In the today fast changing and global environment a successful implementations of modern and progressive strategies is the major success factor for a productive and competitive organisation. This organisational development is associated with the ability of change of the organisation itself. Furthermore it has to have the ability to adapt current market demands and apply them to the organisational behaviour and performance (McNish, 2001; Mullins, 2002; Rajagopalan, 1996).
This change process includes organisational culture, process chains, people and processes management (Gillies & Horward, 2003; Doppler & Lauterburg, 2000). But the main focus of attention is in the responsibility of the management and the executives of the company. A special change process can only be implemented by the managers and it has to evolve within the organisation (Mullins, 2002).
A change can be part of an organisational process – for example new machinery, equipment; regeneration of staff; market pressure; competitors; regular repair and maintenance, entrepreneurial growth and training and development of employees. The organisation itself has to be prepared to cross this change process regardingless if it is driven through external or internal forces (Pinnington & Edward, 2000; Burnes, 1997; Beer & Nohria, 2000).
So this organisational change process regardingles if it is a minor, major or transformational change calls for more attention of diagnosing, facilitating, planning and reinforcing then in the past. Especially in the manufacturing, automotive and consumer electronics industry the striving for better quality, lower costs and higher productivity demands a planned change process (Jun, 2004).
The following chapters outline an organisational change process in special manufacturing company. This major change is the sampling to lead the company to the theories of the Total Quality Management approach. It is surveyed with special consideration of the nature of change, change driving factors, the enforcement and resistance of this change. The paragraphs show a discussion about the implementation process of this organisational development with its challenges and chances of further development. This discussion is included in the organisational context.
1 Table of Content
2 Understanding Managing Change
3 TQM implementation
3.1 The GmbH
3.2 Drivers of Change
3.3 Nature/Types of change
3.4 Resistance and encouragement of change
3.5 Managing resistance
4 Conclusion / evaluating change
5 Literature
2 Understanding Managing Change
In the today fast changing and global environment a successful implementations of modern and progressive strategies is the major success factor for a productive and competitive organisation. This organisational development is associated with the ability of change of the organisation itself. Furthermore it has to have the ability to adapt current market demands and apply them to the organisational behaviour and performance (McNish, 2001; Mullins, 2002; Rajagopalan, 1996).
This change process includes organisational culture, process chains, people and processes management (Gillies & Horward, 2003; Doppler & Lauterburg, 2000). But the main focus of attention is in the responsibility of the management and the executives of the company. A special change process can only be implemented by the managers and it has to evolve within the organisation (Mullins, 2002).
A change can be part of an organisational process – for example new machinery, equipment; regeneration of staff; market pressure; competitors; regular repair and maintenance, entrepreneurial growth and training and development of employees. The organisation itself has to be prepared to cross this change process regardingless if it is driven through external or internal forces (Pinnington & Edward, 2000; Burnes, 1997; Beer & Nohria, 2000).
So this organisational change process regardingles if it is a minor, major or transformational change calls for more attention of diagnosing, facilitating, planning and reinforcing then in the past. Especially in the manufacturing, automotive and consumer electronics industry the striving for better quality, lower costs and higher productivity demands a planned change process (Jun, 2004).
The following chapters outline an organisational change process in special manufacturing company. This major change is the sampling to lead the company to the theories of the Total Quality Management approach. It is surveyed with special consideration of the nature of change, change driving factors, the enforcement and resistance of this change. The paragraphs show a discussion about the implementation process of this organisational development with its challenges and chances of further development. This discussion is included in the organisational context.
3 TQM implementation
3.1 The GmbH
The treated company, is a manufacturer of band saw machines. The product catalogue starts with small hack saw machines and mitre bandsaws with cutting diameters up to 300mm and ends with huge gantry machines with cutting diameters up to 3000mm. The produced machinery is for the further processing of cast iron and especially for dealers in the iron industry. Up to now the treated GmbH has about 280 employees in Germany with its own manufacturing, assembling and foundry sections. There are about on third administration and development employees and two third manufacturer and workers in the assembly lines, casting house and manufacturing area. Furthermore over 30 agencies all over the world and subsidiaries in USA and France emphasise that the company is connected to the global market and is subjected to the worldwide competition. As a result of this global competition the company has to struggle with companies all over the world.
This organisational development is a striving to lead the company in the direction of Total Quality Management (TQM). The end of this organisational change should be a company with a concept of quality management to link quality improvement with business performance of the whole system. This includes the processes of development over the manufacturing of parts up to the finished products. This “Business Excellence Model” is based on the TQM approach which enables effective quality management in all processes of the company.
