MODULE 6

Human Resources in Total Quality

Objectives: At the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

1. Discuss about Human Resources in Total Quality

2. Explain the Continuous Process Improvement
3. Explain the Principles of Six Sigma

Human Resources in Total Quality

Benefits that can be derived from employee’s involvement:

 Employees make better decisions using their expert knowledge of the process.
 Employees are more likely to implement and support decisions that they had a
part in making.
 Employees are better able to spot and pinpoint areas for improvement.
 Employees are better able to take immediate corrective actions.
 Employee involvement reduces labor/management problems.
 Employee involvement increases morale by creating a feeling of belonging to the
organization.

Human Resource Initiatives

 Employee empowerment

o An organizational state where people are aligned with business direction

and understand their performance boundaries. This enables them to take
responsibility and ownership of decisions while seeking improvements,
identifying the best course of action and the best steps to satisfy customer
requirements.

West Central College of Arts and Science Inc. | QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT

6
 o Empowered employees are given ownership of the processes they are
responsible for and the products or services generated by those processes.
This ownership creates a sense of urgency to continually improve process,
products and services. An empowered employee will care more about the
quality of the work.

o It is different from employee involvement, where employees are asked for

input but are not given ownership of the jobs.

Team Training
 Training is an organized, systematic series of
activities designed to enhance an individual’s
work-related knowledge, skills, understanding,
or motivation.

 Training Phases

o Assessment Phase - This phase

identifies what training the firm needs at
the organization, group, and individual
levels. It assesses the gaps between the future requirements of a job and
the current skills, knowledge, and attitudes of the person in the job. The
differences would give the organization some indications of the training
needs.

o Planning / Design Phase – This phase focuses on when and where the
training will take place. It also identifies who needs to be trained, the
resources needed for the training and the benefits of training.

o Implementation Phase – This phase involves the actual delivery of

training. It may be on site or away from the premises, and will include
training techniques such as simulators, demonstrations, case studies,
coaching, mentoring, and/or computer assisted instruction.

o Evaluation Phase – This phase evaluates the overall effectiveness of

training. It also provides feedback for the trainers, future improvements in
the training, upper management, and the trainees themselves.

o In addition, to team training, all employees should receive training in

quality awareness (TQM), statistical process control (SPC), safety, and
technical aspects of the job.

West Central College of Arts and Science Inc. | QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT

6
 Performance appraisal
 The object of performance appraisal is to improve performance, let employees
know how they are doing, and provide a basis for promotions, salary increases,
and counseling.

 Most common appraisal formats:

o Ranking – compares employees by ranking

from highest to lowest.

o Narrative – Gives a written description of an

employee’s strengths and weaknesses.

o Graphics – Indicates the major duties

performed by the employee and a rating of
each duty with a scale.
o Forced choice – Places each employee in a
category with a predetermined percentage – for example, excellent (10%),
very good (25%), good (30%), fair (25%), and poor (10%)

Recognition and Reward

 Recognition n and rewards have an important role in motivation and employee
satisfaction. The most successful compensation systems combine both individual
and team pay.

 The difference between recognition and

reward is that the recognition is positive
feedback to appreciate employees’
performance and/or achievements while
rewards are something given in return to
appreciate their performance. Rewards are
usually monetary, such as salary increases,
but non-monetary rewards also exist, such as
job enrichment and promotions.
Recognitions, on the other hand, are non-
monetary. Some forms of recognition are
thanking, praising, or empowering the
employee.

West Central College of Arts and Science Inc. | QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT

6
 CONTINUOUS PROCESS IMPROVEMENT

Concepts in Continuous Process Improvement

- Different processes are used in businesses, so it follows that there is no one

method that can be used to improve processes. However, the organization can
choose from a number of standard strategies.

o Describes the process – This is done to make sure that everyone involved
in improving the process has a detailed knowledge of the process.

The steps involved in describing a process are as follows:

 Establish boundaries for the process

 Create a flowchart of the process as it is (not as it should be)
 Make a diagram of how the work flows
 Verify the work
 Correct immediately any obvious problems identified

o Standardize the process – To continually improve a process, all people

involved in its operation must be using the same procedures.

The steps involved in standardizing a process are as follows:

 Identify the currently known best practices for the process and
write them down.
 Test the best practices to determine whether they are really the
best, and improve them if possible.
 Make sure that everyone is using the newly standardized processes.
 Keep records of process performance, update them continually, and
use them to identify ways to improve the further on a continual
basis.

West Central College of Arts and Science Inc. | QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT

6
 o Eliminate the errors and potential errors in the process – This strategy
involves identifying common errors made or could be made in the
operations and then getting rid of them. This strategy helps delete steps,
procedures, and practices done just because they have always been done
that way, those done in incorrectly due to unclear or incomplete process
procedures, or even faulty process design.

o Streamline the process – These are activities used to take the slack out of
the process. It can be done by reducing inventory, reducing cycle times,
and eliminating unnecessary steps. After a process has been streamlined,
every step in the process has significance, contributes to the desired end,
and adds value.

o Reduce sources of variation – In order to execute this strategy, the firm

must first identify the sources of variation. Variances can be caused by
differences in people, machine, measurement instruments, material, or
operating conditions. The information about variances should be used to
reduce the amount of variances to the absolute minimum.

o Improve the design of the process – There are many different ways to
design and lay out a process. Most designs can be improved on.

The best way to improve a program is to experiment on the

process.

 Define the factors that you want to improve through your

experimentation.
 Design an experiment that will measure the factors and answer the
relevant questions.
 Set up and conduct the experiment
 Analyze the result
 Act on the result.

SIX SIGMA

West Central College of Arts and Science Inc. | QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT

6
 It is an

improvement tool that detects defects and errors by focusing on inputs that are critical
to the customers and a clear financial return for the organization. The term Six Sigma is
based on a statistical measure that equates to 3.4 or fewer defects per million
opportunities (DPMO). The organizations who adopt Six Sigma aim to have all critical
process, regardless of functional area, to have a Six Sigma level of capability.

Principles of Six Sigma

 Think in terms of key business processes and customer requirements with a clear
focus on overall strategic objectives.

 Focus on corporate sponsors responsible for championing projects, support team

activities, help to overcome resistance to change, and obtain resources.

 Emphasize quantifiable measures, such as DPMO, that can be applied to all parts
or divisions of the organization.

West Central College of Arts and Science Inc. | QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT

6
  Ensure that appropriate metrics are identified early in the process and that they
focus on business results, thereby providing incentives and accountability.

 Provide extensive training followed by project team deployment to improve

profitability, reduce non-value added activities, and achieve cycle time reduction.

 Create highly qualified process improvement experts who can apply

improvement tools and lead teams.

 Set objectives for improvement.

Five (5) Phases in applying Six Sigma (DMAIC)

 Define the scope and goals of the improvement project in terms of customer
requirements.

 Measure the long-term current process performance-input, process, and output-

and calculate the short-term and long-term process capability.

 Analyze the gap between current and desired performance, prioritize problems
and identify the root causes of problems.
 Improve the systems or the processes to fix the problems and prevent them from
recurring so that the financial and performance goals are met.

 Control the improvement process and future process performance.

MODULE 6: Activity 6:
West Central College of Arts and Science Inc. | QUALITY SERVICE MANAGEMENT

6
On 1 sheet of yellow paper, explain each of the following in not