TQM

Reebok: Using CrossFit to Fire Up the Intensity

Posted on by spr1333cpassage

reebok

Many of us have heard of the fairly new workout brand CrossFit that has been sweeping the world for the past decade or so (2000). Some of you may even participate in the ultra intensified fitness regiments at your local CrossFit gym, or “boxes” as the growing cult has come to call them.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with CrossFit, it is an exercise program that advocates a mix of aerobic exercise, body weight exercise, gymnastics, and Olympic weight lifting that requires an individual to “to keep up the intensity, each and every time.” What does CrossFit have to do with total quality management within a corporate conglomerate you ask?

Well it just so happens that Adidas recently purchased Reebok back in 2006 and the company has been struggling mightily ever since the latter lost its decade long contract to outfit the National Football League last April to its biggest rival, Nike. This loss will reportedly cost Adidas an estimate of upwards to $250 million in lost revenue annually, a crushing blow to a company that was already being scrutinized for its purchasing of the floundering organization that had become Reebok. Reebok has also suffered heavy losses from lawsuits regarding their falsified health claims of their new “toning” shoes that deceived consumers. These allegations were brought forth by the Federal Trade Commission and required Reebok to pay nearly $25 million in total refunds. To top it all off, there has been turmoil within the infrastructure of the organization as an investigation has been prompted relating to alleged fraud by two former executives. However, there may be a silver lining yet for this once promising business transaction as Adidas hopes that sponsoring CrossFit using their newly affiliated business partner Reebok as its representative will not only reverse the current trend of posting a decline in sales the last three of five years, but also restore the brands image as a major powerhouse in the industry that is a force to be reckoned with.

adidas

Adidas continues to stand by there decision to purchase Reebok and hopes that their new two year deal with CrossFit will help them accomplish their goals that they set for themselves prior to their recent setbacks. In hopes of reaching the $3 billion objective for 2015, Adidas believes that their sponsorship of CrossFit will help speed up the process and provide them with some insurance they desperately need. The rapid growth of the CrossFit health craze is most certainly a positive sign for pulling Reebok out of the gutter as more than 3,000 gyms have popped up worldwide. The cult-like fitness routine seems it will continue to grow in popularity in the future as people gravitate towards the infectious atmosphere of the contagious motivation/energy and the promise of a complete workout in under 20 minutes. Will Adidas end up regretting their decision to purchase Reebok in the future? Or will the new addition of Reebok and the sponsorship of CrossFit pay off in the long run?

 

Source: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-06-21/how-adidas-is-whipping-reebok-into-shape

 

McDonald’s goes on a McDiet

Posted on by spr1331edanos

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Most people associate McDonalds with the traditional meat and potatoes menu that they started with, the traditional cheeseburger and french fries.  However, in recent times the Oak Brook based chain, with its 68 million daily customers in over 119 countries has expanded their menu to include items that can satisfy all different types of taste buds   By implementing these new items, like the snack wraps, angus burgers, and steak bagels  McDonalds has tried to cover all territories of the fast food market.  They have even offered rib sandwiches and the most recent offering of mighty wings (traditional chicken wings). Since 2007, McDonalds has added over 60 items to their menu.

Lately, however McDonalds has started to eliminate items off of their menu.  Starting with the Angus Burger last month, McDonalds claims that 4 more items will soon be off their menu including the Caesar salads, McSkillet Burritos, Southern Style Biscuits and steak bagels.  This is in an effort to better manage a menu that has grown in the past 7 years.

Because McDonalds is such an excellent example of quality and process management, this article serves as a good example to look at the way the McDonalds handles and controls its processes.  The traditional idea of McDonalds was that it was a company that could do the basics and do them better than anyone else meaning serve traditional Cheeseburgers and fries in a quick, clean, and friendly restaurant and atmosphere better than any of its competitors.  Clearly it has done this as it is the biggest fast food chain in the world and as a matter of necessity for an ever expanding target market, the menu has swollen to a size the original owners would have never thought.

Therein lies obvious potential problems which I believe McDonalds has realized.  By having so many different products, it becomes difficult to effectively offer the same consistent quality of all of these items across the board.  This I believe is because of the numerous different processes each different item must go through before it reaches the consumer.  This ranges from ingredient storage, cooking, preparing, and delivery.  This also can cause process variation in McDonalds training process as the menu becomes harder to master for its employees.  With new items so frequently being added, McDonalds lends itself to a host of possible errors in everyday preparation of these items to its customers.

What McDonalds is doing by reducing its menu items slowly is going back to basics somewhat.  By creating a more manageable menu, McDonalds can better focus on improving on its continued improvement of processes already associated with existing menu items.  By Improving their base menu items, McDonalds should see an increase in customer satisfaction across the multiple countries it occupies.

Do you think that eliminating the numerous menu items listed and more will help McDonalds achieve a higher quality standard for its other items and improve more so on its current operations? How else could this move help McDonalds achieve higher quality across the company.

 

Sources:

Crains ” More food disappearing from McDonalds”

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20130517/BLOGS08/130519794/more-food-disappearing-from-mcdonalds-menu

” WikiPedia McDonalds”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald’s

Bloomberg New “McDonalds Cutting its Menu”

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mcdonalds-reduce-menu-bloomberg-reports-101556997.html

Business Insider “McDonalds to Start Cutting Menu Items”

http://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-to-start-cutting-menu-items-2013-5

 

Management 301: TQM

Posted on by spr1322sgradzikiewicz

This paper discusses key factors that contribute to building organizational excellence and quality in most award winning companies in Australia. There are many rankings of organizations in terms of most satisfying and rewarding places to work. However, there is no data regarding how management of these world –class organizations maintain their greatness and their competitive advantage in the market.

