Efqm

The European Foundation Quality Management Excellence Model

In recent years, the concept of quality has become very popular. Every operation wishes to take a step forward towards Total Quality Management (TQM). Total Quality M anagement can be viewed as a usual addition to the previous approaches of quality management. Earlier quality was all about identifying errors and correcting it (inspection), next stage was quality control; directed towards solving the core reason of every problem. Later the idea of quality assurance was derived involving widening the organizational duty for quality. Today TQM is about making quality a fundamental and strategic part of the organizational structure. (Nigel Slack, Stuart Chambers and Robert Johnson, 2006). The key values of TQM are:

Ð'* Management Commitment: plan, do, check, act.

Ð'* Employee Empowerment: training, suggesting, team work.

Ð'* Fact Based Decision Making: decisions made on available data.

Ð'* Continuous Improvement: improving standards always.

Ð'* Customer Focus: customer at the centre of every operation decision. (Khurram Hashmi, date unknown)

TQM is "Do the right things, right the first time, every time". It is often difficult to implement TQM as it demands everyone's attention towards quality. It involves involvement of all the members of the organization, matching the customer's expectations, costs etc. Every part of the operation should be error free. Increasing efforts have been made to implement various Quality Improvement Models and Quality Award programs like, The Deming Prize, The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, and The European Foundation Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model. (Nigel Slack, Stuart Chambers and Robert Johnson, 2006)

EFQM was found in 1989 by 14 leading European organisations; AB Electrolux, BT plc, Bull SA, Ciba-Geigy AG, Dassault Aviation, Fiat Auto Spa, Gebr. Sulzer AG, Ing. C. Olivetti & C.S.p.A, KLM - Royal Dutch Airlines, NestlÐ"© AG, Philips Electronics NV, Renault, Robert Bosch GmbH and Volkswagen AG. In 1992, the EFQM designed its Excellence Model; this is can be applied to any kind of organization to evaluate its performance in terms of quality. It helps in measuring and comparing performance over a period of time and also helps in its improvement. The model is simple and uses a rational and methodical approach to identify the areas of strength that can be concentrated on and also identifies the critical parts that need improvement. The model has 5 Ð''enablers' that help in determining what the organisation is doing and how the results are being

achieved. The enablers are: Leadership, People, Policy and Strategy, Processes and Partnership and Resources. There are 4 themes of Ð''results' that help in determining what has been achieved over a period of time namely; People result, Customer result, Society result and Key performances.(Warwick District Council, 2000). EFQM is increasingly being used as a self-assessment model. It is a comprehensive, systematic and regular review of a company's activities and results referenced against a model of excellence. The two EFQM tools are RADAR (Result, Approach, Deployment, Assessment, Review) scoring matrix) and PATHFINDER Card used for self assessment.

Since no concept of operations management can work in isolation, let us determine the integration of EFQM Excellence Model with the Six Sigma:

Ð'* Leadership describes how the leader develops the mission and vision in attaining improvement. The involvement of the leader in quality enhancement is also vital. Similarly Six Sigma is effective when there is top management involvement and systematic and methodical approach to it.

Ð'* Like the Six Sigma project leaders always determine the pre and post projects capabilities, the EFQM process that is successfully used in one department is replicated in the other.

Ð'* The Six Sigma and the EFQM Excellence Model both demand the involvement of people

Ð'* individually and collectively as a team. It is the people in the organisation who have control over the quality of work they produce either it is a product or service.

Ð'* Even the six sigma, like the EFQM model reduces variation while dealing with the partnerships and resources thereby reducing the scope of error.

Ð'* The policy and strategy is focused on the stakeholders. Six Sigma is also customer oriented.

Ð'* The 4 results namely, customer result that is the brand image, customer expectations etc.. People result contains employee motivation and satisfaction, society result is about the external environment and community and key performances includes financial and non-financial aspects. A sigma project starts with a clear definition of the external and internal stakeholders impacted by the project and what is critical to their satisfaction in terms of cost, quality, delivery

and safety. This can be used to derive specifications and defect definitions so that defects can be measured and actions can be taken accordingly. (Matthew Moore, 2007)

Certain strengths of the EFQM Excellence Model can be clearly observed:

Ð'* The Model delivers a holistic framework that analytically caters to all the quality issues and helps in taking measures through the results. Faults are detected and plans are made to revise it.

Ð'* Helps in controlling the activities i.e. what is expected and what is achieved.

Ð'* The EFQM model, instils a culture of continuous improvement in the organisation.

Ð'* It is very flexible in terms of application; it can be applied for a short as well as long period. At times it is used for just a single day to analyse a specific issue or used for a period of months to get a comprehensive review.

Ð'* As the model has an element of self assessment, there is no need for a cross check or evaluation of results.

Ð'* The model enables comparison between various time periods. Scoring enables benchmarking for self assessment.

Ð'* The model can be applied to all kinds of originations right