1. Discuss how the practices that TecSmart identified support Demings 14 points.

TecSmart Electronics embraced Demings philosophy to the point that the company established Deming Steering Committee to guide the process and champion for each 14 points of the philosophy. The company also invested to send its employees to Deming Seminars to be fully aware of the philosophy. Listing the strengths of the company, more of its practices are aligned in Demings 14 points.1. Create a vision and demonstrate commitment. This initiative is related to publishing to all employees a statement of the aims and purposes of the company or other organization.The companys objectives of TecSmart are set by its senior management. The senior management encourage and guide cross-functional teams to review and develop individual plans to be aligned with the companys objectives. The companys objectives are cascaded among the employees and each employee aligns his objectives to support the whole companys objectives/vision.

2. Learn the new philosophy, top management and everybody.Senior leaders teach courses in TecSmart University related on change management, customer service, quality and leadership, meet with customers, suppliers and benchmarking partners and actively engaged in professional and community organizations. Senior leaders as trainers are better way to impart knowledge to the employees. As employees, it is better to see your leaders know and apply different philosophy and cascading among employees.

3. Understand the purpose of inspection, for improvement of processes and reduction of cost.TecSmart used statistical methods when new product is introduced to design engineers and customers to ensure that the design requirements are met during manufacturing and testing. All processes are documented with proper statistical monitoring on the variation and providing corrective action.

4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag alone.In the list of the strengths in the case, pricing is never an issue and TecSmart is focused on quality, service and value.

5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service. TecSmart applies Six Sigma goals to most of its processes. The company also uses self-managed work groups wherein each employee is empowered to make day-to-day decision while the managers are focused on coaching and process improvements.

6. Institute training.All employees are trained in a five-step problem solving process. The company has its TecSmart University wherein senior leaders talk about change management, customer service, quality and leadership. The average employee receives 72 hours of internal quality/service-related training and quality training mandatory for all salespeople, engineers, office staff and managers.

7. Teach and institute leadership.Leadership is being taught by the senior leaders of TecSmart and leadership is instituted through empowering its employees to make day-to-day decisions in work and managers do coaching to its subordinates.

8. Drive out fear. Create trust. Create a climate of innovation.Senior leaders actively participate in regular meetings to discuss company issues and answer questions of the employees. This creates open communication between the management and employees. Creation of trust is in terms of empowering employees in decision making and managers to do coaching and process improvement. The company also allows to make process changes initiated by its employees. TecSmart does survey on its employees on the feedback of implementation and employee opinions.

9. Optimize toward the aims and purposes of the company the efforts of teams, groups, staff areas.TecSmart ensures that every employees objectives is aligned in the companys goals. The company allows different work groups and cross-functional teams to do certain tasks. The collaboration of teams especially in product development is more effective to consider different processes and specifications that the new product may affect when produced.

10. Eliminate exhortations for the workforce.TecSmart clearly states its focus quality, service and value. However, the company does not stop there. It continuously embraces the constant changes in the technology and industry which prepares the whole company to act on these changes. It does not sick to its current system but does strategic planning which covers all stakeholders for the improvement of the company.

11. Eliminate numerical quotas for production. Instead, learn and institute methods for improvement. Eliminate MBO (Manage by Objective). Instead, learn the capabilities of processes and how to improve them.Quotas are not discuss in the case while objectives are part of the companys strengths. Though objectives are not clearly stated if those are arbitrary, numerical or with variation, other strengths of the company show that it embraces process improvements. Six Sigma is part of their goals which is about quality of its processes, it can be a measure if each process complies with the Six Sigma and if it does not comply, process improvement may take place.

12. Remove barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship.TecSmart through its strengths shows that the company values its employees. Empowering and training them to be more equipped at work will bring them pride to love their work.

13. Encourage education and self-improvement for everyone.TecSmart invest different training to employees and allow managers to coach their subordinates. These initiatives will hone the employees to be the future leaders of the company. Working in teams with cross functional activities adds learning to each employee.

14. Take action to accomplish transformation.Transformation should always start in top management as they have the power to move the company to whatever direction they want to move. As TecSmart plans to adapt Baldrige philosophy, its initiative to start on top is a better move to transform the whole company.

2. How do these practices support the Baldrige criteria? Specifically, identify which of the questions in the criteria each of these practices address.The Baldrige criteria for Performance Excellence is formulated to allow the companies enhance their competitiveness to an aligned approach to organizational performance management with the following results: (1) delivery of ever-improving value to customers, resulting in improved marketplace success (2) improvement of overall company performance and capabilities (3) organizational and personal learning. These results are seen in the initiatives of TecSmart Electronics such as its value to customers through its quality products and services, continuous improvement in the processes and learning of the whole organization.To achieve such results, the criteria consist of 7 categories. Relating these to TecSmart practices, some are already applicable to the criteria.1. Leadership: How an organizations senior leaders address values, directions, and performance expectations, as well as a focus on customers and other stakeholders, empowerment, innovation, and learning? The senior management of TecSmart is very active and hands on in terms of transforming the company in higher level especially in their move to support Baldrige.

2. Strategic Planning: How an organization develops strategic objectives and action plans? How the chosen objectives and plans are deployed and how progress is measured? TecSmart has its process of aligning the objectives of the whole company from top to bottom to ensure that every employees goals will support the whole companys goals. Strategic planning is also in place where in all stakeholders from customers, suppliers, competitors, and industry leaders are the basis on benchmarking. Customer feedback and market research are also being done to be used for the planning. All managers are given inputs for team analyses and also being discussed among the employees and suppliers. Department teams develop detailed action plans with measurable goals while the CEO reviews progress monthly.

