Total Quality Management (TQM) and Business Process Reengineering (BPR)

REPORTON TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM) AND BUSINESS PROCESS RE-ENGINEERING (BPR)

S#ContentsPage #

1.Importance of Quality Management in Public Service2

2.Total Quality Management (TQM) (definition and historical perspective)3

3.Main features of TQM

4.The TQM process

5.The 4Ps and 3Cs Concept

IMPORTANCE OF QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN PUBLIC SERVICE

The delivery of improved services for citizens is a core mandate of Government. Through payment of taxes and participation in the election of the citizens expect that the Government will ensure that they are able to access quality services on time. Given the fact that Government service delivery is monopolized and the customers have no alternative, the importance of providing quality service increases manifold.In Pakistan, the delivery of public services has not been entirely successful or effective. This is manifested by the poor road network, incessant water unavailability, inadequate health facilities and personnel as well as falling education standards. As it is common in many developing countries, Pakistan still suffers several social, economic and political challenges. Economically, the living standard at the grassroots has not improved, while at the macro-economic level the country suffers budget deficit to finance most of its development programs. There is duplication of efforts and projects among various stake holders. There are certain instances that under public health and works department repeated development works were executed within the same area. An important aspect of quality service delivery is the existence of easily accessible and transparent complaints handling mechanisms to which customers can have access in case they are dissatisfied with the services received. Due to the above, citizens at the grass roots level feel that the current customers complaints handling system are neither transparent nor accessible.The core aim needs to be based on the commitment by the service providers to achieving citizen-cantered service delivery and a qualitative improvement in the peoples satisfaction with the delivery of its services over the next considerable period for this initiative to be successful, all the departments and agencies will need to work together. The adoption of a culture of continuous improvement takes time but is necessary if we are to successfully enhance citizens satisfaction with best service delivery.Modern tools of management provide with two broad management tools to improve the efficiency and output of an organization. There are Total Quality Management (TQM) and Business Process Reengineering (BPR). The following work will discuss these two management tools and their mutual analysis. This will also be followed with three case studies whereby some existing identified defective public sectors have been examined and a model process for their improvement has been designed to increase their working efficiency and add to their output.TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM)DEFINITION & HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Total quality management or TQM is an integrative philosophy of management involving a continuous process for improving the quality of products and related processes. It is generally defined as follows: TQM is the process of integration of all activities, functions and processes within an organization in order to achieve continuous improvement in cost, quality function and delivery of goods and services for customer satisfaction. (KulneetSuri) Total quality management (TQM) is a management approach to longterm success through customer satisfaction. In a TQM effort, all members of an organization participate in improving processes, products, services, and the culture in which they work. (Dr. David L. Goetsch)HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:

TQM has evolved as one of the various quality assurance methods that were first developed around the time of the First World War. The war effort led to large scale manufacturing efforts that often produced poor quality. To help correct this, quality inspectors were introduced on the production line to ensure that the level of failures due to quality was minimized. In the post world war era, quality inspection became more commonplace in manufacturing environments and this led to the introduction of Statistical Quality Control (SQC), a theory developed by Dr. W. Edwards Deming. This quality method provided a statistical method of quality based on sampling. Where it was not possible to inspect every item, a sample was tested for quality. The theory of SQC was based on the notion that a variation in the production process leads to variation in the end product. If the variation in the process could be removed this would lead to a higher level of quality in the end product. After World War Two, the industrial manufacturers in Japan produced poor quality items. In a response to this, the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers invited Dr. Deming to train engineers in quality processes. By the 1950s quality control was an integral part of Japanese manufacturing and was adopted by all levels of workers within an organization. By the 1970s the notion of total quality was being discussed. This was seen as company-wide quality control that involves all employees from top management to the workers, in quality control. In the next decade more non-Japanese companies were introducing quality management procedures that based on the results seen in Japan. The new wave of quality control became known as Total Quality Management, which was used to describe the many quality-focused strategies and techniques that became the centre of focus for the quality movement. MAIN FEATURES OF TQM

