Thesis (M.Ed. (Education Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

<p>AB Svenska Spel är ett statligt ägt monopolföretag som levererar spel och lotter till det svenska samhället. I detta examensarbete har AB Svenska Spel och dess avdelning ombudsekonomi verkat som fallföretag. Avdelningen, vilken är placerad vid huvudkontoret i Visby, valdes ut då ekonomichefen deklarerade att deras arbetssätt upplevdes ineffektivt av medarbetarna.</p><p>Examensarbetet inleddes med en förstudie där olika förbättringsområden inom avdelningen identifierades, där ett beslut sedan fattads att två av dessa områden som skulle vara i fokus i examensarbetet. De delar i avdelningen som skulle granskas var kreditbevakning samt arbetsflödet och de interna överlämningarna. Gemensamt för de identifierade förbättringsområdena var att dessa kunde ses som symtom på att avdelningen inte arbetade systematiskt med kvalitetsutveckling eller med en tydlig verksamhetsstyrning. Detta innebar i praktiken att avdelningens övergripande ramverk, riktlinjer och målstyrning helt saknades.</p><p>Vad avdelningens funktion och syfte var, hur medarbetarna bidrog till resterande organisation eller hur de bidrog externt till det svenska samhället kunde inte redogöras för. Inte heller någon dokumenterad information om detta återfanns och var inte uttalad. Medarbetarna kunde vidare inte redogöra för hur avdelningens interna arbetsmoment och arbetsuppgifter tillsammans bidrog till en enhetlig avdelning som gemensamt arbetade mot samma riktning. Följaktligen arbetades ett övergripande ramverk fram för avdelningen genom att insamlat material har kombinerats med existerande teorier om verksamhetsstyrning, till exempel offensiv kvalitetsutveckling och processkartläggning.</p><p>För att skapa en helhet har avdelningens uppdrag och huvudprocess identifierats och sedan brutits ned i nya riktlinjer och arbetsdokument som rör kreditbedömningarna och på så sätt har arbetet konkritiserats och effektiviserats. Resultatet är att en röd tråd skapats mellan AB Svenska Spels övergripande vision och målbild och avdelningen ombudsekonomi genom att en anpassad affärsidé och vision skapats vilken är en förlängning på ett formulerat uppdrag. För att ytterligare konkritisera hur avdelningen kan styras samt hur mätning och nyckeltal kan användas har ett balanserat styrkort skapats. Vidare har resultatet med examensarbetet bidragit till att systematiska angreppssätt presenteras för att främja analys och ständiga förbättringar. Genom att anpassa hörnstensmodellen till avdelningen har nya värdegrunder skapats som ska verka som en stabil grund för långsiktigt hållbart arbete.</p><p>Då examensarbetet inte inkluderar att resultatet som presenteras i denna rapport implementeras på avdelningen eller kan påvisa en reell effekthämtning har en åtgärdsplan och förslag till fortsatt arbete tagits fram och överlämnats till avdelningschefen. Detta ska möjliggöra att det systematiska arbetssättet fortskrider, förbättras ytterligare och det förändrade tankesättet bibehålls.</p> / <p>AB Svenska Spel is a state-owned company that delivers games and lottery to the Swedish society. In this essay, Svenska Spel and its unit ombudsekonomi acted as a case company. The unit, which is located at the Headquarters in Visby, was selected when the Chief Financial Officer declared that the employees felt that their workflow was ineffective and in need of change. Ombudsekonomi is part of the Finance Department and works with the company's establishment process for new customers, accounts receivable and management of the company's collection of debts.</p><p>This essay began with a pre-study which intended to identify areas of improvement within the department, which then would form the basis for this essay. The pre-study pointed out several  primarily, development of the unit's credit surveillance, head process and workflow, as well as internal handovers.</p><p>Common for all identified areas was that the unit didn ́t plan their work systematically or with total quality management, which is to be seen as a symptom of the lack of overall framework, policies and well-defined goals. The employees couldn ́t describe the function and purpose of the unit, or how they contributed to Svenska Spels organization or to the Swedish society. Neither could they express how the unit's internal actions and tasks together contributed to the common cause or how to work together to reach it, and we couldn't find any (for the unit) defined goals, vivion or overall assignment.</p><p>Therefore, a general framework was put together combining theories of total quality management and processes, mapping with the official strategies, vision and goals that were found in the Svenska Spel annual report. To enable this, information was collected, modified and reformulated to fit the unit's work situation. A mission, vision and strategy was made and new processes were established. This, together with new guidelines and documents for work practices, should make it possible for all the emplyees to work against the same goal in an effective and rationalized way that creates more value for the unit.