2. FACILITIES LAYOUT and DESIGN The physical layout and design of production areas, customer service areas and office and support space will significantly influence the achievement of quality in an organization.
3. CUSTOMER SERVICE Organizations can implement a customer service and complaints handling system that will result in an improvement in productivity levels and greater efficiency throughout the organization. Customer complaints can allow an organization to easily and cheaply identify problems with their systems.
4. SUPPLY CHAIN The supply chain refers to all the supplier organizations that work together to provide components, materials and support services to an organization so that it can produce goods and services.
5. AFFIRMATIVE ACTION Affirmative action is a process that is used by organizations to target groups of employees that are under-represented in the organization or in society generally.
6. TRAINING The formal and informal instruction to employees both on and off-the-job which aims to develop skills and competencies. Training improves quality because employees are better able to carry out tasks and will make less errors.
7. MANAGEMENT STYLES Organizations that involve employees in decision-making using a more consultative or participative management style is likely to improve quality and productivity. More successful modern organizations have realized that employee involvement using a teams based approach will result in quality improvements throughout the entire organization.
8. JUST IN TIME An organization orders its materials, its stock and other components when it needs them. A JIT system ensures that a business does not spend too much money on slow moving stock and materials that are wasted just sitting around.
