Quality Management in Bergstrom Hotels

Quality Management in Bergstrom Hotels

 

Service Quality

            The service sector is challenged when it comes to the application of quality. The origins of the quality movement and philosophies, tools and techniques primarily rest in the manufacturing sector. The challenge for the service sector is to develop ways of addressing the quality problem, which are appropriate to the needs of the sector whose principal asset is people and where the application of the skills and knowledge of those people it employs is the key differentiator between good and bad service. Quality in services is completely different from quality in manufacturing. Quality in manufacturing rested on the resolution of tangible, visible, persistent issues while quality in service is directly measurable only in relation to the tangible aspects of the transaction. Service quality is intangible and instantaneous. It perishes with the completion of the transaction and cannot subsequently be verified or audited. It depends not on what actually happened but on how the parties to the transaction feel about what happened. The manufacturing models of quality cannot deal with the problem of service quality because they focus on the tangible, not the intangible, and quality is verified and audited after the event. Service quality cannot be verified after the event; it must be assured before hand (Beckford 2000).

 

 

 

 

Total Quality Management in Bergstrom Hotels

            According to Kanji (1990) Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management philosophy that fosters an organizational culture committed to customer satisfaction through continuous improvement. The fundamentals in the definition are ‘management’, ‘culture’, ‘customer satisfaction’, and ‘continuous improvement’, which can be easily applied to all kinds of organizations. TQM is built on a philosophy where individuals, teams and organizations can improve their performance at all times (Kanji 2002).

            Bergstrom Hotels is the owner and manager of three full-service hotels in Appleton, Neenah and Oshkosh. The largest hotel, Paper Valley Hotel, has 400 rooms. It is the largest 4-Diamond property in the State.

 

Joseph Juran

            Like Deming, Juran worked extensively with the Japanese in the 1950s, where the focus of his work was with middle and high-ranking executives since he believes that quality control should be conducted as an integral part of management control (Juran 1974). Juran believes that quality does not happen by accident, it has to be planned. The emphasis of his work is on ‘planning, organizational issues, management’s responsibility for quality and the need to set goals and targets for improvement. He believes that management are largely responsible for quality and that quality cannot be consistently improved unless the improvement is planned. Perhaps one of Juran’s most important contributions in the Total Quality Movement is his trilogy of quality planning, quality control and quality improvement. Juran emphasizes changing management behaviour through quality awareness; training; and then spilling down new attitudes to supporting management levels (Beckford 2002). To summarize Juran’s philosophy, let us look at the five key beliefs that he developed:

• Management is largely responsible for quality.
• Quality can be improved through planning.
• Plans and objectives must be specific and measurable.
• Training is essential and starts at the top.
• A three-step process of planning, control and action is needed.

 

Juran’s Quality Trilogy

            Juran’s quality trilogy is based on planning, control, and improvement. Specific goals and plans are established along with clear assignments of responsibility for meeting the goals.

Quality Planning

            In the quality planning stage, the management needs to identify the customers and determine the needs of the customers through an analysis of their behavior, by direct communication, and by becoming a customer. The management must also make sure that the groups within the company correctly interpret customer needs. When the needs of the customers are identified, the firm needs to develop a product or service that will respond to customers’ real, stated, and perceived needs and create and sustain a process that can produce a product or service of desired features.

Quality Control

            Quality control is the means of directing activities to meet standards. Managers are responsible for observing and comparing worker performance to company standards and must act if workers do not meet standards (Nersesian 2000). Quality control is used to ensure that the organization’s operations maintain the planned quality level. The purpose of quality control is to maintain the quality of the company’s projects. In order to maintain quality an organization must choose a control mechanism by which signs of a problem can be detected. It must also select a unit of measure for a product or service feature or a process. The goal must be measurable, equitable and has official recognition. The actual performance must be compared with the set standards and corrective measures must be taken should discrepancies are identified.

