This is an essay as part of course work in an Operations Management Module in pursuit of the award of a Master of Business Administration

1. Kondwani H.M.Banda: M.B.A. O.P.M., AssignmentNo.3(22/07/15)
1 (a) WHY MEASURE CUSTOMER ASSESSMENT OF QUALITY AT ARNOLD
PALMER
A quality management system needs to identify and satisfy a customer’s needs. Organizations
exist because of customers. Without customers, an organization will cease to exist. This is why,
value creation and delivery needs to be customer centered. Before designing a product or service,
there is need for a customer survey to establish their needs and expectations. Customer
satisfaction therefore depends on the customers’ perception of how a product or service meets
their needs. It is imperative to measure patients’ assessment of Arnold Palmer Hospital’s quality
for its success and existence as an organization, since it is the needs of the patients and their and
expectations families as customers that the operations, activities and resources of the hospital
have to be integrated and coordinated to meet satisfactorily
As customers whose needs and expectations the services of Arnold Palmer Hospital need to
satisfy, patients are qualified to judge the quality of Arnold Palmer Hospital. They are the same
people they had or have to go to when designing the services to assess their needs and
expectations. Customer feedback therefore serves to establish gaps that may exist between the
actual level of quality delivered and the expected level of quality being delivered which will
depend on a customers’ level of knowledge of the industry as well as experiences giving the
hospital an opportunity to come up with strategies to address the gaps accordingly.
1 (b) HOW TO BUILD A QUALITY CULTURE
Building a quality culture within an organization is no easy task as an organization is always
made up of different individuals with different personalities, attitudes, beliefs and levels of
knowledge with different personal needs and goals. However there are ingredients for building a
strong quality culture within an organisation which entail initiating quality, quality commitment
by management, capabilities and maturity, motivation of members, Institutionalisation of quality
culture and the use of automated tools. Therefore I would use these tools to build a quality
culture within Arnold Palmer Hospital
INITIATE QUALITY With the aid of a gap analysis to establishe the

2. Kondwani H.M.Banda: M.B.A. O.P.M., AssignmentNo.3(22/07/15)
status quo, where the hospital is at that moment
as regards quality management, then come up
with where I would like it to be and what needs
to be done to get the hospital where I would
like to be within a specific period.
Generally, there would be some good practices
regarding quality management within the
hospital which would need to be maintained,
others dropped, changed or modified and new
ones adopted.
The next step would be to come up with a plan
to implement the changes throughout all the
hospital’s operations and activities of quality
standards. The plan would need to be aligned
with the hospital’s strategy, mission, vision,
resources and of course policy. This plan
would be implemented through the adoption of
any one or combination of some of the
available quality management models like ISO,
benchmarking, six Sigma, continuous
improvement and employee empowerment.
QUALITY COMMITMENT Since senior management allocates resources
and the implementation of quality management
incurs costs of its own, senior management
will have to be committed, support and lead in
the implementation of quality management at
all cost. This will ensure that quality
management and continuous improvement

3. Kondwani H.M.Banda: M.B.A. O.P.M., AssignmentNo.3(22/07/15)
becomes a continuous exercise, as part of the
culture and not just a costly, ineffective one off
exercise within the hospital
CAPABILITIES AND MATURITY The hospital will need to have people within or
outsource people who have the skills,
knowledge and the right attitudes towards
quality, who can carry out the necessary
activities and processes to achieve and
implement a quality management culture, thus
people with the necessary capabilities and
maturity to implement tota quality
management. As such there will be a need for
organistaional wide training, from janitors,
nurses, doctors to administrators within the
hospital so that the people have the basic
knowledge, understanding, right attitude and
maturity as well as that they are convinced
about the vital nature of quality management in
all their activities within the hospital.
MOTIVATION Building a quality culture within Arnold
Palmer hospital as with any other organisation
will be a change process. And as with any
change process, there is bound to be resistance
from some quarters hindering the process.
There will therefore be a need for motivating
the members within the organisation towards
adopting and participating in the change

4. Kondwani H.M.Banda: M.B.A. O.P.M., AssignmentNo.3(22/07/15)
process by ensuring that they are involved,
empowered to come up with suggestions on
how best to carry out the process within their
sections and activities and are given the
necessary and adequate resources such as
information as well as materials and
equipment. They will need to be empowered to
identify problems with the systems within their
responsible areas without fear of reprimand
and encouraged to come up with solutions as
they are the ones closest to the situation know
it better. However, they will not have to be left
to themselves but supervised and organized by
the quality management leaders.
INSTITUTIONALISATION There will be need to ensure that quality
management is really imbedded throughout the
entire hospital as an organisation. This will be
achieved by ensuring team work across and
between structures and functions as well as
within functions. Ensuring that there is
continuous training and learning through the
sharing of ideas and knowledge, group
discussions, creation of quality awareness
forums and seeing to it that there is quality
management team building that is also
contributing to the motivation of the individual
members working in the hospital.
The quality management group or quality cycle
will need to supervise the adoption of the
quality models throughout the hospital from

