Edward Deming's Improving The Quality Of Service Quality

Enterprise is focused on customer satisfaction in all aspects of their operations. Their overall goal is well documented on their website and presented in many of their national marketing campaigns. These marketing campaigns include commercials and social media buys that are shown on major networks. They currently use questionnaires that ask customers to answer questions based on two criteria. The first asks the customer to rank the overall experience at Enterprise. The other is a simple question asking the customer is they would rent again from Enterprise. The response rate for most customer surveys is very low, this is due to long and complicated surveys and questionnaires. This questionnaire is a tool called the Enterprise service quality index (ESQI) and provides an easy way of collecting information quickly to measure their results. The questionnaire focuses on top box positive feedback. Customers who stay local to the company will generally be free positive marketing for Enterprise. This free marketing from the customers is in the form of referrals to friends, family and colleagues.

[20] cited (Miller, D., et. al., 2005).”“Adoption of Lean management strategies while not a simple task can help healthcare organizations improve processes and outcomes, reduce cost, and increase satisfaction among patients, providers and staff” . Balle [5] states that: “the adoption of lean in healthcare is very young it started in the late 90s but started to gain a little bit of momentum in the last decade and now in this decade many health organisations are looking at lean principles since it has been proven to be very successful in many cases around the world”.

Health care managers need to improve quality services in health organizations. To improve these quality services they have to use methods that are proven helpful in the QI process. For example, Six Sigma is used to display and measure quality improvement data. It is also used to measure

Lean Six Sigma combines Lean’s time-focused waste-elimination philosophy to dynamic analytical problem solving toolkit of Six Sigma.

Due to ineffective management systems, inefficiency is increasing, which often leads to congested emergency rooms, customer complaints, and lost revenue. Over the past seven years, Six Sigma concepts are increasingly being implemented in the healthcare industry. Despite the challenges of adopting these concepts, the healthcare industry uses them to improve services rendered quality, increase efficiency and reduce fatal human errors. Primarily because Six Sigma is based on a comprehensive approach on improving the human and transactional aspects of the process (human performance and task completion). In the case of JPS, the factors that determine quality and efficiency are the flow of information and interaction with the patients. Using the Six Sigma DMAIC process improvement approach, JPS Emergency Department should be able to streamline information flow and achieve strategic business results (p.

Hospitals are on continuous mission for quality improvement; utilizing new technology, techniques, and research on what works and what does not, as well as persistently training new personnel and meeting the needs of patients. Still, hospitals are devoted to quality improvement but follow different courses, which support increasing observance to treatment etiquette and improve patient outcomes. Hospitals make the most of different approaches and models of quality improvement, such as the use of Lean, Six Sigma (Johns Hopkins Medicine, 2008/2016), and the PlanDo-Study-Act (Ibach, 2009) models for improvement. Usually quality improvement efforts are a five step process which

Through customer focus, the LTC organization with understanding must put the patient first by finding new ways for improvement through effective thinking to provide a culture of safety and quality that inheres to good medical outcome that is defect-free (Griffith, Sept/Oct 2017). With the use of the Lean Six Sigma process, the LTC organization must, through change management, make continuous improvement by measuring and analyzing the processes of delivery of care by staying mindful and vigilant in preventing unsafe conditions that pose the risk of defects (Griffith, Jan/Feb

Table 3 shows characteristics of the seven key informants. Informants had an average continuous process improvement experience at least 22 years with majority of their health care experience being in large academic tertiary hospitals and military hospitals. All of the informants were formally trained in LSS and achieved the certification level of Master Black Belt. In Lean Six Sigma programs, the Master Black Belt certification level is the highest level attainable and symbolizes mastery of LSS topics and experiences in leading large-scale LSS process improvement projects (Gygi, Williams, & Covey, 2012). Key informants provided six common themes to barriers that impacts sustainability of LSS improvements in health care, and are explained below. These six themes were categorized further into two main topics: lack of leadership commitment to drive a culture of quality and inadequately trained and unqualified LSS practitioners to execute LSS projects in health care.

