Assignment

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Of E-Commerce sector of Flipkart

Submitted by: -
POOJA MISHRA
MBA 3rd Semester
ERP ID – 0181MBA177

Submitted to:-
Prof. Rajeev Ranjan
Asst. Professor Doon Business School
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION:-.................................................................2
TOOLS & TECHNIQUES:-....................................................7
ISO 9000 (QMS, EMS, OHSAS):-........................................7
BPR (Business Process Re-Engineering):-...........................9
SIX SIGMA (6Ϭ):-...............................................................10
TQM FRAMEWORK:-......................................................11
7 QC TOOLS:-.....................................................................11
BENCHMARKING:-..........................................................11
FMEA:-.................................................................................12
QFD (VOICE OF CUSTOMER):-.....................................13
LEAN MANUFACTURING:-............................................14
GAPS IN IMPLEMENTATION OF TQM:-.......................15
TQM FRAMEWORK:-.........................................................16
CONCLUSION:-....................................................................27
INTRODUCTION:-

Total Quality Management is a management approach that originated in the 1950s and has
steadily become more popular since the early 1980s. Total Quality is a description of the
culture, attitude and organization of a company that strives to provide customers with products
and services that satisfy their needs. The culture requires quality in all aspects of the company’s
operations, with processes being done right the first time and defects and waste eradicated from
operations.
Total Quality Management, TQM, is a method by which management and employees can
become involved in the continuous improvement of the production of goods and services. It is a
combination of quality and management tools aimed at increasing business and reducing losses
due to wasteful practices.
TQM Defined
TQM is a management philosophy that seeks to integrate all organizational functions
(marketing, finance, design, engineering, and production, customer service, etc.) to focus on
meeting customer needs and organizational objectives.
TQM views an organization as a collection of processes. It maintains that organizations must
strive to continuously improve these processes by incorporating the knowledge and experiences
of workers. The simple objective of TQM is “Do the right things, right the first time, every
time.” TQM is infinitely variable and adaptable. Although originally applied to manufacturing
operations, and for a number of years only used in that area, TQM is now becoming recognized
as a generic management tool, just as applicable in service and public sector organizations.
There are a number of evolutionary strands, with different sectors creating their own versions
from the common ancestor. TQM is the foundation for activities, which include:
 Commitment by senior management and all employees
 Meeting customer requirements
 Reducing development cycle times
 Just in time/demand flow manufacturing
 Improvement teams
 Reducing product and service costs
 Systems to facilitate improvement
 Line management ownership
 Employee involvement and empowerment
 Recognition and celebration
 Challenging quantified goals and benchmarking
 Focus on processes / improvement plans
 Specific incorporation in strategic planning
Principles of TQM
The key principles of TQM are as following:
Management Commitment
Plan (drive, direct)
Do (deploy, support, participate)
Check (review)
Act (recognize, communicate, revise)
Employee Empowerment
Training
SPC (statistical process control)
DOE, FMEA

The Concept of Continuous Improvement by TQM

TQM is mainly concerned with continuous improvement in all work, from high level strategic
planning and decision-making, to detailed execution of work elements on the shop floor. It
stems from the belief that mistakes can be avoided and defects can be prevented. It leads to
continuously improving results, in all aspects of work, as a result of continuously improving
capabilities, people, processes, technology and machine capabilities.
Continuous improvement must deal not only with improving results, but more importantly with
improving capabilities to produce better results in the future. The five major areas of focus for
capability improvement are demand generation, supply generation, technology, operations and
people capability.
A central principle of TQM is that mistakes may be made by people, but most of them are
caused, or at least permitted, by faulty systems and processes. This means that the root cause of
such mistakes can be identified and eliminated, and repetition can be prevented by changing the
process.
There are three major mechanisms of prevention:
Preventing mistakes (defects) from occurring (mistake-proofing or poka-yoke).
Where mistakes can’t be absolutely prevented, detecting them early to prevent them being
passed down the value-added chain (inspection at source or by the next operation).
Where mistakes recur, stopping production until the process can be corrected, to prevent the
production of more defects. (stop in time).
Implementation Principles and Processes
A preliminary step in TQM implementation is to assess the organization’s current reality.
Relevant preconditions have to do with the organization’s history, its current needs,
precipitating events leading to TQM, and the existing employee quality of working life. If the
current reality does not include important preconditions, TQM implementation should be
delayed until the organization is in a state in which TQM is likely to succeed.
If an organization has a track record of effective responsiveness to the environment, and if it
has been able to successfully change the way it operates when needed, TQM will be easier to
implement. If an organization has been historically reactive and has no skill at improving its
operating systems, there will be both employee skepticism and a lack of skilled change agents.
If this condition prevails, a comprehensive program of management and leadership
development may be instituted. A management audit is a good assessment tool to identify
current levels of organizational functioning and areas in need of change. An organization
should be basically healthy before beginning TQM. If it has significant problems such as a very
unstable funding base, weak administrative systems, lack of managerial skill, or poor employee
morale, TQM would not be appropriate.