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a comprehensive and structured approach to organizational management that:i. Seeks to improve the quality of products and services;ii. Through ongoing refinementsiii. In response to continuous feedback.In brief, it is a cyclical process involving the PDCA cycle (Plan, Do, Check & Act) is followed for this purpose which is as below:

THE TQM PROCESSIn the planning phase, people define the problem to be addressed, collect relevant data, and ascertain the problem's root cause; in the doing phase, people develop and implement a solution, and decide upon a measurement to gauge its effectiveness; in the checking phase, people confirm the results through before-and-after data comparison; in the acting phase, people document their results, inform others about process changes, and make recommendations for the problem to be addressed in the next PDCA cycle.It is therefore, not a programme, it is in fact a systematic, integrated and organizational way of life directed at continuous improvement of an organization. It is a management style and should merely be the means to achieve organizational goals.THE 4PS AND 3CS CONCEPT:

The new TQM model, based on all excellent work done during the last century, provides a simple framework for excellent performance, covering all angles and aspects of an organization and its operation.

CommitmentPeoplePerformanceProcessPlanning

Performance is achieved using a business excellence approach, and by planning the involvement of people in the improvement of processes. This has to include:a. Planning the development and deployment of policies and strategies setting up appropriate partnerships and resources; and designing in quality.b. Performance establishing a performance measuring framework a balanced score card for the organization carrying out self-assessment, audits, reviews and bench-marking.c. Processes understanding, management, design and re-design; quality management systems, continuous improvement.d. People managing the human resources, culture change, team work, communications, innovations and learning.These are the key to delivering quality, products and services to customers and generally improving overall performance. This process will result in improving the essential 3Cs (i.e. Culture, Communication and Commitment) which provide the glue or outcome of the model which will take organizations successfully into the twenty-first century.TQM VS. 6 SIGMA:The Six Sigma management strategy was originated in 1986 from Motorolas drive towards reducing defects by minimizing variation in processes. The main difference between TQM and Six Sigma (a newer concept) is the approach. At its core, Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management approach to long-term success through customer satisfaction. Whereas, Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in manufacturing and business processes. It uses a set of quality management methods, including statistical methods, and creates a special infrastructure of people within the organization ("Champions", "Black Belts", "Green Belts", "Orange Belts", etc.) who are experts in these very complex methods. Each Six Sigma project carried out within an organization follows a defined sequence of steps and has quantified financial targets (cost reduction and/or profit increase).STRENGTHS OF TQM

Following are the main strengths of TQM:i. TQM organizations are more customer-oriented than non-TQM companies.ii. TQM is easily adaptable to both manufacturing or service providing organizationsiii. TQM is management driven and stresses more on employee participationiv. TQM organizations are typically flatter and Leaner than non-TQM companiesv. TQM projects tend to focus on optimizing processes, rather than the whole systemvi. TQM does not focus on bottom-line results to the extent other systems, like Six Sigma, do. Companies increasingly need to tie any investment to bottom-line improvementvii. Managers can be resistant to give up power. In a TQM organization, delegation is necessary for the system to succeedviii. TQM has worked are more training orientedix. It has the capacity to work along and organizations learning curve.WEAKNESSES OF TQM

There are also some weaknesses attached to TQM. These can be as follows:i. Long-term processii. Production / service disruptioniii. Its complexity exposes the organization to potential decision bottlenecks and overall bureaucracyiv. TQM can be at the cost of jobs and employment as technology plays an important role in TQMv. Focusing too much on the end result and customer satisfaction may sometimes cause a project to run into excess costs without any possible sign of returns.BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERINGDEFINITION AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND [BPR]

