Service quality programme developments and lean management aspects: a multi-case study

For an overall effective strategy, companies must think about the long term based on the factors that help them avoid making frequent, costly changes to their strategy. Operational effectiveness in terms of quality assurance, coupled with consistent output, may be the method to survive the current financial crisis. This paper will inspect and document, from an operational management viewpoint, how three unique service-orientated organisations comprising both service and manufacturing sectors (an electrical utility, an automobile parts supplier and a cable/information provider) manage quality, specifically within the unique functions of the organisation: human resources, investor relations and finance. These aspects will be viewed through the lens of the recent financial crisis that has hit the global marketplace, beginning with the general situation, and then managing quality company-wide, managing quality within specific financial business functions, and the impact of the current credit crisis in terms of managing quality. The first section of this paper will examine the concepts of organisation quality via Six Sigma Programme (SSP) development and lean manufacturing principles as a precursor to the case studies in order to lay down the foundations for comparative analysis among the firms studied.