Quality Process Improvement

Quality is the most important measure of success for any organization. All successful organizations produce a quality product or service, but how it measured and what is the process to produce it. This paper will Chose a process at Abbott labs, Ross division, analyze an "As-Is" flow chart, describe the relationship of the process to the organization's strategic plan and determine the internal an external customers. This paper will also identify the most appropriate Quality Management tool that can be used to collect and present data, utilize your selected quality tool to analyze your process and identify process improvement opportunities, and estimate the level of improvement that could be realized and the value of implementing this process improvement.

Every organization has certain problems that affect the quality of the product they are producing. At Abbott Labs Ross division the problem is the quality of the caps that are supplied to Ross from the cap manufacturer. These caps are essential to the production of the Ensure plastic bottle line because they seal the bottle after filling. The problem that Ross is having is the caps are not always a uniform shape. If the shape is off by just a little bit then they will get stuck in the cap-shoot and cause the line to go down. This affects the production deadlines and affects the on-time delivery of the product. This also creates a problem with the cap size that was validated by the FDA and any change in size has to be approved by the FDA using a Validation Change Request. Since the cap size is not the same as the ones that were validated then the whole process is in jeopardy of being shutdown by the FDA. This also would have a tremendous affect on the on-time delivery of the product to the customers.

The strategic plan of Abbott Laboratories is to produce a quality product to the customers on time. This quality problem does affect the plan of Abbott by creating delays in the delivery time. It is important to any organization that they not keep the customer waiting to receive what they order because this gives the customer time to look for alternative to their product. Many do not associated on-time delivery as a product of quality but if a product is not received in a timely manner then the customer's first impression can be negative.

Processes have different internal and external customers that are impacted by the process that would benefit from the process improvement. There are many internal and external customers that are involved in the process of the cap problem. The internal customers are the employees at the plant. Abbott offers a generous profit sharing plan based on the years profits. If the company starts losing customers then the employees' profit sharing will be affected. Another internal customer is the FDA. Although they are not an internal part of the company, they are the driving force behind the quality aspect of the organization. The FDA sets standards that the organization must follow during their manufacturing process or risk being shutdown. External customers are the retailers and the consumers. They are important because they are when the revenue comes from to pay salaries and investments. Customers are the reason that quality is important.

Every process needs a Quality Measurement Tool to gage the success or failure of the process. The most appropriate quality management tool that can be used to collect and present data on the process improvement is the run chart. This is because it can display process performance over time. The run chart can also show the upward and downward