The idea of business processes re-engineering was introduced in an article inHarvard Business Reviewin JulyAugust 1990 by Michael Hammer, then a professor of computer science at MIT. Based on an examination of the way information technology was affecting business processes. Michael Porter defined process as follows: "Series or network of value-added activities, performed by their relevant roles or collaborators, to purposefully achieve the common business goal"Sometimes it is a synonym for activities. Sometimes it refers to activities or sets of activities that cut across organizational units. In any case, however, the essential notion is the sameboth strategic and operational issues are best understood at the activity level.BPR was described by its inventors as a fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical measures of performance such as cost, quality, service and speed.[Hammar & Champy]"Encompasses the envisioning of new work strategies, the actual process design activity, and the implementation of the change in all its complex technological, human, and organizational dimensions BPR is more an idea or philosophy than a method or state. The main objective is to rethink the processes to find a better design, and hence, multiple methodologies and infinite results can be found.[Thomas Davenport]The technique involves analysing a company's central processes and reassembling them in a more efficient fashion and in a way that eradicates long-established, but frequently irrelevant processes. BPR's originators, Hammer and James Champy, maintained that re-engineering had a wider significance than mere processes. It applied to all parts of an organization, and it had a lofty purpose. Hammer wrote In a world where so many people are so deprived, it's a sin to be so inefficient.Winslow Taylor Others saw it as a shallow intellectual justification for downsizing a process of slimming down that was being forced on many corporations by developments in it. BPR followed a favoured route for popular management ideas: from a university academic's research, via a management consultancy's marketing (Champy was the boss of CSC, a management consulting firm) and a best-selling book, into (briefly) a perceived panacea for all companies' ills. It was helped by the fact that the book's authors (Hammer in particular) were eminently quotable.

BPR was implemented with considerable success by some high-profile organizations. For instance, Hallmark, a card company, completely re-engineered its new-product process; and Kodak's re-engineering of its black-and-white film manufacturing process cut the firm's response time to new orders in half.

MAIN FEATURES

Generally Business Processes Reengineering is based on the following key principles Organize the process around outcomes Eliminate non value adding steps Link parallel activities instead of integrating results at the end Involve key people early Put the decision point where the work is performed Have those who own the output, perform the process Capture information at the source Avoid redundant data compilation at different points

Main steps of the Business Processes Reengineering are:

STRENGTHS OF BPR Focus on processes instead of task Supervision to Couching and handholding Achieving radical changes in performance changes are dictated by top management

This is strength of the BRP that it can only be undertaken by an organization if the top management is committed. One of the faults of the idea, which the creators themselves acknowledged, was that re-engineering became something that managers were only too happy to impose on others but not on themselves. Champy' wrote in his other book called Reengineering Management. If their jobs and styles are left largely intact, managers will eventually undermine the very structure of their rebuilt enterprises, Clear responsibilities are fixed and evaluation becomes more relevant Revolutionary [Attackers advantage]The term has been adopted from the game theory. It implies that the reengineering will create excited environment in the organization along with other characteristics of young organizations.WEAKNESSES OF BPR Large step changes are always riskier, more complex and more expensive than continuous improvement.The same is the case with BPR. It is a revolutionary change. Re-engineering places more emphasis on equipment and technology rather than people Re-engineering tends to concentrate on one process at a time using a project planning methodology Middle management reluctance is a major barrier to successful implementation of BPR. This is mainly due to the fact that re-engineered processes tend to eliminate the need for intermediate layers of management and thereby simplify the management structure. Enhanced Risk High capital requirementCOMPARISON BETWEEN BPR & TQMBoth these techniques are used in change management and their purpose is to achieve maximization of customer satisfaction and minimization of cost. Major similarities and differences can be analysed as under:TQMBPR

Values Customer satisfactionCustomer satisfaction

Groom the people and organizationEradicate all processes that do not add value

Gradual changeAchieving radical changes

Avoid redundant data compilation at different pointsAvoid redundant data compilation at different points

Have those who own the output, perform the processHave those who own the output, perform the process

Support Can be driven by all levelsSupport from top management

Not supported by middle and operational level

Resources Can be done within given resourcesHuge financial resources required

Human Resource RedundancyMinimumMaximum

Scope On-going cyclical changeOne time abrupt change

SELECTED ISSUE 1:ANALYSIS OF THE SITUATION:Reimbursement of claims of expenditure incurred on the medical charges of a Public Servant and his dependents is presently too lengthy a process that it really discourages the public servant to follow the process. Therefore, propensity on the part of Public Servants increases to adopt shortcut and that as a matter of fact creates opportunity for corruption apart from promoting culture of informality. Therefore, there is great need that the present process may be re-engineered with a view to simplify it and to reduce the steps involved in it and to reduce the timelines required for completion of medical reimbursement casesThe Identified Issue:

Reimbursement of Medical Charges

The Existing Process:

Issuance of Docket by the concerned department.