</p><p>The result of this essay is the creation of a main thread from Svenska Spels overall existing framework down to the unit's work, as well as a new defined goal. To illustrate how this work can be implemented in different perspectives, a balance scorecard has been created including suggestions for measurement and key performance indicators. Furthermore, the result of this essay contributes to the unit's systematic approach to promote the analysis and continuous improvement based on fundamental proposed values.</p><p>However, this project does not include implementation of the results and is therefore not going to ensure the outcomes. An action and application plan for further work will be handed over to the unit's Team Leader. This ensure that the systematic work approach progress, is further improved and that the proposed mind set is maintained.</p>

The investigation was initiated because of the high workload of the sellers and, additionally, because the Tunadal sawmill has received low ratings in customer surveys. Thus,  two main approaches are adopted here,  the first being to investigate which of the three methods  of working, namely, market divided flow organization, function organizationand flow organization with collaboration, proves to be the most beneficial. The second is to investigate whether there is an available method to ease the daily work. A literature review has been made in order to determine more efficient ways for the sellers to work in the Tunadal sawmill. During the investigation, an in-depth investigation into the total quality management using a balanced scorecard as a management tool was conducted. To identify the current problems, interviews and workshops were conducted with the department members. A customer survey was sent to the customers in order to obtain some indication in relation to their opinions. The results showed that there are many unnecessary working operations such as control, duplication of work and problem solving. Communication between the various departments and individuals proved to sometimes be poor.  A major reason for the sellers’ problems regarding workload was due to the unavailability of goods on the discharge date. Many benefits are associated with the collaborative flow organization as this increases the holistic view and can assist in relation to communication. The function based method of working would, however, lead to greater isolation of the functions in the business. Very little work regarding identification of problems that occur in the processes exists and focus on working with improvements is limited. It would be advantageous to work with total quality management using the balanced scorecard as a management tool in the flow organization based on cooperation as this also promotes the holistic approach. Keywords:Efficiency improvement, total quality management, balanced / Denna undersökning har initierats eftersom innesäljarna har upplevt att arbetsbelastningen varit hög och att Tunadals sågverk har fått låga betyg i kundundersökningar. Syftet med denna undersökning har varit dels att utreda vilket av de tre arbetsformerna marknadsuppdelad flödesor-ganisation, funktionsorganisation och flödesorganisation med samarbete som är den mest fördelaktiga arbetsformen att använda i förhållande till de problem som finns i dag, dels utreda om det finns något arbetssätt som underlättar det vardagliga arbetet med att administrera försäljningar. Med anledning av detta har en litteraturstudie gjorts i syfte att hitta en effektivare arbetsform och ett effektivare arbetssätt för innesäljarna på Tunadals sågverk. Under denna studie valdes en fördjupning inom offensiv kvalitetsutveckling med balanserat styrkort som styrinstru-ment. För att identifiera problem i dag har intervjuer genomförts med innesäljarna. En kundundersökning har också genomförts för att få en uppfattning om kundernas synpunkter. Resultatet visar att det finns mycket onödiga arbetsmoment, exempelvis kontroll, dubbelarbete och problemlösning. Kommunikationen mellan olika enheter och individer är ibland bristfällig. En av de största orsakerna till innesäljarnas problem med hög arbetsbelastning är att varor inte är färdigtillverkade vid utlastningsdatum. Det sker nästan inget arbete med att identifiera vilka problem som finns i processerna och det utförs endast lite arbete med fokus på förbättringsarbete. Det finns många fördelar med att arbeta i en flödesorganisation med samarbete eftersom denna arbetsform ökar helhetssynen och underlättar kommunikationen. Funktionsorganisa-tionen skulle däremot leda till att funktionerna i verksamheten blir mer isolerade. Det vore fördelaktigt att arbeta med offensiv kvalitetsutveckl-ing med balanserat styrkort som styrinstrument eftersom detta arbets-sätt har många fördelar. Nyckelord: Effektivisering, offensiv kvalitetsutveckling, balanserat styrkort, PDSA-cykeln, släktskapsdiagram, arbetsform.

