Quality at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company

Quality Management, Case 3 study

Article 1 Review, Kim et Al 2012

Study effectively explains that holistic, corporation wide,   implementation of QM practices is the key to get quantifiable returns in terms of innovation in both product and administration. The study used data from questionnaire based on QM from 223 manufacturing firms which were ISO 9001 certified.  

Study defined three measured out comes for innovation, 2 types of product innovations, radical and incremental, 2 types of process innovations, radical and incremental, and administrative innovation.

 The Main underlined finding was that Process management directly responsible for the innovation outcomes. Organization capability to manage processes plays a vital role.

The target of the study was to track the relationship between QM and innovation, so authors defined innovation into following categories:

1. Technological innovation
2. Process innovation
3. Administrative innovation

Technological innovation is adoption of new technologies for the improvement of product and services. It follows a bottom-up approach because it involves the technician level support and then it goes up. Authors have further divided the technological innovations into radical and incremental type. Radical are the like totally new ideas whereas incremental is improving the product or services slowly step by step.

Process Innovation, is the improvement in the way the organization produce its services or products, like using improved computer system etc. Authors also classify this in 2 sub categories like technological, radical and incremental.

Administrative innovation refers to application of new ideas which results in improvement of organization structure, systems and processes. It follows a top-down approach where upper management commitment is mandatory.

 Study also elaborate the need of support from top management  and also refer to previous studies done on the subject. Management leadership is directly responsible for setting up a learning intensive environment for adoption of QM practices and responsible for training, employee relations, distributing responsibilities etc.

Study collected following main hypotheses based in QM practices:

1.  Management leadership, is positively associated with training, employee relationship, supplier quality management, customer relations, product service design.
2. Training / updates in skills, is positively associated with quality data reporting, employee relationship
3.  Employee relationship,  is positively associated with quality reporting, product and services design and process management.
4. Supplier quality management, is positively associated with product and services design, process management.
5. Customer relationship, is positively associated with quality data and reporting
6. Quality data and reporting, affects positively to supplier quality management, product and service design, process management, radical and incremental product/services innovation, radical and incremental product and services innovation, and also administrative innovation.
7. Product/services design is positively associated with process management.
8. Process management, is associated with all 5 types of innovation being tracked in the study.

Findings of this study is that QM practices implemented in the in an organization positively relates to innovation in all 5 categories measured. Process Management in specific positively leads to innovation. Managing process aids in finding creative problem solving thus innovation. A very important finding was that leaders should not put excessive emphases on a single or a few QM practices because these are interdependent. Resulting innovation is the synergic effect of all the QM practices effort put together.