This organisational change process starts in the 1990’s with an examination of the current processes in the manufacturing area of the company. Data was gathered and analysed to detect points of improvement. It was a scanning of the surface to show that there are several points of improvement in the processes. Out of this facile environmental process scanning a further development in the direction of TQM emerged. The executives realised that there is a lot of potential in process improvement that in the middle 90’s the “time and motion studies” (REFA) where used for a further improvement. This further development of the organisation leads in the end 90’s to the Kaizen approach which is abutted to the TQM. This approach includes the continuous improvement process (CIP) which strives for product/quality improvement.
Especially in the company wounded foundry are a lot of problems which the management tries to eliminate with the Kaizen approach. To analyse the points of improvement a workshop should give information about the challenges. The workshop starts with a training course to sensitive the employees for the topic. The actual dates of the foundry show problems relating delivery reliability, efficiency of the equipment and stock outage. In such a complex process where all parts have to fit into each other, all the processes must be inter-coordinated. For example the shapes of the models must be finished before the molten iron could be poured of. Also the kernels for the shapes must be finished in time. Furthermore the quality of the cast products was not satisfactorily.
But today, the Kaizen approach and the CIP is intermitted because of the economically situation of the company in the last five years. So the striving to lead the company to the road of Total Quality is interrupted.
To emphasise the importance of this organisational change the following paragraphs show a brief overview of the TQM approach.
Töpfer et al. (1995) described TQM as an awareness of quality in all levels of the value-added chain in an organisation. It includes managers and employees in every thinking and dealing activity.
Mullins (2002) outlined several key elements of TQM. In the first place, it is the involving of all operations and management units, a total process involvement. In other words it is a systematic and perceivable directing and guiding. Also to see the “customer as king” to satisfy customers needs and wishes with the use of “rational information collection and analysis” (p.863) and at the same time no to loose sight of the cost of quality. Other important TQM aspects are teamwork, creative thinking and employee involvement.
To have success with this continuous improvement process, the company has to be concatenated in all activities. Out of this the management has the biggest challenge to do. It has to patronise the policy of TQM to motivate and to include employees. Other points are the implementation process and the future planning. This is the quality policy of an organisation that includes continuous improvement and customer satisfaction. Hummel et al. (2002) defined primary tasks for the quality management which includes identifying the performance of processes, risk assessment and the opportunity of improvement. Also to learn from experience should be a basic approach.
To realise strategies and targets, the management of resources is another important aspect. Tangible and intangible values, employee qualification and appreciation of difficulties, working conditions, information needs and supplier partnerships are some important aspects to manage TQM in an organisation (Joiner, 1995).
To make a long story short “TQM emphasises the importance of people as the key to quality” (Mullins et al. 2002, p.863 ). This incremental (see 3.3 Nature of Change) “Level of Change” analyses existing processes in a continuous short time but the cultural type of change realises a moderate risk (Williams et al. 2003).
3.2 Drivers of Change
In general the drivers of change could be manifold. Burnes (2004) argued that the organisational change process is pressed ahead with the fast changing environment of the last 20 years. Worall & Cooper (2001) added that in the early 1990’s the change processes are increasingly used to raise productivity, quality and competitiveness. Also Layman & Shah (2005) added that these organisational change efforts are related to performance improvement of a special business unit or company. This could also be attributed to the economically landscape like technological innovations, increasing globalisation, ramped range of competitors and economic fluctuations. These pressures lead to “more and more radical forms of change” (Burnes, 2004 p.309). And the forms of organisational changes go from incremental over punctuated to continuous processes. They can be driven from top down or are emergent processes (Burnes, 2004; Pettigrew, 2001) (see 3.3 Nature of Change).
Rajagopalan (1996) defines a strategic change as an alignment with the external environment. So the company itself interacts with the external environment to achieve organisational objectives. Then the company has to transfer this strategic change to the firm’s strategy to manifest it in the overall process. Whittington et al. (1995) also outlines the importance of different business environment as a critical factor for organisational properties. The environmental factors of capital importance are the knowledge intensive environment and the “dynamics of international competition and the complexity of multinational operations” (p.586). The main challenges of these change processes are the obliteration of industry boundaries and intensity of knowledge in the business which leads to a limited strategic change. According to Burnes (1997) one of the major challenges of the change process results from the “degree of alignment between (…) external and internal environment” (p.756). To achieve a successful change a company has to change the internal environment or to “influence the external environment” (p.756). But changing the external environment is not the easiest way for all organisations.
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