I ett modernt företag som Skandiabanken, vars ambition är att tillhöra de främsta inom sin bransch och som har en vision som säger att företaget ska ”ha sparmarknadens nöjdaste kunder”, ställs stora krav på effektivitet i alla led. För att möta kraven från kunder att producera varor och tjänster som motsvarar, eller helst överträffar kundernas förväntningar, samt för att möta organisationens egenintresse i att producera varor och tjänster på ett kostnadseffektivt och inkomstbringande sätt för att på så sätt säkra lönsamheten och konkurrenskraften på lång sikt, behöver företaget ständigt se över och utveckla verksamheten. D.v.s. för att överleva på en konkurrensutsatt marknad är ett strategiskt och hållbart kvalitetsarbete, och att snabbt kunna anpassa och utveckla verksamheten, av allra största vikt. Det finns inget utrymme för uppenbara kvalitetsbrister varken i verksamheten eller i produkter och tjänster som denna åstadkommer. Den snabba utvecklingen på finansmarknaderna, i kombination med att de finansiella produkter som erbjuds idag kan vara komplexa och svårbedömda, innebär att de finansiella rådgivarna under de senaste åren har fått en allt större betydelse för både privatpersoner och juridiska personer. Till grund för detta förbättringsprojekt ligger konstaterade kvalitetsbrister i den dokumentation som enligt lag ska upprättas vid all finansiell rådgivning. Syftet med förbättringsprojektet var att besvara nedan frågeställningar: Vad är de bakomliggande orsakerna till de konstaterade kvalitetsbristerna i dokumentationen av den finansiella rådgivningen? Vilka förändringar behöver genomföras för att kvaliteten ska bli bättre? Att notera här är att en bristfälligt eller utelämnad dokumentation inte per automatik behöver innebära att dåliga råd har lämnats. Metoder som använts för att utreda de bakomliggande orsakerna till kvalitetsbristerna har varit processkartläggning, orsaks-verkan-diagram, relationsdiagram, enkät, personliga intervjuer samt dokumentgranskningar. Förbättringsarbetet har, utifrån konstaterade huvudorsaker, fokuserat på förbättring av verktyg och dokument. Detta har inneburit ett tydliggörande av dokumentationspliktens innebörd vilket genererat i ett framtagande av riktlinjer samt en förbättrad dokumentationsblankett.  En reflektion efter projektets avslut är att kvalitetsförbättrande punktinsatser självklart är bra men att det inte är tillräckligt. Den viktigaste slutsatsen är därmed att avsaknaden av synliggjorda ledningsprocesser, en helhetssyn på verksamheten och ett systematiskt processorienterat arbete i kombination med återkommande omorganisationer är den troliga orsaken till att de beskrivna problemen uppstått. Därför är författarens förbättringsförslag, att som ett led i Total Quality Management, starta ett arbete i enlighet med ISO 9001:2008. För att uppnå ett hållbart långsiktigt kvalitetsarbete krävs en helhetssyn och ett systematiskt och ständigt pågående förbättringsarbete. Ett arbete med 9001:2008, i enlighet med TQM och tillsammans med de faktaunderlag som de facto redan finns tillgängliga, såsom policys, riktlinjer, rutinbeskrivningar, kundundersökningar mm, kommer att generera i förbättrad effektivitet, minskad resursåtgång, förbättrad möjlighet till verksamhetsstyrning, högre kvalitet i affären, högre kundnöjdhet, nöjda medarbetare och ägare, samt att ett långsiktigt bra ekonomiskt resultat uppnås. Dessutom blir verksamheten snabbare och mer flexibel inför framtida förändringar. / In a modern company like Skandia who wants to be in the forefront of its business and with a vision to have “the most satisfied clients in the savings market” there is high demand on efficiency in all aspects of the business. To meet the demand from customers to produce products and services that meets or even better exceeds the customers’ expectations, and to meet the organization self interest in I producing products and services in a cost efficient way and with revenues to secure profitability, and competitive long term, the company at all times needs to evaluate the strategic and sustainable quality work, and that swiftly have the ability to develop the company is of extreme importance. There is no room for obvious quality deficiencies in either the product or services that the deficiency creates. The fast development in financial market in combination with the financial products that today is more complex and harder to understand the implication is that the financial advisors during the last years have a larger influence for both private persons and legal entities. The foundation for this improvement project has been to answer the questions; What are the underlying reasons for the lack of quality in the documentation of the financial advice meeting? What has to be done to improve the quality? Note that a poor or total lack of customer documentation dose not mean that bad advice has been given to the client. Methods which has been used to investigate the underlying reasons for the lack of quality has been process mapping, reason-effect diagram, relations diagram, survey, personal interviews , and examining of documents.  