NestleNestleNowadays, given the improved overall quality standards in effect, companies risk becoming complacent about quality issues. However, with supply chains becoming longer and customers becoming more demanding, quality management continues to be a challenge to companies. Three highly publicized incidents related to quality that occurred recently at Coca-Cola, Firestone, and Snow Brand Milk Products had dramatic impact on the company and top management. These incidents highlight the fact that quality must be seen from the total supply chain perspective with the main focus on quality in use. At Nestle, Consumer service group, Purchasing group, Logistics group and Factory performance group each faces different problems ranging from traceability and manufacturing efficiency to managing diverse customers.
Recommendations:In order to address manufacturing inefficiencies, Nestle should implement six-sigma. Six-Sigma is a project, data and technology driven quality management tool and acts as a business improvement strategy in order to improve the business competitiveness through reducing the defects and improving customer-oriented quality. To implement the six-sigma effectively, process six-sigma should be equal to product three-sigma. Greater process capability means less variability and less chance of product failing to meet customer specifications. If the process output is closely clustered around the mean, in relation to the width of customer specifications, most of the output will fall within the specifications. Thus with higher capability there is less chance of producing defectives even if process goes out of control because of shift in mean from the center of the specifications.
Total employee involvement is also needed, which can be achieved through Kaizen practices. It has two levels of involvement; the first can involve every employee relatively quickly and easily. One of the most basic kaizen practices is called 5S or workplace organization. 5S stands for the five steps of improving workplace organization, namely, Separate and Scrap, Straighten, Scrub (Clean), Standardize (the practices), and Systemize and Spread the methods. A plant wide 5S campaign can be started very easily and can involve every employee. The second level is the focused improvement activity that is applied to work areas and would involve employees in those areas. The process involves doing a series of focused improvement sessions, usually three to five days, on a work process. Each time a session is held, a different improvement approach will be adopted, depending on the constraint or need. The employees learn lean practices as they are implementing them.
Six-Sigma could be a good quality tool to lead the management team through the chain and combating the risk of dependability and complexity in the Supply Chain. Lean Six Sigma along with TQM, JIT or Kaizen can accelerate achieving the Supply Chain objectives through a systematic approach based on performance measurement and data analysis. Integration of quality initiatives internally and with Supply Chain can help to have more effective results to achieve the targets in business strategy and bottom line. The importance of the integrated view of these quality initiatives will enable the management team in SCM to avoid individualistic views and, instead, enlarge their cross-functional view and
Crisis and management planning
If a company is experiencing a financial crisis and wants to manage it professionally, they should be taking the necessary time to plan for it to end (and to avoid taking risks in a timely direction), which in turn requires better management (and, for customers). But the biggest concern in SCM and JIT in particular is in working for better customer relationships and in providing accurate operational plans and monitoring.
This comes with an element of cost. Some SCMs, especially those with multiple staff and many products (such as IT departments), can charge a premium to cover your operational costs, with the cost of doing business rising by at least 50% during the entire run. But these products also have limited customer satisfaction.
For a SCM to work effectively, you need to be able to integrate the management experience of your company with a specific level of satisfaction. The following checklist will help you in the time-management effort.
Prepare your system’s management and product roadmap (AJN) as detailed in this checklist.
Work through an IT plan that explains how your company’s management structure will have evolved during the course of the year (for both your business and its customers). The timeline is based on the number of milestones completed during the previous year. For more detailed help on managing or integrating your systems, see The IT Plan Reference.
Plan your system on a continuous basis by having the system have the following key metrics enabled:
Measurement accuracy.
Measurement of time.
Unit accuracy.
Service delivery.
Diving test success in an automated or unmetered environment.
To fully operationalize your system, you should go through a series of tasks and then understand how to implement your tasks in a timely manner. It is important to plan for your system when there are numerous challenges and opportunities to work together. The best plan during your work is a very structured plan and the best plan at times is to prepare the system, build the product roadmap and implement all the relevant elements of your plan. For this purpose, it does not require multiple planning sessions across the company.
Plan your system on a continuous basis by having the system have the following key metrics enabled:
Measurement accuracy.
Measurement of time.
Unit accuracy.
Service delivery.
Diving test success in an automated or unmetered environment.
To fully operationalize your system, you should go through a series of tasks and then understand how to implement your tasks in a timely manner. It is important to plan for your system when there are numerous challenges and opportunities to work together. The best plan during your work is a very structured plan and the best plan at times is to prepare the system, build the product roadmap