However, a certain level of stress is probably desirable to initiate TQM. People need to feel a
need for a change. Kanter (1983) addresses this phenomenon be describing building blocks
which are present in effective organizational change. These forces include departures from
tradition, a crisis or galvanizing event, strategic decisions, individual “prime movers,” and
action vehicles. Departures from tradition are activities, usually at lower levels of the
organization, which occur when entrepreneurs move outside the normal ways of operating to
solve a problem. A crisis, if it is not too disabling, can also help create a sense of urgency
which can mobilize people to act. In the case of TQM, this may be a funding cut or threat, or
demands from consumers or other stakeholders for improved quality of service. After a crisis, a
leader may intervene strategically by articulating a new vision of the future to help the
organization deal with it. A plan to implement TQM may be such a strategic decision. Such a
leader may then become a prime mover, who takes charge in championing the new idea and
showing others how it will help them get where they want to go. Finally, action vehicles are
needed and mechanisms or structures to enable the change to occur and become
institutionalized.

To communicate the change, mechanisms beyond existing processes will need to be developed.
Special all-staff meetings attended by executives, sometimes designed as input or dialog
sessions, may be used to kick off the process, and TQM newsletters may be an effective
ongoing communication tool to keep employees aware of activities and accomplishments.

Management of resources for the change effort is important with TQM because outside
consultants will almost always be required. Choose consultants based on their prior relevant
experience and their commitment to adapting the process to fit unique organizational needs.
While consultants will be invaluable with initial training of staff and TQM system design,
employees (management and others) should be actively involved in TQM implementation,
perhaps after receiving training in change management which they can then pass on to other
employees. A collaborative relationship with consultants and clear role definitions and
specification of activities must be established.

In summary, first assess preconditions and the current state of the organization to make sure the
need for change is clear and that TQM is an appropriate strategy. Leadership styles and
organizational culture must be congruent with TQM. If they are not, this should be worked on
or TQM implementation should be avoided or delayed until favorable conditions exist.

TOOLS & TECHNIQUES:-

ISO 9000 (QMS, EMS, OHSAS):-

ISO 9000 is defined as a set of international standards on quality management and quality
assurance developed to help companies effectively document the quality system elements
needed to maintain an efficient quality system. They are not specific to any one industry and
can be applied to organizations of any size.
ISO 9000 can help a company satisfy its customers, meet regulatory requirements, and achieve
continual improvement. It should be considered to be a first step or the base level of a quality
system.
 Customer focus
 Understand the needs of existing and future customers
 Align organizational objectives with customer needs and expectations
 Meet customer requirements
 Measure customer satisfaction
 Manage customer relationships
 Aim to exceed customer expectations
 Learn more about the customer experience and customer satisfaction
 Leadership
 Establish a vision and direction for the organization
 Set challenging goals
 Model organizational values
 Establish trust
 Equip and empower employees
 Recognize employee contributions
 Learn more about leadership
 Engagement of people
 Ensure that people’s abilities are used and valued
 Make people accountable
 Enable participation in continual improvement
  Evaluate individual performance
 Enable learning and knowledge sharing
 Enable open discussion of problems and constraints
 Learn more about employee involvement
 Process approach
 Manage activities as processes
 Measure the capability of activities
 Identify linkages between activities
 Prioritize improvement opportunities
 Deploy resources effectively
 Learn more about a process view of work and see process analysis tools
 Improvement
 Improve organizational performance and capabilities
 Align improvement activities
 Empower people to make improvements
 Measure improvement consistently
 Celebrate improvements
 Learn more about approaches to continual improvement
 Evidence-based decision making
 Ensure the accessibility of accurate and reliable data
 Use appropriate methods to analyze data
 Make decisions based on analysis
 Balance data analysis with practical experience
 See tools for decision making
 Relationship management
 Identify and select suppliers to manage costs, optimize resources, and create value
 Establish relationships considering both the short and long term
 Share expertise, resources, information, and plans with partners
 Collaborate on improvement and development activities
 Recognize supplier successes
 Learn more about supplier quality and see resources related to managing the supply
chain
OHSAS 18001, Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series, (officially BS OHSAS
18001) was a British Standard for occupational health and safety management systems.
Compliance with it enabled organizations to demonstrate that they had a system in place for
occupational health and safety. BSI cancelled BS OHSAS 18001 to adopt ISO 45001 as BS
ISO 45001. ISO 45001 was published in March 2018 by the International Organization for
Standardization. Organizations which are certified to BS OHSAS 18001 can migrate to ISO
45001 by March 2021 if they want to retain a recognized certification
BPR (Business Process Re-Engineering):-
Business process re-engineering (BPR) is a business management strategy, originally pioneered
in the early 1990s, focusing on the analysis and design of workflows and business processes
within an organization. BPR aimed to help organizations fundamentally rethink how they do
their work in order to improve customer service, cut operational costs, and become world-class
competitors.
BPR seeks to help companies radically restructure their organizations by focusing on the
ground-up design of their business processes. According to early BPR proponent Thomas H.
Davenport (1990), a business process is a set of logically related tasks performed to achieve a
defined business outcome. Re-engineering emphasized a holistic focus on business objectives
and how processes related to them, encouraging full-scale recreation of processes rather than
iterative optimization of sub-processes.
Business process reengineering is also known as business process redesign, business
transformation, or business process change management.