3. Customer and market focus: How an organization determines requirements, expectations, and preferences of customers and markets? How the organization builds relationships with customers and determines the key factors that lead to customer acquisition, satisfaction, loyalty and retention and to business expansion? TecSmart is company that is customer focus and finds its way to get the needs of its customers through market research, customer feedback, and industry benchmarking. The after sales service is being provided by the company as theres an assigned VP to handle the complaints and should be resolved in 2 days. Customer satisfaction data is acquired from sales representatives through phone calls, visits and surveys as these are being reviewed during strategic planning.4. Measurement, analysis and knowledge management: How an organization selects, gathers, analyzes, manages, and improves its data, information and knowledge assets? TecSmart use internal and external data for analysis on its customers, suppliers, industry, and employees. The company does not only focus on its customers information but also considering other stakeholders information such as suppliers, industry and employees which also affect the performance of the company. It applies different processes to gather customer information and validate through cross referencing, market research, customer feedback, and employee opinion surveys. Details in the gathered information are being used to analysis to improve products, services, and processes.

5. Human Resource Focus: How an organization employee learning and motivation enable employees to develop and utilize their full potential in the alignment with the organizations overall objectives and action plans? Examines the organizations efforts to build and maintain a work environment and employee support climate conducive to performance excellence and to personal and organizational growth. TecSmart invested trainings for its employees and put up the companys university for its employees learning and helping them to be more equipped at work. Imparting knowledge through trainings facilitated by its Senior management is an effort of two way learning as employees learn from the speaker and Senior management needs to learn what share in the training. TecSmart sends its employees to 72 hours of internal quality/service-related training, and quality training. The company also focuses and gives importance to its employees as they are part of the evaluation of implementation in Demings 14 points and assessment of quality through employee opinion surveys. The company also empowers its employees and managers to be in-charge in day-to-day decision making and coaching for managers. The employees have an opportunity to have cross functional assignments to be more exposed and share their expertise to a new project / product.

6. Process Management: Examines the key aspects of an organizations process management, including key product, service, and business processes for creating customer and organizational value and key support processes involving all work units. TecSmart has been implementing Six Sigma goals most of its processes. It is a benchmark of standards for each processes and can be a basis for improvement if non-compliant. The company also trains its employees to have a five-step problem solving process to have a systematic way on how to handle challenges. Strategic planning is also in place so that the management will the future plans and directions of the whole company which covers the product, service and business processes that will be improved and introduced.

7. Business Results: Examines an organizations performance and improvement in key business areas-customer satisfaction, product and service performance, financial and marketplace performance, human resource results, operational performance, and governance and social responsibility. Also, examined are performance levels relative to competitors. TecSmart has its continuous process of evaluating its performance through customer feedback, employee opinion surveys and internal audits. Getting first-hand information to the affected stakeholders will help better examination on the companys performance.

3. What are some of the obvious opportunities for improvement relative to the Baldrige criteria? What actions would you recommend that TecSmart do to improve its pursuit of performance excellence using Baldrige Criteria?

TecSmart has performed well and practiced Demings 14 points to maintain and improve the quality on its processes, products and services. Since theres always an ever changing customers needs, industrys practice, competition, and technology, the company should not be complacent and should be ready to act on these changes. At times, implementation of the philosophy is not always a smooth process and there will always be opportunities for improvement especially in embracing the new Baldrige criteria.

In terms of process improvement, TecSmart should reevaluate on the use of Senior Management in some of the major regular operational processes of the company such as a VP assigned to answer complaints and the CEO to review the progress monthly related to the proposed action plans. The company is paying high with these personnel and they are doing transactional processes wherein should be assigned in the middle management. The senior management should be in charged in decision making and planning as to the direction of the company. As CEO, monthly review of progress of the detailed action plans should not be part of his role as it should only be presented to him and someone should be assigned to spearhead the progress and ensure that action plans should be implemented within planned. The VP should have an assigned team to handle customer complaints to be more hands on and fully monitored and responded within the turnaround time.

TecSmart has involved every employee in the decision making. Senior management should step up and be more active in governance for the whole company. It does not mean the employees should not be part of the decision making but the senior management should still initiate the final decisions in the company.

It also lacks to answer the question in the leadership criteria in terms of examining how the organization address its public and community responsibilities. Corporate social responsibility should be part of the initiatives of the company on how it can help in the society. The company may share medical products for free in public hospitals as part of their CSR.

Lastly, the company failed to detail the key result areas and performance measure of every employee and the whole company. Goals are defined but measurable key result areas should also be identified to properly measure whether targets are met. A standardized performance measure which should be done on a regular basis should also be implemented to ensure that goals are met and whether the whole company is in compliant with Baldrige criteria.

ProblemSuggestion (ZEE):How can TecSmart improve its performance in excellence using different total quality management frameworks and principles?

(Pink)In the pursuit of performance excellence, what total quality managementpractices and principles should TecSmart adapt and how should they implementsuch principle?

(Glenda)How can TecSmart identify areas that need most improvement to meet the criteria requirements for performance excellence?

-- its kinda hard to determine what would be the problematic areas for improvement kasi it seems that they already perfected the Demings criteria =(

ObjectivesSuggestion (ZEE):1. To improve the performance in excellence of TecSmart.2. To apply total quality management frameworks and principles in the areas that require improvement in TecSmart.3. To determine which practices to improve or eliminate.4. To decide which total quality philosophy should the company adapt and implement.5. To apply criteria/ concepts / best practices based on the total quality management6. To conduct evaluation on each areas/ processes to be able to apply improvement ACA1ACA2ACA3

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Feasibility

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