Part 1.
Knowledge Assessment

Part 2.
Practical Assessment

Task 5. Participate in the development of continuous improvement strategies (Assessment)

To be recognised as competent in this unit you must be assessed in both the knowledge content and the workplace skills. The assessment is in two parts, part one is a knowledge assessment and part two is a practical assessment.

Part 1. Knowledge Assessment

Instead your performance in this final task will be your final assessment which consists of a number of assignments - good luck!

Introduction
Total Quality Management (TQM) is a philosophy for managing the quality of an enterprise at every level and on a continuous basis. Remember, there is no such thing as a perfect process - it can always be improved.

Important aspects of TQM

TQM looks at the three components in the creation of goods or services:

• Customer
• Producer
• Supplier.

TQM strives to delight the customer with outstanding service. The customer is defined as anyone that relies on you for information or a product and includes External Customers (people who purchase goods or services from SimuLab) or Internal Customers (your fellow workmates at SimuLab).

Step 1. Review all relevant features of work practice to identify possible contributing factors leading to sub-optimal performance

W Edwards Deming distilled his decades of quality experience into two sets of helpful hints:

• Deming's 14 TQM Points
• Deming's Seven Deadly Diseases

Click on the links below to view these documents. Print out a copy of this for use in the next activity.

In previous examples you have concentrated on the processes themselves, the science and human errors. We will now concentrate on the systems, procedures and policies that impact on quality delivery.

Remember that 85% of causes of variation are common causes that are part of the system installed by management. TQM and Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) are tools for improving the system.

Click on the following link to do an activity on Deming's principles.

Step 2. Identify options for removing or controlling the risk of sub-optimalperformance

Whenever an example of a factor contributing to sub-optimal performance is identified there are a number of factors to consider.

• The how, why, what, where and when of change
• Up-front costs and possible long term savings
• Personnel implications, for example, training, resistance, numbers, changes in management
• Customer implications, for example, improved service, increased cost, turn around time
• Supplier implications, for example cost, availability, supplier's quality system
• Documentation
• Flow on changes to other aspects of the workplace.

This range of factors will lead to the generation of a number of options including:

• do nothing (too expensive, customer does not need it, supplier cannot supply)
• do it all at once ('crash through' approach)
• do it over time (often easier to gain staff acceptance this way)
• remove the risks completely (eg replace machine, replace staff, pull out of this testing)
• control the risks (better QA, more sensitive QC).

Step 3. Assess the adequacy of current control, quality methods and systems

Philip Crosby is often described as the 'evangelist' of quality management. He wrote a book called 'Quality is Free' which expounds his contention that Quality actually saves money and is therefore free. His view is that the price of getting things wrong (price of non-conformance) always outweighs the cost of getting things right (price of conformance). Thus 'Quality is Free'.

Crosby's view intermeshes with many of Deming's Points.

Crosby's philosophy has three main points:

• Quality is free: poor quality is expensive
• do things right the first time
• 'zero defects' is the only legitimate goal of a quality program.

Step 4. Identify opportunities to continuously improve performance

Quality is one aspect of SimuLab's activities. We have discussed quality at length to define it, manage it and improve it. Another aspect of SimuLab's activities is performance.

Obviously performance is related to quality and the two are sometimes discussed as being the same thing. But performance comes out of the quality system and of course quality is related to how we perform.

Sound confusing? Put simply, performance is what we do (for example, doing glucose measurements on 30 samples of Krazy Kola by 3.00 pm today) and quality is how well we do it (for example QC, meet the deadline, minimise wastage, report results correctly with appropriate units).

The US Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organisations (JCAHO) has developed nine Dimensions of Performance and these are listed below.

• Efficacy    (ability to produce the desired effect)
• Appropriateness
• Availability
• Timeliness
• Effectiveness    (producing the intended or expected result)
• Continuity
• Safety
• Efficiency    (competently)
• Care and Respect

NOTE: efficacy, effectiveness and efficiency have different meanings. To illustrate these different meanings, we will consider the scenario concerning the measurement of glucose levels in Krazy Kola:

• The test procedure is efficacious if it is able to measure the glucose level
  
  
• You are effective if you have the ability to produce accurate glucose levels
  
  
• You are efficient if you can do it by 3.00 pm.
  
  

Step 5. Develop recommendations for continual improvements of work practices, methods, procedures and equipment effectiveness

Continual improvements or Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) sounds very useful in theory but the practice sometimes requires hard work.

