Reference no: EM133838230

Assessment details

1. TQM group project-

2. In class Problem solving-

This is the summary of all your assessments in the unit and ignore any information different from this summary.

Quality measures the goodness, or fitness for purpose, of a product or service. In short, it measures the goodness of the actual state of the characteristics compared with what is expected. That is, it measures variability and subjects the variability to continuous improvement. Total Quality Management (TQM) is a family of methods that an organisation uses to improve quality and meet customer requirements through rigorous process understanding and control. Both qualitative and quantitative measures achieve process understanding and control. Improvement teams study the processes seek out problems and identify issues that require improvement.

TQM is an extremely diverse subject involving many disciplines and only approaches optimality when everyone involved works efficiently and effectively as a team. Some people work well in teams, and some do not. Irrespective of a particular person's "team personality" skills, it is necessary that everyone participates in and contributes to a team effort positively and constructively. Your team skills should be demonstrated in this report.

Each team can be four (4) or five (5) members and all must equitably share the work. Join a group on Canvas. If you are not enrolled by the end of Week 2, you will be allocated/assigned randomly in groups.

This is a formal report, and you are required to follow a formal report format. The format structure and other instructions are included below.

Team Task.

The objective of this task is to study the way TQM can be applied to a real situation that has complex qualitative and quantitative characteristics, as well as a high degree of subjectivity such as consumer expectation and confidence.

Every day we rely upon or use products or services without thinking about them, and with generally very little understanding about how they became available "on demand". For example, we ride a train or bus without really understanding the complex chain of events that must work together like the parts of a mechanical chronometer to provide the service.

There are many standards, regulations, and guidelines, as well as commercial initiatives that are in place to guide the chain of events to deliver these products or services so that they meet consumer expectations and are safe for consumption or use. The chain will usually include a wide range of assets, plant, equipment, infrastructure, and processes that need to be maintained to provide the product within consumer requirements. Organisations will usually have procedures in place to assure product quality; you need to make sure that such procedures are in place. Get assignment help services from verified experts!

General Guidelines:

This task is a GROUP assignment that MUST be submitted through Canvas. This will allow for

To help you go through this assignment, 3 intermediate activities are organized:

Proposal

Your group will have to present the topic to be investigated and demonstrate that work on the identification of problems has started. An overview of the project, identified issues, TQM tools thought to solve the problem should be presented on a 1-page document that you will hand over at the interview to be marked. Presentations do not require visual support, only a short overview of the project. All members of the group must attend.

Progress report.
In Week 10, you need to submit a progress report on your work.

An individual group session to provide with feedback will be organised in Week 11

(exact date and time to be confirmed).

The progress report should follow the final report structure (Annex C). It must also include:

Milestones with date/timeframe
A Gantt chart showing completed work and remaining
Responsibility of each team member
The progress of the project, any problem and challenges faced in performing/organising the work and how solutions have been thought to solve the issues if any.
Final report (60% of the final project mark)
In Week 13, you will submit a complete report.

Each student as listed in the table certifies that they and each other member of the team worked equitably and diligently on the research, preparation, and submission of the report. This is part of your peer review.

The signature also certifies that this is their original work for this course and has not been presented for assessment in any other course or as part of any workplace task.

The following certificate is to be provided in the team report after the title page.

Student Certificate

Student Name

Student Number

Signature

Each team report is to be about 7,000 words excluding front matter and appendices and submitted via Canvas as a single .pdf file.

As this is a formal report you are to follow a formal report structure as below. Your report should include, as necessary, some maps, photographs, tables, and graphs to illustrate your case. Proper formatting and referencing must be used.

Demonstrated research is a key aspect of this project.

A general approach and structure for writing reports can be found. This reference forms the basis of the report that you must write.

You should search for examples of good reports from organizations or corporations, government departments, industry groups, etc for ideas about what your report could look like. These examples have elements for you to consider and give you an idea of content and presentation.