The only downside of this practice is the high overhead 70 %, this can be adjusted and get it lower but it needs restructuring the whole system including changing the staff, selecting new suppliers and labs and etc.…

A quantitative study conducted by Lifvergren, Gremyr, Hellstrom, Chakhunashvili, and Bergman (2010) analyzed the experiences and from a hospital group during a three-year period after the introduction of Six Sigma. It reports on 22 large Six Sigma improvement projects, their results and influence on other improvement activities. The study shows that 75% of the completed projects reached their goals within 18 months. The average net cost savings per completed project/year was $55,300. Overall, the results showed that Six Sigma is a useful concept when trying to improve healthcare processes. They recommend that Six Sigma should be an addition to the improvement practices used in healthcare development initiatives. It was also observed that the Six Sigma program can create much organizational pull regarding quality management and improvement efforts if teamwork is applied.

The purpose of this article is to serve as a reference point for people who desire to tackle a process improvement project. The authors explain the how to initiate a quality improvement project and direct the reader through the process of complying a team, identifying key stakeholders, and choosing a framework. The authors then present a clinical scenario through which to demonstrate the applicability of Lean, Six Sigma, and Model for Improvement methodologies. A brief overview of Lean and Six Sigma are presented as well as concise descriptions regarding their strengths and weakness. The Model for Improvement is highly emphasized throughout the work because of the methodology’s flexibility and simplistic nature. Overall the article serves a

The concept of Six Sigma was developed in the early 1980’s at Motorola Corporation (Harry and Schroeder, 2000). Six Sigma can be defined as a statistical measure of the performance of a process or product (Kumi et. al., 2006). It is used as a quality control mechanism, which seeks to reduce defects or variations in a process to 3.4 per million opportunities thereby optimizing output and increasing customer satisfaction (Sambhe, 2012). Sigma is representing the standard deviation, a unit of measurement that designates the distribution or spread about the mean of a process (Six Sigma Academy, 2002). In addition, the Six Sigma uniquely driven by close understanding of customer needs, disciplined use of fact, data, and statistical analysis, and diligent attention to managing improving, and reinventing business processes (Pande, P., et. al. 2000). The Six Sigma methodology uses statistical tools to identify the factors that matter most for improving the quality of processes and generating bottom-line results. The Six Sigma DMAIC (Define, Measure,

Furthermore, with the use of 5S audit sheets (another use of visual management) this means that at any time of day the workstation is cleaned, replenished with stock and functional so work is unimpaired. One of the key elements in lean management is to deliver standardised work, which in Cellular Pathology is very useful as the workplace involves several processes where the end product can be variably achieved by different training and knowledge from staff in the workplace. There are a number of practical tools to improve processes but one of the most important in lean is to produce standard work, which is the practical application of the first four TPS rules7. Standardisation ensures that a process is done in a ‘standard’ way and achieves the same outcome, without compromising staff knowledge and experience. The use of visual management to create A3 standard operating procedures (SOPs) was also introduced at Path Links and utilised the production of SOPs on an A3 page, using step by step guides to the process with photos and images to assist what to expect from the procedure. The lean visual approach of A3 SOPs was adopted from a lean precision engineering plant9. Although many laboratories use SOPs, many are written in-house and like at Path Links, although the format and content convey all the necessary information to carry out a procedure, they did not adequately deliver a truly standardised work

According to Ghobadian, Speller, & Jones, (1994) the service quality plays an important role in the economy and that doing things wrongly leads to increase expenses in an organization. Thus

In order for the service employee to deliver on the customer’s expectations, the company (or management) must provide the necessary resources to fulfill the duties of the job. The success of the firm is also supported by the internal customers, also known as employees, and the satisfaction of these employees can influence the service encounters with external customers (Gremler, Bitner & Evans, 1994). It is imperative that management of the company delivers to the expectations of the employees in order to fulfill business goals and objectives.