Prescription of medicine by authorized medical attendant.

Non availability of quality medicine in hospital dispensary and marking of NA by the Dispenser.

Purchase of medicines from Pharmacy and obtaining Cash Memo bearing license number.

Completion of Non Availability Certificate by attaching prescriptions and cash memos.

Authentication of Non Availability Certificate, prescriptions and cash memos by concerned Registrar of the hospital.

Submission of medical claim in the office of Medical Superintendent concerned.

Verification by hospital Pharmacist.

Deletion of non-reimbursable items.

Countersignature of Non Availability Certificate by the Medical Superintendent.

Affixing Machine number and embossing seal on the Non Availability Certificate.

Submission of medical claim in the concerned department for reimbursement.

Obtaining sanction of the medical claim from the competent authority i.e. Administrative Secretary / Head of the Attached Department / District Government.

Submission of bill in the Office of AG, Punjab/ District Accounts Officer concerned.

Issuance of cheque by the Office of AG, Punjab/ District Accounts Officer.

Individual OfficialCase Making

Concerned DepartmentDocketFwd LetterSanction

Concerned HospitalPrescription

Hospital PharmacyNA RemarksVerifications

Private PharmacyPvt Purchase

Registrar of HospitalAuthentication

MS OfficeCSCS

AG OfficeCheque

Days Consumed2 days1 days1day7 days3 days5 days7 days30 days10 days20 day

81 days

The Existing Process of Reimbursement of Medical ChargesProblem with the Process:

1. Lengthy and cumbersome2. Complicated procedure.3. With a lot of discretionary options to various offices4. With more opportunities of corruption and mal-practices

The Developed New Improved Process:

1. Introducing Patient Card by all the hospitals and minimizing the list of non-reimbursable items.2. Prescription of medicine / issuance of NAC by authorized medical attendant/Registrar. 3. Purchase of medicines from Pharmacy and obtaining Cash Memo bearing license number.4. Submission of medical claim in the concerned department for reimbursement.5. Obtaining sanction of the medical claim from the competent authority.6. Submission of bill in the Office of AG, Punjab/ District Accounts Officer concerned.7. Issuance of cheque by the Office of AG, Punjab/ District Accounts Officer.8. Regular fortnightly meeting with AG office officials to review to pending cases

Individual Official(with Hospital card)Review Meeting

Concerned DepartmentSanction

PrescriptionConcerned HospitalNAC

Hospital Pharmacy

Private PharmacyPvt Purchase

Registrar of Hospital

MS Office

AG OfficeCheque

Days Consumed1 days5 days10 dayXXXXXX

16 days

The Proposed Model for the Process of Reimbursement of Medical Charges

Added New Features and How They will Improve the Process:

1. Data base of all employees of the Public Sector already available with PITB/ Govt of the Punjab may be linked with systems of the Hospitals.2. Machines for reading cards of employees may be installed in all Public Secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities3. Introducing machine readable Patient Card by all the hospitals to avoid issuance of dockets on case to case basis. 4. Reducing the items/heads included in the non-reimbursable list5. Time span shall be immensely reduced.6. Discretionary and corrupt practices can be checked.7. A regular automated record of all the medical history of the official shall be automatically generated.Options to Further Improve the Process:1. Delegation of Financial Powers to BS18 officer for sanction of medical claims for quick disposal of cases.

SELECTED ISSUE 2:CORRECTION OF NAME IN REVENUE RECORD

All Revenue Record has been computerized and service centers have been established in almost all the district and tehsil headquarters of Punjab. Where such computerization is in progress, it shall be completed by 30th June 2014.

The Identified Issue:

The present process is quite lengthy and cumbersome and take an average, 6-8 months time for correction of a name in the record of rights.