SIX SIGMA (6Ϭ):-

Six Sigma (6σ) is a set of techniques and tools for process improvement. It was introduced by
engineer Bill Smith while working at Motorola in 1980.[1][2] Jack Welch made it central to his
business strategy at General Electric in 1995. A six sigma process is one in which 99.99966%
of all opportunities to produce some feature of a part are statistically expected to be free of
defects.
Six Sigma strategies seek to improve the quality of the output of a process by identifying and
removing the causes of defects and minimizing variability in manufacturing and business
processes. It uses a set of quality management methods, mainly empirical, statistical methods,
and creates a special infrastructure of people within the organization who are experts in these
methods. Each Six Sigma project carried out within an organization follows a defined sequence
of steps and has specific value targets, for example: reduce process cycle time, reduce
pollution, reduce costs, increase customer satisfaction, and increase profits.
The term Six Sigma (capitalized because it was written that way when registered as a Motorola
trademark on December 28, 1993) originated from terminology associated with statistical
modeling of manufacturing processes. The maturity of a manufacturing process can be
described by a sigma rating indicating its yield or the percentage of defect-free products it
creates—specifically, within how many standard deviations of a normal distribution the
fraction of defect-free outcomes corresponds to. Motorola set a goal of "six sigma" for all of its
manufacturing.
Six Sigma doctrine asserts:
 Continuous efforts to achieve stable and predictable process results (e.g. by reducing
process variation) are of vital importance to business success.
 Manufacturing and business processes have characteristics that can be defined, measured,
analyzed, improved, and controlled.
 Achieving sustained quality improvement requires commitment from the entire
organization, particularly from top-level management.
Features that set Six Sigma apart from previous quality-improvement initiatives include:
 A clear focus on achieving measurable and quantifiable financial returns from any Six
Sigma project.
 An increased emphasis on strong and passionate management leadership and support.
 A clear commitment to making decisions on the basis of verifiable data and statistical
methods, rather than assumptions and guesswork.

TQM FRAMEWORK:-
Total quality management (TQM) consists of organization-wide efforts to "install and make
permanent climate where employees continuously improve their ability to provide on demand
products and services that customers will find of particular value." "Total" emphasizes that
departments in addition to production (for example sales and marketing, accounting and
finance, engineering and design) are obligated to improve their operations; "management"
emphasizes that executives are obligated to actively manage quality through funding, training,
staffing, and goal setting. While there is no widely agreed-upon approach, TQM efforts
typically draw heavily on the previously developed tools and techniques of quality control.
The key concepts in the TQM effort undertaken by the Navy in the 1980s include:
 "Quality is defined by customers' requirements."
 "Top management has direct responsibility for quality improvement."
 "Increased quality comes from systematic analysis and improvement of work processes."
 "Quality improvement is a continuous effort and conducted throughout the organization."

