Quality Management

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Please see response attached for best formatting and diagram (also below, in part). I hope this helps and take care.

RESPONSE:

Hi,

Interesting questions! Let us take a closer look:

1. How does quality management create a competitive advantage for an organization?

Competition is all about value: creating it and capturing it. Therefore, quality management is imperative in creating a competitive advantage. http://www.1000ventures.com/business_guide/crosscuttings/sca_main.html. For example, quality management involves the concept of 'Total Quality', which is a description of the culture, attitude and organization of a company that strives to provide customers with products and services that satisfy their needs. The culture requires quality in all aspects of the company's operations, with processes being done right the first time and defects and waste eradicated from operations. In other words, quality management ensures high quality products and services that meet the needs of the customers, which give you a competitive advantage.

A fundamental rule in crafting a competitive strategy is to view competition from the other player's viewpoints. To be successful today, your company must become competitor-oriented. You must pursue the right competitive strategy - avoid strengths of your competitors and look for week points in their positions and then launch marketing attacks against those weak points, while building up value and managing quality of your own assets.7... More

According to the new resource-based view of the company, sustainable competitive advantage is achieved by continuously developing existing and creating new resources and capabilities in response to rapidly changing market conditions. Therefore, quality management is imperative in creating competitive advantage through managing and maintaining high quality products - products of value to the customer. Among these resources and capabilities, in the new economy, knowledge represents the most important value-creating asset http://www.1000ventures.com/business_guide/crosscuttings/sca_main.html.

The opportunity for your company to sustain your competitive advantage is determined by your capabilities of two kinds - distinctive capabilities and reproducible capabilities - and their unique combination you create to achieve synergy. Your distinctive capabilities - the characteristics of your company, which cannot be replicated by competitors, or can only be replicated with great difficulty - are the basis of your sustainable competitive advantage. Distinctive capabilities can be of many kinds: patents, exclusive licenses, strong brands, effective leadership, teamwork, or tacit knowledge. Reproducible capabilities are those that can be bought or created by your competitors and thus by themselves cannot be a source of competitive advantage... More http://www.1000ventures.com/business_guide/crosscuttings/sca_main.html

2. In what ways must education and training be modified to support a TQM environment?

The TQM model is based on a strong foundation of trust, ethics and integrity. Training, teamwork, and leadership are essential in successful implementation of TQM http://www.isixsigma.com/library/content/c021230a.asp. In other words, education and training must be modified to reflect the TQM philosophy and principles (e.g., teamwork and leadership from the top). The following example explains this in more detail:

Example 1:

Training - Training is very important for employees to be highly productive. Supervisors are solely responsible for implementing TQM within their departments, and teaching their employees the philosophies of TQM. In other words, education and training are modified to be in line with the TQM philosophy.

For example, training that employees require are interpersonal skills, the ability to function within teams, problem solving, decision making, job management performance analysis and improvement, business economics and technical skills. During the creation and formation of TQM, employees are trained so that they can become effective employees for ...