues and challenges

Issues/challenges Frequency Percentage

Internal auditors 3 20%

Senior management commitment 8 53%
Employees commitment 3 20%
Strategic planning 1 7%

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VOL. 14 NO. 4 2013 BUSINESS STRATEGY SERIES PAGE 125
 Senior management commitment
Top leaders of an organization play an important role in driving the organization to quality
improvement and organizational excellence. The international quality management system
denote that leaders need to set up unity of purpose and direction for the organization as
employees are committed to fulfill the organization goals and objectives if the leaders are
able to create and maintain the internal environment in which people can become fully
involved (ISO, 2000). Clause 5 of the ISO standard introduced a specific clause of
‘‘Management responsibility’’. Specifically, clause 5.1, on management commitment noted
that ‘Top management shall provide evidence of its commitment to the development and
implementation of the quality management system and continually improving its
effectiveness by:
B communicating to the organization the importance of meeting customer as well as
statutory and regulatory requirements;
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B establishing the quality policy;

B ensuring that quality objectives are established;
B conducting management reviews; and
B ensuring the availability of resources.
The role of top management in giving support for quality improvement effort throughout the
organization is essentials for organization success (Flynn et al., 1995). There are many ways
for top management to show their commitment towards quality improvement. One of them
would be to provide adequate resources such as finance, people and time for ensuring
quality improvement (Ahire et al., 1996; Ahire and O’ Shaughnessy, 1998; Dreyfus et al.,
2004). Those resources are important as they provide an organization the necessary tools to
achieve greater performance. The senior management of UUM has provided strong support
in providing the necessary resources towards quality improvement. This can be seen
through the formation of Quality Council, which consists of all the senior management of the
university and head of departments. The role of the council is to discuss all quality related
issues in the university.
In addition, there are other roles that senior management in UUM could provide which
include giving priority to quality in all aspects of work, fulfilling commitment to quality
programs and assuming responsibility for quality performance (Dreyfus et al., 2004; Garvin,
1991; Powell, 1995; Saraph et al., 1989). The commitment of top management in those
aspects is essentials as they act as a driver for quality implementation. By giving priority and
commitment towards quality improvement, they create values, goals, and systems to satisfy
customer expectations and higher organizational performance (Ahire et al., 1996). Besides
providing full commitment, senior management of UUM should also convey the quality
philosophy throughout the organization. One way to achieve this objective is by discussing
the importance of quality at organization-wide meetings.

Employees’ commitment
An organization needs full commitments from all staff in order to implement ISO 9000
effectively and efficiently. This is a major challenge in a big organization such as UUM. The
academic staff who work according to their own styles were among the first to question the
implementation of ISO 9000 in the university (Yusoff and Mokhtar, 2003). They argued that
working according to established documented procedures do inhibit their creativity.
Presently, maintaining the motivation of staff in sustaining the quality management system is
still a challenge to UUM. Since the ISO 9000 certification has entered into the ninth year,
some employees have ignored in following the procedures. Hence in July 2009, QMC has
conducted a meeting with all the quality managers of the departments. The objective of the
meeting is to remind the managers to activate the quality committee of their respective
department. Among the roles that this committee has to play is to plan and coordinate quality
activities, and to ensure that all staff in their department are well informed about the
implementation of quality management system in the university.

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PAGE 126 BUSINESS STRATEGY SERIES VOL. 14 NO. 4 2013
 It is important for UUM to maintain and to increase the level of motivation among staff in order
to sustain the quality management system. One way to do it is by applying one of the
concepts of total quality management, which is employee involvement. Employee
involvement refers to ‘‘any activity by which employees participate in work-related
decisions and improvement activities, with the objectives of tapping the creative energies of
all employees and improving their motivation’’ (Evans and Lindsay, 2002, p. 301).
Employees are an asset to organization. Thus, their involvement is a critical factor of quality
success as the organization requires participation from people in the organization.
Employee involvement can lead to ‘‘quicker, more responsive decisions, continuous
performance improvements, and greater employee flexibility, commitment and satisfaction’’
(Cummings and Worley, 1997, p. 300).
There are various approaches of employee involvement that UUM could initiate. For
instance, programs such as quality circles, cross-functional team, steering committee and
problem solving teams are some of the strategies that have been used by many successful
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organizations to increase employee participation (Ahire and O’ Shaughnessy, 1998; Curry

and Kadasah, 2002). Generally, teamwork could motivate the workforce and provide an
opportunity for them to give opinion and suggestions for organization improvement (Abdul
Rahman and Tannock, 2005). Some of the activities have been carried out in UUM but their
implementations need to be monitored in ensuring organization success. Employees need
to know the main objective of having a quality management system. It is not merely fulfilling
the requirement or standard but a tool that could lead to organizational excellence.

Internal quality auditors

Clause 8.2.2 of the Malaysian standard ISO 9001:2008 stated that ‘‘the organization shall
conduct internal audits at planned intervals to determine whether the quality management
system a) conforms to the planned arrangements, to the requirements of the International
Standard and to the quality management system requirements established by the
organization, and b) is effectively implemented and maintained’’. Since, obtaining the quality
management system, internal quality audit has been carried out at least once a year by
well-trained internal quality auditors appointed by the Vice-Chancellor. However, the level of
motivation among internal quality auditors has been deteriorating. This was observed
through the lack of attendance of pre-audit visit meeting, withdrawal request and delayed in
audit reporting among the auditors for the past few years. Based on a focus group
discussion among 15 auditors, the main reasons for the lack of motivation were due to:
B the process of auditing is considered as an additional workload besides their main job
specification;
B auditing process is tedious and may take long hours to complete;
B lack of commitment and cooperation from auditees; and
B lack of incentives.
To overcome this issue, QMC has proposed to the university to provide the auditors with an
honorarium as an incentive whenever they complete the audit task. Although, only a minimal
amount will be given to the auditors, this incentive is more likely to serve as a token of
appreciation to them for the job that they perform continuously every year. This is also in line
with other public universities that give their internal quality auditors honorarium as part of
incentives for the extra task that they carry out for their respective universities.