7 QC TOOLS:-
The seven basic tools of quality is a designation given to a fixed set of graphical techniques
identified as being most helpful in troubleshooting issues related to quality. They are called
basic because they are suitable for people with little formal training in statistics and because
they can be used to solve the vast majority of quality-related issues.
The seven tools are:
 Check sheet
 Control chart
 Stratification (alternately, flow chart or run chart)
 Pareto chart
 Histogram
 Cause-and-effect diagram (also known as the "fishbone" or Ishikawa diagram)
 Scatter diagram
BENCHMARKING:-
Benchmarking is the practice of comparing business processes and performance metrics to
industry bests and best practices from other companies. Dimensions typically measured are
quality, time and cost.
Benchmarking is used to measure performance using a specific indicator (cost per unit of
measure, productivity per unit of measure, cycle time of x per unit of measure or defects per
unit of measure) resulting in a metric of performance that is then compared to others.
Also referred to as "best practice benchmarking" or "process benchmarking", this process is
used in management in which organizations evaluate various aspects of their processes in
relation to best-practice companies' processes, usually within a peer group defined for the
purposes of comparison. This then allows organizations to develop plans on how to make
improvements or adapt specific best practices, usually with the aim of increasing some aspect
of performance. Benchmarking may be a one-off event, but is often treated as a continuous
process in which organizations continually seek to improve their practices.
In project management benchmarking can also support the selection, planning and delivery of
projects.
In the process of best practice benchmarking, management identifies the best firms in their
industry, or in another industry where similar processes exist, and compares the results and
processes of those studied (the "targets") to one's own results and processes. In this way, they
learn how well the targets perform and, more importantly, the business processes that explain
why these firms are successful.
There is no single benchmarking process that has been universally adopted. The wide appeal
and acceptance of benchmarking has led to the emergence of benchmarking methodologies.
One seminal book is Boxwell's Benchmarking for Competitive Advantage (1994).[6] The first
book on benchmarking, written and published by Kaiser Associates, is a practical guide and
offers a seven-step approach. Robert Camp (who wrote one of the earliest books on
benchmarking in 1989)[8] developed a 12-stage approach to benchmarking.
The 12 stage methodology consists of:
 Select subject
 Define the process
 Identify potential partners
 Identify data sources
 Collect data and select all partners
 Determine the gap
 Establish process differences
 Target future performance
 Communicate
 Adjust goal
 Implement
 Review and recalibrate
FMEA:-
The FMEA is a design tool used to systematically analyze postulated component failures and
identify the resultant effects on system operations. The analysis is sometimes characterized as
consisting of two sub-analyses, the first being the failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA),
and the second, the criticality analysis (CA). Successful development of an FMEA requires that
the analyst include all significant failure modes for each contributing element or part in the
system. FMEAs can be performed at the system, subsystem, assembly, subassembly or part
level. The FMECA should be a living document during development of a hardware design. It
should be scheduled and completed concurrently with the design. If completed in a timely
manner, the FMECA can help guide design decisions. The usefulness of the FMECA as a
design tool and in the decision-making process is dependent on the effectiveness and timeliness
with which design problems are identified. Timeliness is probably the most important
consideration. In the extreme case, the FMECA would be of little value to the design decision
process if the analysis is performed after the hardware is built. While the FMECA identifies all
part failure modes, its primary benefit is the early identification of all critical and catastrophic
subsystem or system failure modes so they can be eliminated or minimized through design
modification at the earliest point in the development effort; therefore, the FMECA should be
performed at the system level as soon as preliminary design information is available and
extended to the lower levels as the detail design progresses.
FMEA is calculated through Risk Priority No. (RPN). RPN is calculated through three
components,
 Frequency of occurrence. (F)
 Severity. (I)
 Detectability. (D)
RPN= F x I x D
QFD (VOICE OF CUSTOMER):-
Quality function deployment (QFD) is a method developed in Japan beginning in 1966 to help
transform the voice of the customer into engineering characteristics for a product. Yoji Akao,
the original developer, described QFD as a "method to transform qualitative user demands into
quantitative parameters, to deploy the functions forming quality, and to deploy methods for
achieving the design quality into subsystems and component parts, and ultimately to specific
elements of the manufacturing process."
QFD is applied in a wide variety of applications viz product design, manufacturing, production,
engineering, research and development (R&D), information technology (IT), support, testing,
regulatory, and other phases in hardware, software, service, and system organizations.
organization functions necessary to assure customer satisfaction, including business planning,
packaging and logistics, procurement, marketing, sales & service. QFD is also deployed in
quality improvement, quality management, military needs and consumer products. Customer
services Applications for Education improvement and services in hotels etc.
LEAN MANUFACTURING:-
Lean manufacturing or lean production is a systematic method originating in the Japanese
manufacturing industry for the minimization of waste within a manufacturing system without
sacrificing productivity, which can cause problems. Lean also takes into account waste created
through overburden and unevenness in workloads. Working from the perspective of the client
who consumes a product or service, "value" is any action or process that a customer would be
willing to pay for.[citation needed]
Lean manufacturing attempts to make obvious what adds value, through reducing everything
else (because it is not adding value). This management philosophy is derived mostly from the
Toyota Production System (TPS) and identified as "lean" only in the 1990s, TPS is renowned
for its focus on reduction of the original Toyota seven wastes to improve overall customer
value, but there are varying perspectives on how this is best achieved. The steady growth of
Toyota, from a small company to the world's largest automaker, has focused attention on how it
has achieved this success.
For many, lean is the set of "tools" that assist in the identification and steady elimination of
waste. As waste is eliminated quality improves while production time and cost are reduced. A
non exhaustive list of such tools would include: SMED, value stream mapping, Five S, Kanban
(pull systems), poka-yoke (error-proofing), total productive maintenance, elimination of time
batching, mixed model processing, rank order clustering, single point scheduling, redesigning
working cells, multi-process handling and control charts (for checking mura).
There is a second approach to lean manufacturing, which is promoted by Toyota, called The
Toyota Way, in which the focus is upon improving the "flow" or smoothness of work, thereby
steadily eliminating mura ("unevenness") through the system and not upon 'waste reduction' per
se. Techniques to improve flow include production leveling, "pull" production (by means of
kanban) and the Heijunka box. This is a fundamentally different approach from most
improvement methodologies, and requires considerably more persistence than basic application
of the tools, which may partially account for its lack of popularity.
The difference between these two approaches is not the goal itself, but rather the prime
approach to achieving it. The implementation of smooth flow exposes quality problems that
already existed, and thus waste reduction naturally happens as a consequence. The advantage
claimed for this approach is that it naturally takes a system-wide perspective, whereas a waste
focus sometimes wrongly assumes this perspective.
Both lean and TPS can be seen as a loosely connected set of potentially competing principles
whose goal is cost reduction by the elimination of waste.[6][not in citation given] These
principles include: pull processing, perfect first-time quality, waste minimization, continuous
improvement, flexibility, building and maintaining a long term relationship with suppliers,
autonomation, load leveling and production flow and visual control. The disconnected nature of
some of these principles perhaps springs from the fact that the TPS has grown pragmatically
since 1948 as it responded to the problems it saw within its own production facilities. Thus
what one sees today is the result of a 'need' driven learning to improve where each step has built
on previous ideas and not something based upon a theoretical framework

