Quality Management - Issues & Recommendations

Possible issues

    1.      The major issue Harbor Freight Tool has is low employee involvement.  The staff is not given proper employee training and the store has very high employee turnover.

    2.      Harbor Freight Tool needs to focus on quality of product, which is directly related to receiving damaged product from suppliers or manufacturers and then passing it to external customers.

    3.      Poor support is provided to customers when dealing with customer complaints and questions. Customers get upset due to long hold times, unclear coupon policies and wrong answers.

Recommandations

In course of the management class we have learned that for many businesses today the challenge is to retain their employees and satisfy the customers throught exceptional customer service and quality. One of the problem Harbor Freight Tools is facing is low quality management. The possible solution for that issue is “Total Quality Management” and by solving the major issue of low employee involement and by improving quality of product the Harbor Freight Tools Springfiled, NJ will be able to achieve high customer satisfaction.

“Quality is a term used by customers to describe their general satisfaction with a service or a product”. To achieve high levels of customer service and high quality of products, Total Quality Management is an excellent approach to adopt. The TQM treats customer satisfaction (internal or external) as top priority following with employee involvement and continuous improvement.

As shown in pareto chart, low employee involvement is the main problem of Harbor Freight Tools store. By focusing on low employee involvement and continuous improvement, high level of customer satisfaction could be achieved.

Employee Involvement includes organizational culture and teamwork. Employee involvement is very important in TQM because it provides a platform for employees to build a better work relationship among themselves where every employee serves as quality inspector.

“Organizational culture is about developing a proper culture for TQM and define customer to each employee”. In order to do that all internal customers must be satisfied.  If the store hires right people form the beginning and provides proper employee trainings it can create a close relationship between workers and managers. If employees are receiving good training they will be able to provide good support to external customers through their work knowledge. When internal customers feel they are adding value to the business it improves employee morale, increase productivity and work cohesiveness.

When management is properly recognizing good employees they would want to grow with the company. Teamwork is another way managers at the Harbor Freight Tools can improve employee involvement. By doing so each employee will hold himself or herself accountable for success and can offer different perspectives than a managers, they will feel that their skills are being properly utilized. When employees consider themselves part of a team and take pride in their work it will also solve the issue of high employee turnover automatically.

Continuous Improvement is based on the idea of continuously improving the process. We recommend for Harbor Freight Tools to reduce long hold times to solve customer concerns and provide customers with consistent quality products. By identifying benchmarks in the hardware industry like Home Depot and Lowes, the Harbor Freight Tools can improve their customer service, support and employee training.

 The Deming Wheel is a form of continuous improvement and is used for problem solving. Another name for the Deming wheel is the plan-do-study-act cycle.

“Plan” means a company selects a process in which it needs improvement. Once this decision is made, the company analyzes the data, sets goals, and discusses ways to achieve the goals. In our store, Harbor Freight, we must set a goal to train new employees that are hired for 30 hours with an experienced employee for a specific job where as current plan is only 20 hours general training.

The “Do” concept is when the team members implement the plan and monitor progress. Throughout this process, data is collected to measure the improvements that are being made. Once we implement that our employees should train for 30 hours in a specific job, we must monitor the employees being trained. We must also make sure there is progress in the employees and that if new plan is working.

The “Study” phase is when the data that is collected in the “Do” phase is analyzed and correspond with the goals set in the “Plan” stage. This is where Harbor Freight will see if the new plan is achieving the goal of training the new employees properly.

“Act can be a successful stage, in which the plan was achieved, or a stage in which the company will have to start from the beginning with a new plan”. When the “Act” stage is successful, the team will document this process and it will become a standard procedure or process. If Harbor Freight receives data that reveals the new employees who were trained for 30 hours with an experienced employee in a specific job; are doing better than those who were not trained for 30 hours, then this should be a standard plan.