quality

Quality Plan Template – generic with main headers and suggested text

Tools & Methods / By

Here is a generic Quality plan for the community that may be useful as a starter for you own efforts in your company or organization. Below is an extract from the first page of this 35 page document. A PDF of the full thing is avaiable to download – a link back to this post or even a thank you would be appreciated.

1. Purpose
The requirement for the quality plan are driven by the need to achieve customer satisfaction by meeting or exceeding customer requirements by the application of a quality system and includes the continuous improvement and the prevention of non-conformity in delivered services of BizFace Management.
1.1. Scope
The scope is defined as the Consulting and Research business activities of BizFace Management Limited.
1.2. References
References used are:
[ref 1] ISO9001:2000 Quality Management Systems Requirements
[ref 2] ISO9004:2000 Guidelines for Performance Improvement
[ref 3] ISO9000:2000 Fundamentals and Vocabulary
[ref 4] ISO9000:2000 Quality Management Systems Concepts and Vocabulary
Definitions
The concept of the standard is demonstrated by:
• Defining the management requirement
• Determining and applying the necessary resource management
• Establishing and implementing processes for service realisation
• Measuring and analysing results and implementing improvements as a result of feedback.
• Review activities relating to initiating improvements and authorising changes.
The role of customers is to provide demand which is converted into service output via BizFace internal process activities. These outputs are evaluated by customers in terms of customer satisfaction and compliance to the demanded services. Information gained from the monitoring of outputs is used to improve process performance.
1.3. Quality Assurance Policy
BizFace Management’s quality assurance policy is based on principles and values provided for in the company mission, strategy and goals. The Quality Management System (QMS) creation is a major strategic direction of our business activities and is regarded as a tool enabling the creation and management of effective business processes.

Article-Quality-Plan

SERVQUAL – measuring service quality

6 Comments / Operations / By

When determining whether service delivery is meeting service expectations, it is useful to seek the views of service users. Quite often, an organisation will use a SERVQUAL questionnaire to gain the views of service users.

SERVQUAL (Service Quality) is a self-administered questionnaire designed to measure how customers view/judge service quality. Parasuraman et al (1994) defined service quality as the degree of discrepancy between customers’ normative expectations for the service and their perceptions of the service performance.
Parasuraman made the assumption that customers judge service quality by making a comparison between their expectation of the service that they should receive and their perceptions of the service that they actually receive.

Differences between expectations and actual performance are referred to as ‘gaps’. The SERVQUAL instrument can be used to measure any or all of the following five gaps.
Gap 1: Consumer expectation – management perception gap
Understanding the difference between consumer expectations and management perceptions of customer expectations.
Gap 2: Service quality specification gap
The different service standard between management perceptions of consumer expectations and service quality specifications.
Gap 3: Service delivery gap
The difference of service performance between service quality specifications and the service actually delivered.
Gap 4: External communication gap
The difference of communications between service delivery and what is communicated about the service to customers.
Gap 5: Expected service – perceived service gap
The difference between expected service and perceived service from customers’ point of view. Based upon these gaps, five behavioural dimensions of service quality have been identified and are now used in most studies using the SERVQUAL approach.

The 5 Service Quality Dimensions.

  1. Tangibles – Physical facilities equipment and appearance of personnel
  2. Reliability – Ability to perform the service with the promised dependability
  3. Responsiveness – Providing a prompt service
  4. Assurance – Knowledge and coutesy of employees
  5. Empathy – caring and individualised attention to customers

Users of the SERVQUAL questionnaire rate questions on a Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). The SERVQUAL instrument comprises 22 statements used to assess service quality across the five dimensions outlined in Table 2 with each statement used twice – once to measure expectations and once to measure perceptions.
I have attached an example of a generic SERVQUAL questionnaire as a PDF feel free to use. Also I have set up an free on-line version that you can use for your own assessments – you can find it here:SERVQUAL Questionnaire

Quality assurance policy – this is a high level statement of aims and objectives

Operations / By

An assurance policy is a high level statement of objectives and approaches that are further worked out in the Quality Plan – shown here in this post is an example of the main clauses in the policy statement typically signed off by senior management.

AnyCo’s Management Ltd.’s quality assurance policy is based on principles and values provided for in the Company Mission, strategy and goals.
Quality Management System (QMS) creation is a major strategic direction of the business activities. The QMS is regarded as a useful tool for creation and management of effective business processes. The system formation will result in provision of services of consistently high quality, fully meeting customers’ expectations.

The company pursues the following goals in the field of quality assurance:
1. Strict compliance of the company’s services with international, national, and corporate standards and requirements.
2. Professional and technical level of the services must correspond to or exceed that of the leading enterprises and companies operating in the UK market.
3. Responsibility to customers for the quality of the services rendered.
4. Cost efficiency of the services as compared with other companies operating in the market.
5. Development and implementation of new services that fully satisfy our customers’ needs.
6. Continuous monitoring of complaints and claims from customers, and aim to maintain these at zero.
7. Positioning of the company as employing professional staff educated to at least Masters level, and providing services of high quality.

The strategy for achieving the goals is the following:
1. Focus on the process management model and continuous improvement of the company services (in accordance with the market requirements).
2. The QMS development, implementation, and maintenance in conformity with ISO 9001 international standards. Certification to 9001 will be applied for by 2008.
3. Satisfaction of customers’ requirements to all services. Fulfilment of the customers’ requirements within the shortest periods of time, ensuring highest quality. The services can be provided under Service Level Agreements (SLA).
4. Understanding of the customer needs, their present and future specific requirements.
5. Continuous cooperation with customers in order to understand their needs.
6. Transparency – customers obtain access to information on the quality of the services.
7. Priority of quality issues in “personnel – technology – organization” chain.
8. Strict quality assurance procedures at all stages of the services life cycle, well-defined personnel responsibility for quality assurance.
9. Primary focus on prevention of a possible decrease in quality rather than on measures to restore the quality level.
10. Consistent training of all personnel in the sphere of quality, each employee’s participation in services improvement, rewards for quality improvement.