GAPS IN IMPLEMENTATION OF TQM:-

E-commerce has seen a boom in the recent years. The e-commerce industry is one of the
leading industries in terms of revenue and employment generation. Earlier it was thought that
only lower price and web design were the driving forces in the e-commerce industry but soon
quality became a major driving force. This happened as customers became more quality
conscious. This is even more true in areas where the standard of living and disposable income
is high. But still implementation of TQM has not taken place in the e-commerce industry as it
should have taken place for maximum utilization of the process and maximum quality
achievement. The following factors are responsible for the gap in implementation of TQM in e-
commerce industry.
 Top management support- The top management in e-commerce companies are still not
confident of TQM practices and they are reluctant to change their way of operations by
implementing TQM.
 Cost of implementation of TQM- The cost which will occur due to implementation of
TQM in the initial years will be more. This is one reason the e-commerce companies are not
ready to take the risk by implementing TQM in workplace.
 Variation in model- The e-commerce model differs for different companies depending on
the customer needs and the values provided by the company. So, for each and every
company in the e-commerce industry we will need a different TQM model.
 Change can harm customer base- In TQM we need to change continuously in order to
achieve full quality improvement. Changing continuously with technology can result in
customers finding the website complex which can lead to loss of customers.
 No result in past- Some e-commerce companies have tried TQM in the past but they did
not get the expected results. This discouraged others in the industry to try TQM tools and
techniques.
TQM FRAMEWORK:-

EC can be defined as the sharing of business information, maintaining business relationships,

and conducting business transactions by means of the internet (Zwass, 1996; Barnes et al.,
2003). Boyer et al. (2002) defined EC as “all interactive services that are delivered on the
internet using advanced telecommunications, information, and multi-media technologies”.
The basic difference between e-commerce and traditional business is that in e-commerce, all
transactions are run without physical presence of goods, services, and cash payments. It is
generally virtual and customers are paying for their shopping on trust depending on the
information displayed by a company.

Unprecedented proliferation of EC is now pushing traditional business to transform into EC

to speed up business transaction, adopt globalization, retain the loyalty of customers,
minimize cost, expedite quality output, and reduce customers’ time and effort in shopping.

EC Sustainability and Success

One of the greatest challenges confronting organizations recently is fierce competition, and
the continuous increase in customer expectation. Customers are day by day becoming more
critical towards the quality of service they experience (Albrecht & Zemke, 1985;
Kandampully, 1998). Now the criterion for long term sustainability and success of any
business is subsequently determined by an organization’s ability to develop, maintain, and
continuously improve customers’ loyalty: to fulfill customers’ present needs, to forecast
prospective needs, and to upgrade the ongoing relationship. The organization’s motives to
transform into EC can broadly be identified as improving efficiency and effectiveness, and
ultimately gaining superior competitiveness. These competitive advantages include
improving supply chain coordination, differentiating service offer, improving customer
 service, and entering new markets.

Quality Practice in EC

Application of quality principles in different aspects of manufacturing and service systems of

traditional business has a very long and successful history (Parasuraman et al., 2002). In
contrast, application of quality principles in EC context still needs extensive research.
Literature review demonstrates that EC needs quality improvements in all of its quality
dimensions (Cox, 2002; Gaudin, 2003). To deliver superior quality, managers of
companies with Web presences must first understand how consumers perceive and evaluate
online customer service. For manufacturing and service systems of traditional business,
improvement of quality dimensions through the use of quality principles has been well
supported (Albrecht et al., 1990; Parasuraman et al., 1985). Implementation of quality
principles in traditional business refers to the quality of all non-internet based customer
interactions and experiences with companies. This is mainly based on direct people delivered
services. In contrast, high involvement of people-technology interactions in EC imply that
customer evaluation of new technology is a distinct process.
Findings from an extensive qualitative study of customers perception of EC ( Mick &
Fournier, 1995) indicate that customer satisfaction with EC involves a highly complex,
meaning-laden, long term process and satisfaction in such context is not always a function of
preconsumption comparison standards (Parasuraman et al., 2005). The distinctive nature of
electronic commerce operations, different from the manufacturing and service systems in
traditional business lies in the fact that:
 Customers do not buy goods or services in the traditional sense. They buy an
offering and the value may consist of many components, some of them being
activities (service) and some being things (goods)(Gummesson, 1994).

 Acceptance and usage of technologies across customers depend on their

technology beliefs and similar differences might exist in the evaluative process
( Cowels & Crosby, 1990).

 There is high component of self-service (customer uses the web-site) and even in
case of manufactured goods, the service component of the total offering is
increasing.

 Trust, Security, and Privacy play a very distinctive role in internet based purchase
As such, there is a need to identify the EC quality dimensions and recommend how the
company can improve these quality dimensions by integrating quality principles.
Identification of the EC quality dimensions and integration of quality principles in EC
context is a new and important area to investigate.

