Quality Management: identify a quality management related problem

1. Select a specific organization of interest to you and identify a quality management related problem(s) in the firm. Examples may be poor quality levels, high cost of quality, poor product/service design, high level of internal/external failures, etc. Feel free to add to this list if you need to.

2. You are taking on the role as a quality management consultant and the executives of your chosen organization have asked you to submit a recommended direction to implement a quality management initiative to address the quality management related problem(s) you identified above. For example: Six Sigma, Lean Principles, TQM, SPC, Balanced Scorecard, etc.

3. Provide an overview of the organization and give enough information about the firm to acquaint an unfamiliar person (no matter how famous the company). Identify name, location, size, market segment (business line), and a brief history. Identify the essential issues, events, or actions to help frame the problem and subsequent discussion points. Identify and clearly state the problem – the quality management issue(s) that you have selected to research.

Introduction Provide an overview of the organization and give enough information about the firm to acquaint an unfamiliar person (no matter how famous the company). Identify name, location, size, market segment (business line), and a brief history. Identify the essential issues, events, or actions to help frame the problem and subsequent discussion points.

Problem Statement Identify and clearly state the problem – the quality management issue(s) that you have selected to research.

The problem statement should identify the major reason(s) for the recommended direction to implement a quality management initiative.

A well-formed problem statement has:
1. Focus – the problem should be well defined and specific enough for the reader to gain a clear idea of the quality management area and the direction of your study and research.
2. Structure – if the problem statement is sufficiently focused, it will provide a basis for decisions about which information to include and which to exclude from the paper.
3. Significance – The significance section is the area where you need to answer the magic question: “so what?” The significance makes your research worth it to the reader. It is great if you can link this more to quality/productivity issues and provide “numbers” to support your direction.

Literature Review
• You must address a minimum of 8 scholarly resources in this section (excluding the text).
• Provide an analysis and synthesis of the various authors from the research that significantly informed your analysis and proposed solutions.  
• You may have found conflicting opinionstheories related to your topic area. Identify and discuss any such contrasts and/or describe in detail significant agreement among your sources.
• Your literature review should be separate and distinct from your analysis section; it is a summation of your research.
• The “best practices” of quality management that was covered in the course and that links with your direction should be cited in this section.
• Use sub-titles as necessary.

Analysis Explore the problem in depth and with scholarly rigor.
Provide an identification and description of the potential root causes of the problem/issue. Be sure not to address only symptoms of your problem. Diagnose the problem and its origins as best as you can.
A critical element of this section is to apply the best practices of Quality Management concepts and models from the text, class discussions, and from researched sources.  

Discuss the concepts, ideas, or insights that are most valuable in helping you make sense of the causes of the problem. Support your analysis with reference to appropriate research material.
Citations are a MUST!

Recommendations
Identify the quality management initiative and recommended direction that you have chosen. Explain its relevance and significance in how it will address the quality management issue(s) and reason(s) that you identified in the problem statement area.

Note: Please remember in this section you also need to touch on how they will be able to measure their success. Think of the “lead-lag” indicator concepts from the course readings and lectures.

Reflection In this section, you are to reflect on your learning from this assignment. Identify the areas that you found most interesting and also identify areas that you feel will assist you most in your career.