Strategic planning
Clause 5.4.1 in the ISO standard that is related to strategic planning is quality objectives.
The clause noted that ‘‘top management shall ensure that quality objectives, including those
needed to meet requirements for products are established at relevant functions and levels
within the organization. The quality objectives shall be measurable and consistent with the
quality policy’’. UUM has developed four strategic thrusts to achieve its mission and vision
which are as follows:

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VOL. 14 NO. 4 2013 BUSINESS STRATEGY SERIES PAGE 127
 1. to provide an environment and a culture of academic excellence for the growth and
enhancement of research, publication, consultation and services;
2. to develop students’ academic ability, personality traits, entrepreneurship and leadership
qualities by providing an innovative and relevant curriculum and co-curriculum activities;
3. internationalization of university activities; and
4. generation of wealth.
Although the strategic plan of the university has been established, their linkages with the
quality objectives are still vague among the staff. Past studies have shown that quality
initiatives should be a component of strategic planning or the main strategic planning of the
organization itself. Garvin (1988) noted that quality concept should be seen as a strategic
quality management, which focus on strategic planning and competition defined from the
customer point of view. The decision to implement quality initiatives should be seen as a
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strategic approach as it involves with the organization strategic goals which are link to the
objective of quality improvement that is to establish a competitive advantage (Shani and
Rogberg, 1994). There are cases when organization fails in implementing quality
successfully because of their inability to align with the organization’s strategic planning
(Hansson and Klefsjo, 2003; Srinidhi, 1998).
In overcoming this issue, the UUM strategic thrusts together with specific objectives are
included in the quality manual of the ISO standard. The linkage between the strategic thrusts
and the quality objective of the quality management system would ensure UUM strategic
plan complies to the internal and external audit process. Thus, auditing process would
become a tool for the university to fulfill its targeted objectives.

Conclusion
UUM has successfully obtained the certification of quality management system ISO 9000
standard ever since 2001. However, it has been observed that maintaining quality
management system is a challenging task. In order to sustain the quality management
system, UUM should not regard the certification as the main goal of the organization but as
the beginning of a journey to achieve organizational excellence. Thus, quality management
system should not be seen as just meeting the minimum requirements of certification but it
should be seen as a strategic approach for the university to achieve its vision to be the
eminent management university in the region. Supports from senior management are crucial
in providing resources, moral and emotional support to ensure organizational success.
Finally, commitments from all employees together with the senior management are needed
for UUM to achieve its vision to become the eminent management university.

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About the authors

Sany Sanuri Mohd Mokhtar is currently the Director at the Institute of Quality Management
and Senior Lecturer at the School of Business Management, College of Business, University
Utara Malaysia (UUM). His area of specialization is strategic marketing and quality
management. Sany Sanuri Mohd Mokhtar is the corresponding author and can be contacted
at: sany@uum.edu.my

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VOL. 14 NO. 4 2013 BUSINESS STRATEGY SERIES PAGE 129
 Nur Adiana Hiau Abdullah holds a PhD in Corporate Finance (Aston University, UK), MBA
(Finance and Economics) (University of Idaho, USA) and Bachelor of Science in Finance
(minor Economics) (Northern Illinois University, USA). She possesses vast working
experience with more than 20 years in the area of finance. She researched extensively in the
corporate finance and investment areas such as rights issues, capital budgeting, initial
public offerings, dividends, unit trust and financial distress. Her written works have
appeared in refereed journals such as the IIUM Journal of Economics and Management,
Capital Markets Review, International Journal of Finance, Asian Academy of Management
Journal, Asian Academy of Management Journal of Accounting and Finance, International
Journal of Management Studies, International Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of
Finance Case Research, Jurnal Pengurusan, Malaysian Management Journal and Bankers
Journal.
Nordin Kardi is the former Vice-Chancellor of the Northern University of Malaysia (UUM) and
currently sits on the prestigious Za’ba Chair, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris Malaysia
(UPSI). He earned his PhD from the University of Hull, UK and his Master’s degree from the
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Western Michigan University, USA. He attended Harvard Business School, Harvard

University’s Advanced Management Program (AMP171) in 2006 that entitled him to be a
member of Harvard Alumni. He was the President of the Association of Malaysian
Universities and at one time a board member of ASAIHL. He is a Registered Counselor and
the current President (since 2005) of PERKAMA International (an association for professional
counselors in Malaysia). He now serves on two boards, namely the Foundation for the
Development of Islamic Economy (YAPeiM) and Sultan Azlan Shah Islamic University
College, Malaysia. His area of academic interest, other than in the field of psychology and
counseling, is business and political negotiation.
Mohd Idzwan Yacob is a Research Officer at the Quality Management Institute, Universiti
Utara Malaysia. He has a Master degree in Intelligent Systems. and his research interests
are in quality management system, accreditations and standards and strategic planning.

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PAGE 130 BUSINESS STRATEGY SERIES VOL. 14 NO. 4 2013
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