Australian Business Excellence Framework (ABEF) is about managing organizations and utilizing organizational strategies as a guide for improving core elements. Many organizations adopted a quality management as its framework of excellence to provide guidance to their employees. They have been trying to improve some aspects of the organization such as: process improvement, customer focus, management by data and facts, adding values, building partnership and innovation. However, there are challenges involved in pursuing excellence.According to researchers, some critical quality factors managers use are:

  1. Recognizing the importance of Total Quality Management (TQM)
  2. Understanding the relationship between TQM and ISP 9000
  3. Incorporating quality objectives into the planning process
  4. Implementing and ensuring TQM at every level of organization

(Sebastianelli & Tamimi, 2003)

Other studies have pointed out that quality sustainability is achieved through focusing on:

  1. Senior management
  2. Driving force
  3. Human infrastructure
  4. Management systems to drive and monitor
  5. Audits and assessments
  6. Quality framework
  7. Mapping customer satisfaction
  8. Information technology to bind systems and provide information

All studies support that execution and leadership are the most vital key drives of successful performance management systems. Top management needs to be committed to implementing strategy – supports and drive at senior levels, as well as middle managers. It is vital in driving excellence in organizations using consistent messages of corporate strategies from the top level to bottom level of organizational hierarchy. This creates culture that promotes business excellence, an approach compared to simply functional and specialist skills that meet the role of profiling. Therefore, these organizations transit to value based structures that provide employees with more freedom in making decisions as long as they are in support of organizational values. Employees need to have access to data and information so they can better identify the needs of the customer, as well as a way of receiving customer feedback in respect to products and services. It should be utilized as a part of improving customer services and help to build improved infrastructure in providing However, there is a need for self- evaluation and accountability for its employees in organizations. Effective communication and knowledge of how to use information in decision making processes, as well as the organization has to do with facilities training and development. All of this will benefit the employees and customer satisfaction. Organizations face many challenges to facilitate an improved leadership support, drive, and uniformity throughout the organization and communicating strategy and making it meaningful for its employees at all levels.

Alan Brown. (2013). Managing challenges in sustaining business excellence. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 30 Iss: 4, pp.461 – 475 DOI: 10.1108/02656711311308420

Screams in the House of Pain!: Tattoos and TQM

Posted on by f1223zmoy

I am a self proclaimed tattoo connoisseur with over twenty hours of needlework under my belt. One thing I found out about myself is that I apparently am not like most people who stay with one artist; I like to get tattooed by different artists and in different studios. I don’t know all the artists in Chicago, but I have been tattooed in five shops (visited a total of eight shops). My experience more than qualifies me to talk about this topic, as well as provide a general overview of the Chicago shops. I am here to analyze my experience with tattoos and total quality management (TQM).

Our book claims, “the tangible component of many services is important,” which certainly applies to the tattooing industry (207). All eight shops I have been to had a “greeter,” whose job includes tasks such as welcoming guests and filling out paperwork. Upon visiting a shop for the first time, I have only dealt with lukewarm greeters (not grouchy but not overly friendly) which more or less takes away from my experience. For the tattoo aficionados, do you not agree with me that most of the greeters in Chicago are lukewarm? I suppose if a greeter told me to get out of the shop just because I am a minority, I would not want to return to the shop. That has never happened to me, but that would be poor quality on the hypothetical shop’s part. On the flip side, tattoo shops do have a reputation to maintain. They have the right to kick drunk people out coming in at 2 A.M. A reputable shop will not want to be known as the shop that tattoos drunks.

As the book states, “9 out of 10 of the determinants of service quality are related to the service process” (207). I consider this part to be the time when the artist starts to sanitize his/her equipment to the time he/she bandages me up. Most people do not want to contract a disease such as hepatitis from a tattoo shop. The tattoo artist should follow safety guidelines such as putting on clean gloves and opening sterilized needles in front of the client.

While the tattoo artist is inserting the needle into the client’s skin, the client should not have to worry if the artist is incompetent. The artist should be able to make immaculate lines and properly complete their shading techniques. Most clients do not want a poorly finished tattoo that might require expensive removal.

Lastly, the book states “service quality is judged on the basis of whether it meets expectations” (207). As my photo shows, tattoo work is a creative form of art. However, not everything can be tattooed. On one of my visits to Insight Studios, I wanted to get a tattoo of this picture of a fire I found on the Internet. My artist honestly told me that that picture was more of a computer graphic design and that he would and could not tattoo it.

I’m interested if anybody has any experience with tattoo shops (with tattoos or even piercings). What aspects of quality do you think tattoo shops should work on?

Blogspot.com. Web. 5 October 2012. < http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QOVWkR0hFxw/UFlc686e5GI/AAAAAAAAAfU/3ZEK5adiikM/s1600/bellybuttontattoo2.jpgphoto>.

Heizer, Jay H., and Barry Render. “Managing Quality.” Principles of Operations Management. 8th ed. Boston: Pearson Education, 2011. 207. Print.

Loaded Radio. Web. 5 October 2012. < http://www.loadedradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/tommy_lee_001_080506-115×115.jpg>.