The improvement work has, with the fact based main reasons, focused on improving the tools and documents, which have made it clearer, make people understand the reasons for the documentation regulation and the production of a new guideline and an improved document for the financial advisor.  The most imported conclusion is that a lack of clear management processes, a holistic view of the business and a systematic process oriented work, in combination with a lot at reorganizations is the reason for the described problem. That is the reason for the author’s improvement suggestion, as a step in Total Quality Management, start of a work according to ISO 9001:2008. A reflection after the project was finished I that ad hoc quality improvement is of course good but not good enough. To reach a sustainable long-term quality work there is a need for a holistic view and a constant improvement focus. A work with 9001:2008 in accordance with TQM that together with fact based approach that already Is there like policy’s, guidelines, routine manuals, customer surveys among others will lead to better efficiency, less use of resources, improved opportunity lead the business, higher quality in the business, increased customer satisfaction, more pleased staff and owners, and a long term financial result will be accomplished. Further the business will be faster on more flexible for future changes.

Background The OEMs are facing fundamental changes. The importance of the quality of products in the automotive industry has changed to being exclusively dependent on the demand and sense of the customer. The OEMs have to react quickly on trends to fulfill the customer demands and be technically innovative. These innovations and intensity of their implication lead to a high cost pressure for the OEMs again. Therefore, the OEMs need to work together with their suppliers. Production strategies like TQM or outsourcing are known as the key to success. Although cost and quality management themselves are quite well-investigated in literature, and the use of both TQM and outsourcing are widely implemented in the OEMs’ strategies to improve quality and reduce costs, studies about the combination of TQM and outsourcing and their impact on quality and costs cannot be found. The wide spread opinion of managers is that quality and costs cannot support each other. Purpose In our Master Thesis we wanted to find out how quality and costs are related to each other to fulfill the given goals. The purpose was to examine the impact of the two common methods, TQM and outsourcing, on costs and quality for the OEMs. We explored how the concepts interact and support costs and quality. Furthermore, the analysis states how these approaches are related within a supply chain and how automobile manufacturers can use both approaches to assure low costs and high quality at the same time. Method Our Master Thesis is a theoretical study based on a qualitative research method. We used scientific articles and literature for the theory and combined these in the analysis with the data and results from previous case studies as the empiric value. We combined this through the deductive approach. We not only used a positivistic view, but we also used a hermeneutic view due to the fact that analysis and conclusion incorporate both scientific articles and also personal interpretations. Results and Conclusion We concluded that precisely these two methods, outsourcing and TQM, supplement each other and fit together very well to assure the efficiency of the automobile OEMs with high quality and low costs at the same time. This is due to the fact that outsourcing is often used in companies and reduces the costs of OEMs; and TQM alone leads to quality improvements. Not only do they work well separately in companies, but outsourcing lays ideal foundations for an efficient TQM implementation. Suggestions on Continued Research We could not find any studies where these two approaches were researched in combination. Thus, one good future research could be to go on with empirical analyses about this theme in the automotive industry, for example by conducting surveys or interviews with OEMs. A case study about the combination of TQM and outsourcing could verify our mostly from the theory concluded results of the interrelation. A further deviation on the research could be that suppliers, instead of OEMs, could be the focus of the study.

