The article Investigating process management in firms with quality systems: a multi-case study is written by Jon Iden. It includes discussions about investments in quality systems. The interviews were taken, and demonstrations were made to design a multi-case study, which proved that investments in quality systems are of no advantage for process management.
Economic life is tightly connected with the sphere of a quality system as many organizations all over the world provide these systems with investments. They are used to supply management with products and services through the control of business processes. The article concentrates on the analysis of a complete realization of a quality system, whether it sets up process management to get permanent improvement and control or not. Process awareness, ownership, measurement, and improvement are applied as the components of process management. It is concluded that the system can be used for training new hires as a source of standardization and enhancement (Iden 2012).
The article concentrates on the connection between the investment in process management and quality systems. To point it out various activities were performed. The presentation of theoretical foundations was based on the literature review of more than thirty relevant sources. The interview of more than twenty quality managers was analyzed, which enabled us to talk about the common cases. A multi-case study was designed to show the problem from different perspectives. To improve the quality of analysis various technics were used, such as interpretation, studying the meanings, and thematic evaluation.
The article claims that quality systems are not significant for the organization; however, the benefit they provide the firm with cannot be ignored. I support this idea as it is proved by interviewing the representatives from different companies to find out what positive aspects of the systems they experienced. The majority of them underlined that they use the systems to train their workers, especially new ones. Many also point out that they can be treated as a great source or database, from where all employees can easily get some templates and stages of the procedures they often deal with. Others believe that they gain the most value for their companies due to the systems. They also paid attention to the fact that with the opportunity of referring to the quality system, the company can now deal with similar cases in the same way. It occurred to be possible as the performance became standardized. Also, with the help of quality systems, the organizations improved operational deviations thus, the process of reporting incidents turned out to be smoother. The number of breaks during the process of production was reduced, and the benefit of the company was enhanced. These facts of the advantage of quality systems are also supported by the statistics that were made based on recent years.
In real-life situations, the introduction of the process-oriented approach did not affect the operation of the organizations as it was not treated as good as functional oriented one. This can be proved with the help of other sources. For example, there was no realization of what this introduction involves in public sector hospitals; consequently, it could not have been properly applied (Lozeau, Langley & Denis 2002). One more thing is the usage of wrong techniques during the adaptation process. The most reasonable thought might be that the employees were not ready to forget the accustomed practices and changes them for new ones (Reed 2001). Thus, a human factor can be considered the most influential aspect that prevented the quality systems to carry out the process management. Unfortunately, it was not properly investigated in the article, which shows that it gains a more theoretical approach. To bridge this gap, the situation should be considered from this side. People and organizations who achieved success and failure in the appliance of the systems are to be questioned, and the results gained are to be compared with more practical approaches to receive needed information.
The data from this article can help to understand the concept of quality systems and their connection with process management and its dimensions. Relying on it, documents that are needed for the systems can be easily sorted into three levels – process map, processes, and workflows for each process, as there is an explanation of the contents of each of them, which will streamline the adaptation. As the relation between process management and investments in quality systems is not thoroughly studied, the article will provide the readers with information on whether it is reasonable to invest in the systems or not if one is looking for a particular benefit.
- Process management is considered through four main dimensions, which are process awareness, ownership, measurement, and improvement;
- Business executives do not pay a lot of attention to the business process, some particular aims are rarely established, and permanent improvement is not often seen;
- Certification is a necessary step on the way of adoption;
- Even if the steps of applying process orientation were made, employees might find it difficult to change the approach;
- It is impossible to know if the customers are satisfied with the products and services without process management;
- Process management provides the firms with the opportunity to understand whether they meet quality requirements.
Reference List
Iden, J 2012, ‘Investigating process management in firms with quality systems: a multi-case study’, Business Process Management Journal, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 104-121.
Lozeau, D, Langley, A & Denis, J 2002, ‘The corruption of managerial techniques by organizations’, Human Relations, vol. 55, no. 5, pp. 537-564.
Reed, M 2001, ‘Organization trust and control: a realist analysis’, Organization Studies, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 201-229.