EC Issues, Quality Dimensions, and Customer-Interaction Domains

The fundamental issue of EC is to gain market leadership by improving business

transactions, reducing service costs, upgrading quality of goods and services, improving
operational process’ performance, enhancing exchange, and consequently increasing
customer satisfaction to expand long term profitability by expanding the market share. So
quality management practice is the pivotal and emerging issue for EC. It is noteworthy that
though the basic quality issues of EC and non-EC are very much identical, it differs on
degree of significance, measurements, and usage. More significant and distinctive quality
issues relevant to successful operation of EC on the basic aspect of customer focusing are:

 Quick interaction
 Security control and trust
 Open disposal of information & privacy
 Self-service shopping
 Online environment
 Robust service speed
  Extended functionality beyond an organization’s boundary
 Website content and accessibility
 24 hours availability
 Contracting and risk assessment
 Involvement of top management
 Complexity
 Huge quantity of non transactional customers
 Transactions from physical to virtual
 Customer satisfaction
 Ordering and delivery
 Efficiency
 Interactivity
 Substantial comparisons with competitors
 Diversity in system users
 Centralized warehouse management
 Security in payment automation
 Integration of information technology

These issues need continuous improvement in responding to customers.

Implementation of quality management principles in improving EC quality dimensions is
more significant, vulnerable, and at the same time more critical due to the complex,
competitive, advance, and robust nature of EC. Quality management can benefit to different
quality dimensions of EC. Indeed, how to integrate and measure the benefits of such
integration is a major issue in its own right.

Although the basic principles of service quality are universally and equally valuable
to both traditional and online business, academic research into web based service quality has
started being addressed only recently. This study attempts to identify various quality
dimensions in EC from the literature and set a mechanism to implement quality principles in
EC to improve those dimensions. The importance of improving e-service quality is now well
recognized among managers of e-services (Johnson and Wang, 2002). There are a number of
online rating companies, such as Bizrate, Rating wonders, Web watchdog, Gomez advisors,
Consumer reports online, etc. These rating companies evaluate the performance of an e-
business based on abstract, perceptual e-service quality dimensions. Several dimensions
including customers’ perception of convenience, product and service quality, process
information, documentation and quality practice, site design, financial security of internet
stores, privacy, and trust are found influential to customer satisfaction with online shopping
(Liang and Huang, 1998; Szymanski and Hise, 2000; Gefen et al., 2003; Vatanasombut et al.,
2004). Inevitably, upgrading the performance of those associated factors can potentially
attract and retain more customers and increase the effectiveness of EC. Based on the review
of relevant literature (e.g., Chou, 2001; Molla, 2001; Balasubramanian et al., 2003; Geoffrion
et al., 2003; Wang, 2003; Yang, 2003; Field et al., 2004; Ohl et al., 2004; Prybutok et al.,
2004; Schoder et al., 2004; Chiu et al., 2005; Parasuraman et al., 2005) and reports of quality
rating companies, a number of major quality dimensions of EC are identified which require
quality practice to improve continuously. This research has categorized these quality
dimensions into the following six customer-interaction domains relevant to EC.
1. Website Operation – It includes user-friendly technology, efficient ordering system,
up-to- date information delivery, and improved website. Customer feedback is
essential for website operation. Only a high quality website operation can attract and
retain customers. Quality management practice is the vital issue to improve website
operation continuously.

2. Fulfillment/Responsiveness – This segment consists of improved goods and services,

on- time delivery of goods and services, reliability, and guarantee of information and
quick feedback. All these items are fundamental quality attributes to business
transactions. Reliability is the key factor to attract customers. High quality goods and
services, on- time delivery, and quick feedback of guaranteed information can bring
satisfaction to customers.

3. Process Operation – High quality process operation is the emerging issue of quality
management practice. Sub items covered in this segment are: efficient supply chain
and centralized warehouse management, continuous innovation, efficient operation,
cost management, and secured electronic payment. All these factors are internal
management oriented, but the pivotal beneficiary group is the customer. Through the
successful operation of this segment, one company tends to reduce the gap between
customer expectation and perceived quality.

4. Policy – Since EC transactions are completely virtual, the policy of a company plays
a key function for customer satisfaction. It mainly includes return policy, external and
internal environment, and legal service. To stay in the global market as a leader,
continuous, up-to- date, and customized improvements of policy are important to
attract new customers and to support the competitiveness of the system.

5. Customer Service – Customer satisfaction no longer constitutes the convincing pin

point for success; it has been replaced by customer delight (Brown et al., 1992). In
today’s competitive environment, customer expectations and technological innovation
expect that e-business leaders distinguish themselves from the competition by
delighting the customer (Kandampully, 1997). Product quality and price might be
equal, but it is customer service that can make the quality difference. Major fields of
customer service are improved pre-sale, sale and post-sale service, effective
responsiveness, and assurance. Customer service is a cyclic service where customers
are the active players and decision makers and service employees should act
accordingly. To delight customers, perpetual improvement and innovation is the
passport of customer service (Kuo et al., 2005).
 6. Credibility – The long term success of EC mostly relies on cultivation of credibility.
For any EC transaction, customers’ primary concern is not price, but rather trust,
security, and privacy feelings about that company (Vehovar, 2002). This segment
includes trust, security, and privacy. Credibility stands tall among all key reasons that
users go to one website and not to another (Princeton Survey Research Association,
2002). The last and foremost part is the customer who evaluates the credibility of an
e-business. High quality management practice can only maintain the credibility of a
company.