An important part of writing a report is to know the audience. Your target audience will be identified in the option brief.

The structure of the report that each team has to follow is as follows.

Cover or Title Page
Student Certificate
Executive Summary
About 500 words
Summarize the basis of the report
Introduce main conclusions and recommendations
Table of Contents
Introduction
Background to the report
What is the problem
Why does it need to be solved
Key issues
Research scope
Literature Review (cite using Harvard Style, be careful to be consistent)
Body of Report
The report must reflect the research that you have undertaken to study the
Describe the situation and summarise the requirements, Highlight any statutory, critical or key points in the processes. Discuss the driving impact of three of these issues.
What main decisions will need to be made and why?
Dealing with normal and abnormal situations. Examples of abnormal situations include flooding, fire, or
Data collection for What data was available, what was not, and how did you deal with that? Report on any interviews that you conducted. Current and future normal and critical issues that need to be considered.
For the case chosen, present, explain, and justify your The solution must be practical, affordable and reflect reality. It must be based on your research and any specialist information that you have accessed.
Considering these characteristics, prepare a TQM "Plan on a Page" for use throughout the organization. The plan can be used to explain, audit, and measure how well a supply chain is functioning, what are the key points to watch out for, and what will need to be done to prepare for the future. The TQM "Plan on a Page" needs to be a reference document for everyone in an organization to understand the quality management system and address critical questions such as: what is it supposed to be done and what are we trying to achieve? It should also be a means of knowing what we are not doing that we should be doing, as well as whether are we doing things we should not be doing.
Conclusions
Recommendations
Reference List (cite using Harvard Style)
Appendices
The material that you are to address in the report is as follows:

An extensive and comprehensive usage of material from lectures, tutorials, textbook, contemporary texts and papers, and industry sources on total quality It must be obvious that you have extensively researched the task.
Description of the task in terms of total quality management, and its importance to a business or the community.
Complementary aspects of quality such as vulnerability, reliability, and risk; how to identify them and how to manage them.
Limitations, assumptions, and difficulties that apply to the study.
Availability and accessibility to data and information to prepare the report.

Often a report that is technically very good loses its impact because of poor style and presentation. In this respect, you need to address the following features in your report.

The executive summary is no more than one page long, and its purpose is that someone not familiar with the business of the report can read it and know the context, the problem, the core issues, and the conclusions and recommendations.
Headers, footers, and page numbering are to be used.
The word processor grammar and spell checker feature is to be used and any anomalies corrected.
Make sure the correct word is used and spelled E.g. Compliment instead of complement.
A balanced use of tables of data, graphs, photographs, and figures.
12pt Arial font is preferred.
As this is a team report it must read as though it is written by one author.

Option 1. Quality in Agriculture

Agriculture for vegetable food products relies upon a family of insects and other plants to pollinate the crops to have good food. Such a pollinator is the honeybee. Good pollination means good quality food. The quality of the pollinator determines the quality of the agricultural product and the economy of the agricultural industry. But what happens when the quality of the pollinator is under threat? For example, Asian Hornets are a threat to the Australian honeybee. Pollinators can also be under threat due to predators, drought, loss of habitat, floods, fires, and poor husbandry. Given the food quality and economic importance of agriculture, quality management aspects must be in place to develop and protect the quality of tthe pollinators.

You are to prepare a report to compare the quality management of 8-10 primary pollinators in Australia and one other country and compare them. You are to identify these main pollinators and how they are to be managed to preserve them to assure the quality of agriculture. You are also to identify the "sneak" vulnerability of a pollinator that can be very dangerous if not detected. Your report should identify risks and threats to the agriculture sector due to poor quality management of pollinators.

Your target audience is local communities in agricultural regions.

Option 2. Quality of Urban Transport.