The Japanese car industry has an approach to CQI that works well because of the structure of Japanese society.

• Each and every employee is required to make a certain number of quality improvement suggestions per month (say one per month, twelve per year)
• Management evaluates all suggestions and puts in place all viable suggestions
• The worker receives workplace admiration and respect for the great idea and sometimes a monetary reward.

This is a relatively simple process (but a potential personnel relations nightmare - imagine telling Australian workers that it was mandatory to come up with 12 suggestions per year!). The results are evident in the excellent (and relatively cheap) Japanese cars on the market today.

Click on the link below to do an activity on CQI.

Step 6. Consult with appropriate personnel to refine recommendations before implementation of approved improvement strategies

Quality Improvement in the workplace is fine when outlined on paper. It may take a lot of work but we can collect data, review quality systems, institute automated QC data management, purchase better equipment and even move to a new building BUT we cannot do any of these things without CONSULTATION.

Consultation means:

• meeting for deliberation
• seeking information or advice from someone who knows more than we do
• taking counsel
• taking suggestions into consideration.

• meet, talk and listen
• seek advice
• talk to the right people.

Click on the following link to do an activity on the art of consultation.

Step 7. Document outcomes of strategies and communicate them to relevant personnel

You will be aware by now that documentation is vital for all quality operations and for the continued existence of SimuLab and all businesses. You have also learnt about quality management and practised some of the tools of quality.

This final activity will test your ability to develop a strategy, then document the strategy outcomes and communicate the information to relevant staff.

Click on the following link to do an activity on strategies and communication.

Sustainable Energy Work Practices and Principles
These final two steps follow on from the end of Task 1. They have been placed at the end of this unit so that the development of the Krazy Kola situation was not interrupted.

Note: these final two steps are not part of the final assessment in this unit but must be completed for you to be deemed competent in QUAL401.

Step 8. Conduct work in accordance with sustainable energy work practice

The resources of the world are finite. We have only a limited amount of fossil fuels (gas, oil, coal), minerals and water. Resources such as water are recycled through the environment but there is only a finite amount that can be captured and used without affecting other aspects of the ecosystem. For example, consider the environmental problems associated with the Murray and Snowy Rivers.

Energy derived from fossil fuels is limited but energy from the sun is continuous and unlimited (for the next few million years anyway!). Theoretically, timber and plants are unlimited as they capture the sun's energy to grow. But famine still rules the world. Why?

The Western world uses more than its fair share of energy and resources. There is not much that SimuLab can do to help world poverty, apart from our sponsorship of relief programs, but SimuLab can have a direct effect on reducing the pollution of the environment.

Reduction in the use of energy and resources always leads to a reduction in waste, emission and pollution. At the same time this saves money. SimuLab has committed itself to employ sustainable energy practices.

One fundamental aspect of energy conservation is having an awareness of how energy use contributes to an increase in waste and pollution of the environment.

Click on the following link to access an activity to test your understanding of energy use and pollution.

There is an Australian Standard for effective energy management:

AS/NZS 3598:2000, Energy Audits

The audit is designed to identify and reduce energy use in premises of all sizes. Energy audits are investigations of energy use in a defined enterprise or in a defined area or site. The audit allows the measurement of energy use and costs, which leads to processes for better control of consumption.

Audits can be extremely complex, for example, imagine doing an energy audit at a car manufacturing plant! At SimuLab the audit will be relatively simple and based on common sense.

Click on the link below to access an activity on a simple audit of SimuLab energy use.

Step 9. Promote sustainable energy principles and work practices to other workers

Conducting a safety audit and proposing ways to reduce energy and resource use is only half of the process. The other half involves promoting the acceptance of energy saving principles amongst the staff at SimuLab. This will involve some marketing and selling of the changes with the intention of changing the behaviour of your workmates.

Click on the following link to do an activity on changing human behaviour.

Part 2. Practical Assessment

Practical assessment requires you to demonstrate the competency on-the-job (or in a simulated laboratory).

The assessment will consist of:

• a demonstration of the competency in an on-the-job situation or a simulation
• oral questioning about such things as laboratory specific knowledge of processes, troubleshooting and
• questioning related to specific safety or other factors that may be peculiar to the learner's work environment
• any relevant workplace documents that support the assessment.

If you are ready to undertake the practical assessment send a message to your tutor using the mail facility.

Use the following link to obtain a checklist to be used by your assessor.