Based on the above discussion, a customer-interaction domain model of EC has been

developed and presented in Figure 3. EC process adopts quality practice to gain the ultimate
goal of EC, that is, price reduction, quality improvement, long term profitability, delighted
customers, and superior competitiveness. Quality practices identify, maintain, and improve
the status of these six major customer-interaction domains of EC. In turn, EC experiences
continuous improvement in all aspects.
 CUSTOMER INTERACTION DOMAIN MODEL

Integrating Quality Principles and EC Quality

Dimensions

Quality principles emphasize customer orientation, that is, through all levels of
employees’ participation and teamwork, they preach continuous improvement to fulfill
customer needs and expectations (Bertram, 1991; Ross, 1993; McAdam & Mckeown, 1999).
The quality management practice includes a toolbox for efficient and effective quality
(process and product): control, assurance, improvement (continuous) and innovation for
process, products, and services. According to EC quality dimension model as presented in
Figure 3, to gain continuous improvement in customer aspects, the major six customer-
interaction domains of EC, Website Operation, Fulfillment
/Responsiveness, Process Operation, Policy, Credibility, and Customer Service, need
effective quality practice in a cyclic manner to ride on seamless competition. Various
principles of quality management practice should cover all of the above six aspects referred
as EC customer-interaction domains. Such integration should be characterized by customer
focus, long term commitment, continuous innovation, scientific approach, education and
training, and responsibility to society with the involvement of empowered employee and
addition of values in all stages to gain most competitiveness. Each web business should
detect its unique essence in terms of processes, payments, products and services, and
seamless needs of customers. Chou (2001) emphasized that EC needs to develop a scientific
approach and provide a long term commitment to implement the quality management
practice. Kurtus (2000), for example, pointed out that EC should follow TQM management
philosophies and use ISO 9000 standards to enhance their chances of success.

Implementation of Quality Principles in EC

The quality principles emphasize satisfying customers and giving them value for the
money paid. Often that value goes beyond simply delivering a product or service. It should
include special services. An important aspect of customer satisfaction is finding out what the
customer really wants and expects. The basic objective and success story of EC lies on the
assurance of this question.

Website Operation: Improved website design, up-to-date information delivery, user

friendly technology, and an efficient ordering system are the basic functional objectives and
base stones of a website operation. Continuous quality improvements are the fundamental
characteristics of these fields. Deming Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle can push this segment in the
success regime. In general, it suggests a need to jointly consider service design and quality
management. A successful website operation may need to provide the characteristics of
connectivity (Sullivan, 1999), information quality (Li et al., 2002), interactivity (Dutta &
Segev, 1999), playfulness (Rice, 1997), learning (Liu & Arnett, 2000), adoption of
technology (Barnes et al., 2003). Planning of website operation as per designed value or
standards (‘Plan’ phase), implementation of the advanced standards (‘Do’ phase),
measurements of the bottlenecks of the process (‘Check’ phase) and redesign to improve
continuously (‘Act’ phase) on the basis of long term commitment, continuous innovation,
scientific approach, responsibility to society, education and training (both employee and
customer), and customer focusing will insure top quality web operation. Involvement and
empowerment of all level of employees and value addition in all stages is the core element of
EC.

Fulfillment/Responsiveness: Improved goods and services, on-time delivery of goods

and services, and reliability must gain competitiveness through quality management process
model. Finally, to make the customer delighted with products and services at a lower cost,
the expected quality should surpass the perceived quality. So continuous improvements
through quality management process and complete teamwork can give the customer the
essence of physical quality and reliability of goods and services of EC in the virtual market
community.
 Process Operation: Efficient supply chain and centralized warehouse management,
continuous innovation, efficient operation, cost management, secured electronic payment can
be achieved through quality management in the process and quality practice of EC.
Continuous innovation is directly a tool of quality management. The Plan-Do-Check-Act
cycle can find out the defect before occurring and reduce cost by adding values from all
stages without cutting corners. A critical element in process operation is the empowerment of
employees who are in direct contact with the process. Critical to the success of this activity is
the education and training of employees and the dissemination of relevant information . So
process operation is one of the base stones of success of EC and implementation of quality
management practice will write the success story of process operation.

Policy: It includes return policy, external and internal environment (management

policy, company objective, responsibility, values, government control, taxation policy etc.),
legal service. If the policy of an EC can be displayed accurately and documented clearly and
unambiguously, there is a high probability that the application can be successfully designated
and implemented. These policies must be customer facing. So, continuous survey, feedback,
competitor information, and customer interest and intention are essential tools to construct
policy, and policy should be revised and improved continuously. Integrating quality
principles in this EC segment is also widespread. Long term commitment, continuous
innovation, customer focusing, responsibility to society, education and training, and scientific
approach make the game of continuous policy improvement of EC more competitive,
efficient, and effective.

Customer Service: The other major area of EC where quality management practice
might play an important role is customer service which includes improved pre-sale, sale, and
post-sale services, effective responsiveness, and assurance. Direct application of the Plan-Do-
Check-Act cycle can benefit customer service. Actually, two way transmittal of quality and
other information (Management to and from Customer) through the Plan-Do-Check-Act
cycle will detect defectiveness or deficiencies, scheduling, planning, and quality related
other issues. This is primarily a fact-finding exercise that requires analysis of data on
products and services, process, and customers. Quality practices can fix the customer
problem to identifying causes and eliminating the potential recurrence. Adopting quality
management in EC enhances product, service, and process quality which consequently
increase the demand for information on customers, products, and processes. It also makes it
inevitable to transfer information horizontally across departmental boundaries and forward
and backward in the operation chain to suppliers and customers. This information is a critical
component of the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle advocated by Deming (1986). Using quality
principles, continuous analysis of customer requirements and satisfaction indicators become
an essential component of the decision making of customer service.