Total quality management (TQM) approach is often used to carry out company-wide continuous quality improvement plans in manufacturing and service industries. Similarly, TQM can also play a critical role for quality management in health care. Aiming to improve health care quality, experiences showed that major problems of non-patient care, patient records and vital signs monitoring are encountered. In this study, we aim to introduce TQM for quality improvement for intensive care unit (ICU) operations, including some solutions and the prototype of quality management. And vital signs monitoring at ICU is taken as an example of process. For quality improvement of non-patient care, Health Care Quality Development Life Cycle, including (1) quality requirement analysis, (2) quality specification review, (3) quality design, (4) quality implementation, (5) quality testing, (6) quality maintaining, and (7) quality validation, is discussed. The prototype of the first three phases for quality improvement at ICU is explored. Through quality requirement analysis, non-patient care quality at ICU is defined in areas of administration, facility and environment. For quality improvement of patient records maintaining, firstly, scope of health care information systems is categorized as administrative operational system, decision support system, clinical information system, and medical information system. According to this categorization and experience, some interesting result is found. For instance, the current applications of information systems for teaching hospitals in southern Taiwan surveyed are that most applications are administrative and clinical. And the essential information of patient records used in each information system is not complete or not easily accessed. Model of the patient record maintaining is introduced and the prototype design of patient records is recommended for quality improvement of patient records maintaining at ICU. To improve quality of vital signs monitoring is one essential requirement and specification for ICU quality improvement. Effective outcome measures of vital signs monitoring and early detecting of abnormal vital signs is considered important. For quality improvement of vital signs monitoring at ICU, heart rate graphs are taken as examples in our study through the heart rate graphs monitoring. Health professionals can understand the interactions of human autonomic nervous system. By use of digitizer, the computable heart rate data is acquired from each graph and grouped into mortality and near-to-normal cases. Then spectrum form of heart rate data, describing more about heart function, is used for statistical analysis. Several control chart methods have been experimented to detect small heart rate shifts from target, cumulative sum control chart (Cusum) is adopted in our study. The observable variable is the patient¡¦s heart rate, the purpose is to check the alarms pointed out by Cusum that could be partially be ascribed to changes of heart rate trend over time, and to a shift in the monitoring process mean. From summaries of nonconformities in the Cusum charts, mortality cases obviously have more nonconformities. It is obvious that Cusum control charts of mortality cases provide diagnostic information for vital signs monitoring process. In addition, Cusum charts may also inform ICU professionals that there is a small shift of patient heart rate, a continuously increasing or decreasing heart rate, and the adjustment of sympathetic nerve and parasympathetic nerve. In those cases, some special care is needed.

<p>Background</p><p>The OEMs are facing fundamental changes. The importance of the quality of products in the automotive industry has changed to being exclusively dependent on the demand and sense of the customer. The OEMs have to react quickly on trends to fulfill the customer demands and be technically innovative. These innovations and intensity of their implication lead to a high cost pressure for the OEMs again. Therefore, the OEMs need to work together with their suppliers. Production strategies like TQM or outsourcing are known as the key to success. Although cost and quality management themselves are quite well-investigated in literature, and the use of both TQM and outsourcing are widely implemented in the OEMs’ strategies to improve quality and reduce costs, studies about the combination of TQM and outsourcing and their impact on quality and costs cannot be found. The wide spread opinion of managers is that quality and costs cannot support each other.</p><p>Purpose</p><p>In our Master Thesis we wanted to find out how quality and costs are related to each other to fulfill the given goals. The purpose was to examine the impact of the two common methods, TQM and outsourcing, on costs and quality for the OEMs. We explored how the concepts interact and support costs and quality. Furthermore, the analysis states how these approaches are related within a supply chain and how automobile manufacturers can use both approaches to assure low costs and high quality at the same time.</p><p>Method</p><p>Our Master Thesis is a theoretical study based on a qualitative research method. We used scientific articles and literature for the theory and combined these in the analysis with the data and results from previous case studies as the empiric value. We combined this through the deductive approach. We not only used a positivistic view, but we also used a hermeneutic view due to the fact that analysis and conclusion incorporate both scientific articles and also personal interpretations.</p><p>Results and Conclusion</p><p>We concluded that precisely these two methods, outsourcing and TQM, supplement each other and fit together very well to assure the efficiency of the automobile OEMs with high quality and low costs at the same time. This is due to the fact that outsourcing is often used in companies and reduces the costs of OEMs; and TQM alone leads to quality improvements. Not only do they work well separately in companies, but outsourcing lays ideal foundations for an efficient TQM implementation.</p><p>Suggestions on Continued Research</p><p>We could not find any studies where these two approaches were researched in combination. Thus, one good future research could be to go on with empirical analyses about this theme in the automotive industry, for example by conducting surveys or interviews with OEMs. A case study about the combination of TQM and outsourcing could verify our mostly from the theory concluded results of the interrelation. A further deviation on the research could be that suppliers, instead of OEMs, could be the focus of the study.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI/Dissertation Abstracts International.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-107).

Thesis (D. Ed.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 194-201). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.