Job Design & Quality Management

Human Resource Strategy

to manage labor and design jobs so people are effectively and efficiently utilised

Labor planning

follow demand exactly (labor as VC, costs in hiring and firing); hold employment constant (maintains trained workforce minimises hiring costs)

job design

specifying the tasks that constitute a job for an individual or a group; job specialisation, job expansion, psychological components, self-directed teams, motivation and incentive systems

job specialisation

dedicated tools, changeover loss, wage for specific skills

Job expansion

enrichment (vertical, extra responsibility), enlargement (horizontal, extra tasks), empowerment (form of enrichment)

psychological components

Hawthorne studies

TQM

total quality management, encompasses entire organisation, from supplier to customer, stresses a commitment by management to have a continuing, companywide drive toward excellence in all aspects of products and services

Seven concepts of TQM

continuous improvement (Kaizen), Six Sigma, Employee empowerment, Benchmarking, JIT, Taguchi concepts, Knowledge of TQM Tools

Continuous improvement

PDCA model; starting point: create a problem, then 1. Plan, 2. Do, 3. Check, 4. Act

Six Sigma

99,9997% capable process; DMAIC approach -> Define critical outputs for improvement, Measure the work, Analyse the data, Improve process, Control the new process

Tools of TQM

generating ideas tools (sketch sheets, scatter diagrams, mouse and effect diagrams); tools to organise the data; tools for identifying problems

employee empowerment

enlarging jobs so that added responsibility and authority is moved to the lowest level possible in the organisation; building quality circles -> a group of employees meeting regularly to solve work-related problems

benchmarking

selecting a demonstrated standard of performance

JIT

cuts the cost of quality; improves quality

Taguchi concepts

quality robustness, target-oriented quality, quality loss function