Quality Improvement

            Quality management is the last step in the Quality Trilogy. This level of quality management deals with the problems that arisen during the first two steps of the quality management. In order to effectively improve the quality of the firm’s product or service, it should establish a corporate infrastructure for annual quality improvement and identify the areas that need improvement. The firm also needs to specify improvement projects and organize a project team for each improvement project with clear responsibility for concluding the project. The management is responsible for providing the resources, motivation, and training needed by the teams to diagnose causes, determine a remedy, improve quality, and establish controls to hold on to improvement gains (Nersesian 2000).

 

Edwards Deming

            William Edwards Deming was one of the leading figures in the quality movement of the 1950s to the 1970s. His early work involved the development of statistical quality control (SQC) in production lines. In the early 1950s, during the period of post-war reconstruction, Deming and another quality control expert, Joseph Juran, were invited to Japan to demonstrate their methods. Deming’s work were ignored in the United States. However, when Japanese firms started to pose serious threats to American firms by producing low-cost, high-quality goods, Deming and Juran were rediscovered. Deming is considered as the father of the Total Quality Movement and his influence continues to be seen in different firms today. During the 1980s Deming was for a time the best-known management guru in the world. His mature philosophy of total quality management was developed at that time. To Deming, quality was more than just a set of techniques for quality control and standardization. Quality had to become a mindset, embraced by the entire company (Witzel 2003).

 

Deming’s 14 Principles for Transformation

1. Create constancy of purpose to improve product and service.

2. Adopt a new philosophy for the new economic age, with management learning what their responsibilities are and assuming leadership for change

3. Cease dependence on mass inspection to achieve quality, by building quality into the product

4. End the awarding of business on price; award business on total cost and move towards single suppliers

5. Aim for continuous improvement of the system of production and service to improve productivity and quality and to decrease costs

6. Institute training on the job

7. Institute leadership with the aim of supervising people to help them to do a better job

8. Drive out fear so that everyone can work effectively together for the organization

9. Break down barriers between departments. Encourage research, design, sales and production to work together to foresee difficulties in production and use.

10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations and numerical targets for the workforce since they are divisory

11. Eliminate quotas or work standards and management by objectives or numerical goals; leadership should be substituted instead

12. Remove barriers that rob people of their right to pride in work.

13. Institute a vigorous education and self-improvement programme.

14. Put everyone in the company to work to accomplish the transformation (Beckford 2002).

 

 

 

Application of Deming’s and Juran’s Philosophies

            The case shows us how Bergstrom Hotels combines both Deming’s and Juran’s philosophy in order to successfully manage quality. The organization combines the strengths of  both Demeing’s and Juran’s philosophies. In the initial stage of the planning process we can see that the management is the one who are responsible for identifying the problems of the company, as well as the needs of the customers. The management is also responsible in developing plans to improve the quality of the service.

 

            Deming’s first principle is aimed at creating a ‘team’ type of environment where all are working together towards a common goal. It requires the management to commit themselves to achieving ever-improving quality as a primary objective of the organization.

             The second principle, that of embracing management learning and a leadership-based style of management that the responsibility for developing and achieving the changes in theirs. It requires explicit recognition by management that the workers are not necessarily to blame for quality deficiencies.

            The fifth principle, aim for continuous improvement give greater substance and focus to the first two by focusing attention on productivity, quality and decreasing costs. The sixth principle, on the job training, emphasizes the need to improve competencies and skills in the practical context. While not excluding classroom-based training, this principle suggests that the objective of continuous improvement applies least as much to people as it does to processes.

            The seventh principle, leadership, is qualitative and cultural, and is closely associated with the eight, ‘drive out fear’. These principles are connected with the management style of the organization. The objective here can usefully be seen as a requirement to move away from an adversarial style of management towards a collaborative style.

            The ninth principle, that of breaking down barriers, can be seen as linked to the fourth. The suggestion here is for the creation of multidisciplinary teams for product and service development, aiming to enhance the development, production and delivery of new products or services. The thirteenth principle is to institute a vigorous education and self-improvement programmed. If the organization is to continuously improve, then the people must continuously improve. Future competitive advantage will be achieved through knowledge. The fourteenth and final principle is to put everyone to work to achieve the transformation. This suggests that the whole programmed can be successful only if a ‘total’ approach is take.