CHANDIGARH UNIVERSITY

SUBJECT - OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

ASSIGNMENT - 3

SUBMITTED TO – SUBMITTED BY-

PROF. GINNI SYAL JAYANT
19MBA1010
Group 4
Q1. Name and explain three different ways that technology
has improved the ability to manage supply chains.

Q2. Describe the TQM philosophy and identify its major

characteristics.

ANSWER 1-
GREATER TRANSPARENCY-The increase in digital communication has
allowed for quicker, easier connectivity between businesses and
customers. With development in technology enhancing delivery and
visibility for customers, their expectations and needs have increased
with regards to transparency, delivery times and response times.
Thanks to technology, your supply chain is more transparent than ever
before. Twenty to thirty years ago, it was fairly easy to hide
interruption errors, however nowadays; your customer has full visibility
of the process in which their product undertakes. On average,
customers used to expect goods, updates and data at a much slower
pace in comparisons to today's expectations. Technology has enabled
customers to receive instant answers to their queries and delivery
status, through delivery and tracking systems. This feature has slowly
transformed from a 'nice to have' into a necessary customer offering
from businesses.
GREATER EFFICIENCY AND FASTER PROCESSES-Technology has
led the way, enabling supply chain software to become faster and more
efficient. With technology, through warehouse and transport systems,
businesses are able to provide data-capture, improve labour
management, monitor resource and reduce stock losses with real time
stock checking. With full visibility across your supply chain, potential
errors, risks and opportunities are picked up faster and therefore create
greater efficiency and the ability to complete processes quicker.

Communication -Frequent communication creates improved

operations. The ability to communicate in real time helps to
form a unified business, enabling fast development and a wide
understanding through each business unit on a daily basis.
Technology has made this possible; changing the supply chain
for the better, software enables teams to input vital data that is
accessible to all necessary teams. Software has greatly
improved communication for the supply chain creating not just
a faster way to communicate, but a more efficient accurate way
of communicating essential information.

ANSWER 2-
Armand Feigebaum devised the TQM (Total Quality
Management) system and he defined it as "an effective system
of integrating the quality development, quality maintenance
and quality improvement efforts of various groups in an
organization so as to enable marketing, engineering, production
and service at the most economical levels which allow for full
customer satisfaction." It is certainly difficult to be more
concise than his statement, since it covers the essential
requirements for such a system.

Although in more recent times, Six Sigma, Lean, Kaizen, ISO

9000 and other quality management systems are in use, the
major characteristics and benefits of TQM are still an essential
part of all the later followers.

The essential characteristics of an effective TQM system are:

 Every company member, from the CEO to the lowest level

employee, is focused on product or service quality. If
management is not behind TQM, then it will fail.
 Everyone must have the required training and be familiar
with the necessary TQM techniques.
 Anyone can suggest areas for improvement – as general
operatives will be more familiar with their work station
than anyone else is, valuable ideas for improvement at a
production line level can, in many cases, come from line
workers.
 All departments are expected to focus on quality and
productivity improvement and implement changes for
their area.
 In addition, all departments interact with each other to fix
common problems in the product or process.
 Collaboration on external issues (end-user defects for
example) is expected from all departments.
 Decisions made are based on the best solutions, not on
hidden agendas or favoritism.
 Quality becomes a governing part of operations, with

decisions that impact on quality, rejected immediately,

despite perceived cost-savings involved.