continuation of attached paper located at bottom

In SLP 3, focus on supply chain management in your imaginary company.

Session Long Project

Using your fictitious company from the previous SLPs, continue to develop the company profile and operating information. This is a very open-ended SLP and it will give you an opportunity to expand your knowledge and allow you to use creativity in providing the solution to the challenges.

Identify how your company uses supply chain management. Successful supply chain management demands a high level of integration among various parts of the organizations. Develop integrated supply management strategy, including suppliers, internal supply chain, and customers. Articulate challenges and possible solutions.

This paper should be approximately 3–5 pages in length counting the introduction, body, and summary. Include references and cite them properly in the paper. Generally, at least three references should be used.

SLP Assignment Expectations

• First discuss a recap of your company and provide any additional information about it that will be a necessary and/or interesting background to a discussion of supply chain management.
• Discuss internal supply chain and integration.
• Review integrated supply chain with suppliers and customers.
• Provide insight into how supply-chain links to operations strategy.

• There is no right or wrong response, so be creative and use your knowledge to compile the paper.

Review all of the resources for this module. Use them to help you create/invent issues about quality and how you would improve.

Look for additional references about the type of business you are operating, with specific information about implementing supply chain management.

Attached paper

Total Quality Management

Introduction

EZ Auto Repair Inc. is a motor vehicle repair and maintenance business operating four repair centers in Washington. The business repairs and maintains cars manufactured by Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, Ford, and Nissan.EZ Auto Repair Inc. is very keen on the quality of service provided to all customers. The company’s mission statement specifies that it aims to provide top quality services to all clients. Poor repair and maintenance of motor vehicles usually lead to frequent breakdowns and additional problems. Such failures and further issues result in customers getting dissatisfied with a repair business that they are very likely to switch to another firm. EZ Auto Repair Inc. strives to keep all customers satisfied by providing superior quality services. The efforts have mostly paid off as the business has been able to retain many customers and get many referrals from existing customers. There is, however, room for further quality improvement and adopting appropriate quality control tools, techniques, and programs can help make such improvements.

Areas of Quality Focus

The four areas of quality that the company focuses on are employees, spare parts, internal processes, and repair and maintenance tools. Employees are vital to the provision of superior quality services. They deal with the clients and repair and maintain motor vehicles. EZ Auto Repair Inc. endeavours to hire employees who can provide excellent quality services to customers. The quality of spare parts is also key to the quality service. Poor quality spare parts usually cause problems that could have been avoided. The company endeavours to procure spare parts from manufacturers of the vehicle being repaired or maintained.Internal processes are also critical to the provision of excellent quality services. Dysfunctional processes usually frustrate employees and customers and result in and business underperforming. Tools used in repair and maintenance are vital to the quality of service. EZ Auto Repair Inc. has been working on purchasing modern and more efficient tools to support the company’s employees.

Quality Improvement Tools and Techniques

Quality challenges that the company faces are dysfunctionality in some processes, poor quality spare parts, ineffective repair and maintenance tools, and poor performance by some employees. Three tools and techniques that EZ Auto Repair Inc. can use to chart, diagnose, and improve quality in the four area of quality focus are flow-charting, check sheets, and cause and effects diagrams. Flow-charting involves the creation of a process flowchart and using the chart to determine existing or potential problems in the service delivery process (Goetsch, & Davis, 2014). EZ Auto Repair Inc. has a process flowchart, and it is helping improve internal processes. A check sheet is a form that is used to collect real-time data where the data is being generated (Goetsch, & Davis, 2014). Check sheets are popular in motor vehicle assembly and repair and maintenance and the company can benefit a lot from using the tool. A cause and effect diagram is a quality control tool that is used to identify the cause or causes of an existing or potential quality problem (Goetsch, & Davis, 2014). The tool can help the company determine the cause of complicated quality problems.

Quality Management Programs

There are numerous programs designed to help organizations improve the quality of their products and services. Quality programs that EZ Auto Repair Inc. can utilize to enhance the quality of its operations and services are Total Quality Management (TQM), Six Sigma, and ISO 9000. The TQM approach advocates for the organization-wide continuous improvement of quality. It focuses on an organization’s facilities, workforce, equipment, customers, suppliers, procedures, and processes (Global Text Project, 2017). Efforts to improve quality never end, and the goal is to ensure customers and satisfied and that there are zero defects in the case of products.

The Six Sigma program provides tools and techniques to help improve an organization’s processes. The program’s tools and techniques help identify and eliminate causes of dysfunction in processes (Ching-Chow, 2010). They also help reduce inconsistencies in organizations’ processes. Inconsistencies in business processes result in varying quality of final products or services. There are differing process improvement approaches in the Six Sigma program. GE-6ϭ’s approach is quite popular (Ching-Chow, 2010). The five process improvement phases of the GE-6ϭ approach are “‘Define,’ ‘Measure,’ ‘Analyse,’ ‘Improve,’ and ‘Control’ (DMAIC)” (Ching-Chow, 2010).

ISO 9000 refers to a class of quality management standards designed to enable businesses to satisfy the needs of their customers and meet regulatory requirements concerning the goods they produce or services that they offer (Hoyle, 2017). ISO 900 standard advances seven principles to guide organizations in their endeavour to improve quality. The seven principles are a focus on customers, leadership, engagement of people, process approach, improvement, evidence-based decision making, and relationship management (Hoyle, 2017). The quality program is getting wide acceptation around the world (Hoyle, 2017). Although all three programs can help EZ Auto Repair Inc. improve on quality, TQM is much more preferable. The TQM program emphasizes continuous improvement of quality and covers all the quality aspects that the organization aims at improving.

Summary

In conclusion, EZ Auto Repair Inc. is very keen on delivering superior quality repair and maintenance services to customers. Four aspects of quality that the organization focuses on are labor, spare parts, internal processes, and repair and maintenance tools. Quality improvement tools that EZ Auto Repair Inc. can apply are flow-charting, check sheets, and cause and effects diagrams. The TQM quality management program is well-suited for improving the quality of the company’s operations and services. The TQM is well-suited for the company due to its comprehensive approach to quality improvement and its focus on continuous improvement. Superior quality services will give EZ Auto Repair Inc. a competitive advantage over other repair shops. Such a position will help increase profitability and grow the business.