The Existing Process:

1. A client approaches Service Centre of LRMIS and is informed that he cannot be issued a copy of Record of rights or he can not enter into any transaction because his name as appearing in the revenue record is different from the one on his CNIC.2. He then approaches an application writer and gets his contention recorded in application addressed to ADC of the District.3. He appears in the office of ADC and gets his application marked. 4. He appears in the office of Assistant Commissioner for the purposes of down marking.5. He then appears in the offices of Tehsildar, NaibTehsildars, Qanungo, Patwari and finally reaches Lambardar of mauza6. He obtains verification from Lambardar concerned and gets an affidavit in support of the verification recorded on his application.7. Similar verification is also carried out by two notables of his locality.8. Having gone through this, he again appears before Patwari Halqa, who records his report on his application based on the verification of the Lambardar. 9. He subsequently attends the offices of Kanungo, Naib Tehsildar, Tehsildar and Assistant Commissioners for their endorsements.10. Finally he submits the application along with all necessary reports and Affidavits in the office of ADC who lists it for hearing. 11. For the purposes of hearing, all the persons having verified the credentials of the applicant are called over at the expense of the applicant. 12. The case is decided in the light of documents provided by the applicant and statements of aforementioned recorded before the ADC. The process itself including the adjournments made by the Presiding Officer consumes on an average, 6-8 months time

Correction requiredService CenterDeed writing

Deed Writer

ADC

HearingDecision

ACMarkingReport

TehsildarMarkingReport

Naib TehsildarMarkingReport

KanungoMarkingReport

PatwariMarkingReport

LambardarVerificationVerification

Two Noteables

136 days

The Existing Process of Correction of Name in the Revenue RecordProblem with the Process:

1. Too lengthy and cumbersome process2. May take as long as a year or so3. Involves unnecessary tiers of Patwari, Kanungo, Naib Tehsildar, Tehsildar etc who owing to culture of informality do not provide valuable input4. Poor people have to grease palms of Patwaris and other officials for expediting their case5. Brining Lambardar and other notables to the court of ADC is an extra expenditure on the resources of the farmer

The Developed New Improved Process:

1. To begin with, it must be shared that all service centres of land records have access to NADRA record for the purposes of verification of genuineness of the person based on his thumb impression procured at the centre through a bio-metric device. This access to NADRA database needs to be enhanced to look at the family tree of the applicant. The applicant is advised to bring the documents required as additional evidence like academic certificates, CNIC, Nikhah Nama etc. The Service Center In-Charge(SCI) shall, after having gone through the family tree and other required documents, shall generate a report for ADC2. The SCI shall send his report containing clear recommendations for correction of name to the office of ADC within one day.3. ADC based on report of SCI shall sanction the required correction in the name in a period of two days and shall send it back to SCI for making necessary correction in the revenue record.

SCO finds correction in name is required. Accesses data base of family tree of NADRA. Generates reportService Centre

ADCAccords sanction to correction of name and sends copy of his order.

Days consumed1 day2 days

Total 3 days consumed

Added New Features and How they will Improve the Process:

1. The proposed model would reduce the time involved in the correction drastically2. The public shall be facilitated 3. Extortion at the hands of Patwari, Kanungo and other Revenue Officials shall be eliminated

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Dr. David L. Goetsch; Quality Management for Organizational Excellence: Introduction to Total Quality, 7thEdition; Pearson; 2012.2. John S. Oakland; TQM, text with Cases; Elsevier BH, UK; 20033. James Champy; Reengineering Management, the Mandate for New Leadership; Harper Business; 19964. Prem Kumar; Government & Business Management; Anmol Publications; 19915. KulneetSuri; Total Quality Management; S.K.Kataria& Sons; 2006.6. Malcom Warner; Business & Management; International Thomson Business Press; 1997.7. Derek Torrington; The Business of Management; Prentice Hall International; 19858. Patrick A. Hough; Total Quality Management; Indiana Publishing House; 20069. PLGO 2001 (the Original Text)10. West Pakistan Government Servants (Medical Attendance) Rules 1959 (the Original Text)11. Punjab Environmental Protection Act 1997 (Amended 2012) (the Original Text)