5. Kondwani H.M.Banda: M.B.A. O.P.M., AssignmentNo.3(22/07/15)
top management to the lowest level of the
hospital’s organizational structure, ensuring
that information is flowing in all directions;
across organizational structures, within and
between organizational functions.
USE OF AUTOMATED TOOLS A quality focus group, a cross - functional
team, will be needed help spread knowledge
throughout the hospital. They will perform the
vital job of ensuring organization - wide
coordination of quality management efforts
especially in information and knowledge
sharing, fostering involvement of every
member of the hospital as an organisation. This
goes a long way in building a quality culture as
seamless knowledge and information sharing is
at the heart culture. These focus groups will
need to work closely with quality groups to
track and coordinate activities Below are
examples of some of the focus groups that
could be created within Arnold Palmer
hospital:
1. Process Improvement Teams
2. Process Review Team
3. Technology Improvement Teams
4. Knowledge Transfer Team
5. Quality Assurance Team (who

6. Kondwani H.M.Banda: M.B.A. O.P.M., AssignmentNo.3(22/07/15)
conducts the Audits
USE OF AUTOMATED TOOLS Use of automated tools coupled with personnel
adequately trained in their use and motivated
enough to be dedicated to their job will aid in
continuous innovation, effectiveness,
efficiency, and consistent delivery of quality.
Automation will reduce, to greater extent,
human errors associated with quality costs.
Automated tools includes automated and or
computerized machines such as state of the art
laboratory equipment integrated with software
applications for strategic information
management in terms of keeping patient
treatment and progress records for example,
tracking drugs and equipment inventories or
tracking the processing of patients through the
various work stations as well as information
sharing, storage and analysis.
1 (c)QUALITY AND CONTINOUS IMPROVEMENT TOOLS TECHNIGQUES AT
ARNOLD PALMER HOSPITAL
PDCA MODEL/KAIZEN As in any job, they will plan, implement the
plan and check progress through customer
surveys, other quality measurement tools
within the hospital, as well as having staff from
the grassroots level, see a problem and develop
ways to track performance

7. Kondwani H.M.Banda: M.B.A. O.P.M., AssignmentNo.3(22/07/15)
EMPOWERMENT From the grassroots level, employees are
empowered to see problems and develop ways
to track performance. Employees are also
empowered to award gifts in value up to $200
to patients who find reason to complain about
any element of the hospital’s service.
BENCHMARKING It participates in a national benchmarking
comparison against other hospitals where it
scores in the top 10% in the overall patient
satisfaction.
SIX SIGMA It uses some of the seven tools of six sigma,
pareto charts, flow charts and process charts.
Though not clearly stated, it should be using
cause and effect diagrams as well, one way or
the other, because there is always a cause for
every ailment, the ailment itself being an
effect, which may have other far reaching
effects too.
JUST IN TIME Although it may not be stated clearly in the
case study, it should be applying Just in Time.
Patients should be attended to at each duty
station as they arrive and discharged when they
are supposed to be to save on space as well as
have adeuate space and other reources for other
patients. Likewise, drugs and other materials
should be available when needed in th right
quantities to ensure customer satisfaction as
well as avoid wastage from drugs going

8. Kondwani H.M.Banda: M.B.A. O.P.M., AssignmentNo.3(22/07/15)
beyond their expiry date and save on storage
costs and other inventory related costs.
2 (d)
Machine
Man
Management
Money
Material
Inventory
Procurement
Storage
Cash flow
Budgeting
Accessibility
Policies
Resource Allocation
Structure
Recruitment
Training
Motivation
Supervision
Reliability
Integration
Layout
Defective
Shipments
Maintenance

9. Kondwani H.M.Banda: M.B.A. O.P.M., AssignmentNo.3(22/07/15)
2 (a) SCATTER DIAGRAM OF TURNOVER AND NUMBER OF DEFECTIVE
There is a partial positive correlation between the turnover and number of defective shipments.
This means turnovers are contributing to defective shipments with defective shipments
increasing as turnover increases too. Therefore addressing the turnover problem, making sure
that employees are motivated to stay longer with the company, be trained and specialize in their
areas, might help in reducing the number of defective shipments.
2 (b) SCATTER DIAGRAM OF TOTAL NUMBER OF SHIPMENTS AND NUMBER OF
DEFECTIVE SHIPMENTS
There is a partial positive correlation between the total number of shipments and the number of
defective shipments. The more shipments are done in a week, the more defective shipments are
likely to occur.
2 (c ) PARETO CHART FOR THE TYPE OF DEFECTS THAT OCCUR
Incorrect truckloads and incorrect bill of lading contribute over seventy percent of the defective
shipments. These two problems relate to issues with manpower and information handling. There
is need to looking into the staffing issues and information processing systems within the
company. Based on the pareto chart, this should be able to address the problem of defective
shipments to a large extent.