In this option, urban transport covers the public transport fleets, taxis, private buses, and ride share. In this report, you are to explore the quality issues that surround urban transport as a system. If there is to be a reduction in demand for private transport in urban areas, it is necessary to understand the consumer expectations of quality transport to address the need for roads and rails. The report is to identify the key issues and propose options to find the most efficient approach.

Your target audience is planners for private and public transport.

Option 3. Precision Manufacturing

In this option you are to consider the quality issues surrounding manufacturing, maintenance of machinery and the precision it requires. Precision manufacturing and maintenance encompass the design and performance of precision machines and machine tools, metrology, tooling elements, machine structures, sources of error, precision maintenance, precision machining processes and precision process planning. To undertake precision manufacturing usually also requires high hand skills. But, is there a case for using robots to do some specific jobs and maintenance? Two other aspects of the manufacturing process is to ensure that parts are kept stored to avoid damage and that all tools are maintained for precision manufacturing. Significant losses are incurred if precision manufacturing and maintenance are not well performed. Quality of manufacturing is essential; how can that be achieved and measured?

Your target audience is the senior management team of firms that need high-precision manufacturing and maintenance processes in place to meet quality objectives.

Option 4. Environmental Topic of own choice

For this option, you can select an environmental topic of your own choice, but it must be relevant.

You are to review the other options to establish a context of what is expected, quality issues about your topic, and TQM tools applicable to evaluate those issues and propose solutions to them. Some ideas for choice could include:

Energy generation
Electric vehicles
Net zero carbon emission
Queen's Commonwealth Canopy
Your option must focus on the application of quality management to your topic. Your target audience is for the considered information of community groups.

Option 5. Patient Medical Aid Equipment Quality Factors

In any given society there is a large part of the society in need of medical aid to provide some improved quality of life. Some examples are the loss of limbs and the need for prosthetics, assistive animals such as seeing-eye dogs, voice-activated equipment for blind people, wheelchairs, and robots to provide assistive functions. This equipment involves specialist skills to design and support for use by the person. Also, the cost can be prohibitive for some sectors of society. Quality has an important role in these aids. For example, the proper fitment of a prosthetic leg that is comfortable for a patient would be good quality, on the other hand, if it did not fit properly, it would be poor quality. Also, the time it takes to design and fit the prosthetic would be a measure of quality of service. It is important to consider the impact of technology. For example, the swipe features of many appliances offer many features. But, if a patient has a tremor condition, say, Parkinsons, swipe features may not be an advantage.

The task is to select any three different technology appliances, say, prosthetic, wheelchair, and electronic such as an assistive robot. You can assume a set of conditions and what appliances would be needed. For example, an elderly person may have macular degeneration, Parkinsons Disease, and an amputee from diabetes. What appliances might they need for an improved quality of life? Similarly, what would be the requirements if a young person had an accident and became quadriplegic and needed a range of equipment to provide a comfortable quality of life? Your group has been engaged to provide a report for a medical technology industry group to report on the quality factors, issues, and measurement of these products from the aspects of user, designer, manufacturer, and product support. The report should discuss the quality of use of the equipment in urban, regional, or remote environments. Also, consider the impact on the quality of equipment to be renovated. You could also consider the quality aspects of programs such as Rotary International's program of using bicycles to make wheelchairs.

Option 6. ISO Certification

In this option, you are to consider how third-party certification of ISO 9001 Quality Management System (QMS) Standard or ISO 14001 Environmental Management System Standard could help small and medium-sized industries in implementing and monitoring the quality policies and best practices. Identify the body of standards dealing with quality and how they might be used. Identify and discuss 10 QMS standards such as risk, documentation, handbooks, etc.

Your target audience is the top management who always looks for meeting customers' demand by supplying quality products and services. You will also provide suggestions and guidelines on how small and medium-sized industries can achieve this ISO certification. Compare the quality of SMEs vs large corporations. Look at certification options. Is a third-party certification necessary? Should there be other forms of certification? E.g. For SMEs is a self-certification process an option?