Credibility: Research conducted by academicians and e-rating organizations finds

privacy, trust, and security are the main components for customers to be attracted for a
specific e-business (Miers, 1996; Molla & Licker, 2001; Liljander et al., 2002;
Balasubramaniam, 2003; Gefen et al., 2003; Wolfingbarger & Gilly, 2003; Zhou et al., 2004;
Kuo et al., 2005). In the absence of physical appearance, the virtual environment of EC
impacts customer decision-making mostly through the continuous improvement of privacy,
trust, and security related quality issues. Application of quality principles and certification of
ISO-9000 can directly pull back the trustworthy sentiment on the customers. Credibility of an
EC is primarily an abstract matter, a psychological feeling of customers about that
organization. Long term commitment, education and training, responsibility to society,
scientific approach, continuous innovation, and customer focusing --- the executive
components of TQM, for example, integrate the concepts of trust, privacy, and security.
Involvement and empowerment of employees in all stages integrate customers’ trust disposal
to a company. Plan-Do- Check-Act of quality principles continuously focuses on customers’
anticipated, expressed, and hidden needs, demands, and fulfillment of customer loyalty
through improvement of the key playing segment of EC, that is, trust, security, and privacy.

Integrated Quality Management-EC Model

An ideal EC system can result in speed up transactions, reducing cost, improving

product and service quality, retaining customer loyalty, reaching new customers or suppliers,
creating new ways of running system operations, increasing market share, and satisfying
customers through the integration of quality principles in quality dimensions of EC.

A conceptual “Integrated Quality Management-EC Model” developed on the basis of

the quality improvement practices needed for the major six customer-interaction domains of
EC is presented in Figure 4. After implementation of quality management practice in EC
customer- interaction domains, the organization is likely to experience the following benefits:

 Quality planning integrated with quality standards (customer focusing)

 Effective partnership with suppliers
 Chain of customers and all levels of employees
 Quality surpasses expectations
 Meaningful team contribution
 Leadership
 Price reduction through value addition in all stages with quality improvement
both for products, services, processes, and employees
 Customer loyalty
 Recognition of meaningful contribution of team and individual
 Competitive advantage
 Interdependent process
 Cyclic order improvement
 Controlled long term vision
 Employees and customers’ feelings as process managers
 INTEGRATED QUALITY MANAGEMENT MODEL

DEMING CYCLE:-
The Deming cycle can be used in Flipkart for continuous improvement in work. This is called
the PDCA cycle. A conceptual framework has been shown below.

DEMING CYCLE
 Plan: define the quality issues which measures the extent of customers' requirements and
then uses them in the planning for the design of website contents and provides services that
meet the customers' need.
 Do: develop and test possible solutions with high quality which is determined in the
planning stage.
 Check: measure the effectiveness of the solutions through customers' responses acts to
ensure perfect implementation of the possible solutions.
 Act: Analyze the customers' satisfaction and then send the results to the planning phase for
review. Therefore, it is applied Deming Cycle.

SIX SIGMA IN E-COMMERCE:-

Beside the Deming Cycle, six sigma can be applied as well in e-commerce businesses. A lot of
successful online businesses in Flipkart have integrated the six sigma elements in their day to
day activities and operations in order to ensure the high quality in all transactions. Six sigma
defined as “A data-driven method for achieving near perfect quality. Six sigma analysis can
focus on any elements of production or service, and has a strong emphasis on statistical analysis
in design, manufacturing and customer-oriented activities”. The six sigma approach consists of
five steps as shown in figure below.

SIX SIGMA PROCESS

Define: identify the processes that need improving in internal or external company processes or
in its website to ensure the quality in each product or service provided to the customers.
 Measure: understand and measure the defects in the current processes. The defects in the
current processes can be measured by applying different statistical techniques such as Pareto
charts, histograms, Cause and Effect diagrams. These tools are used to analyse the root factors
that lead the current processes to be different in quality.
 Analyse: determine the original causes of the defects through analysing and testing these
potential causes.
 Improve: modify the current processes by establishing new ways to reduce the defects level
and ensure consistent outputs in the future.
 Control: manage the improved processes and setup rules to control them in order to keep the
performance effective and ensure that the effective results which are achieved will be continued
and the problem will not occur again.

CONCLUSION:-
The TQM tools which we have discussed in the above report has to be implemented very carefully. As
mentioned in the report some e-commerce companies used TQM but failed to gain from the process.
TQM should be implemented with utmost care and according to the business model the company is
following. For Flipkart it will be different and for Amazon it will be different. Flipkart should not
compare and copy TQM model with Amazon as it was the mistake which other companies made in the
past. With proper implementation and utmost care and control Flipkart can gain a lot from TQM in terms
of quality and customer satisfaction.