TQM, Six Sigma, and Lean Quality Management at Rubicon Group

Introduction

It is common for quality management symptoms and problems to appear when two or more organizations are integrated together, as is the case with the business units within the Rubicon Group. It is imperative, however, when assessing support services using quality management frameworks and techniques, not to focus too closely on the symptoms and thereby miss the greater strategic challenges and roadblocks standing in the way of higher levels of customer service quality (Sepic & McNabb, 1994). The intent of this analysis is to explain how Rubicon Group can use the frameworks of Total Quality Management (TQM), Six Sigma, lean principles, and Balanced Scorecards (BSC) to attain a higher level of performance and customer satisfaction.

Treating the symptoms will only carry the customer service team so far. A key underlying assumption of this analysis is that the fundamental nature of what is expected of customer service — and the value it delivers — has changed. Using these techniques, Rubicon can re-centre on customers and begin to build a more lean, efficient framework for serving customers and retaining them over the long term.

Analysis of Rubicon Quality Management Problems

The increased call volumes, exponentially growing workloads on customer service representatives, and the resulting rise in complaints and requests for special assistance all point to the quality management platforms or frameworks underpinning Rubicon's customer service function being broken. The first necessary step is to complete a TQM analysis of the Rubicon customer service group, comparing customer requirements to the design requirements of the service role within the new organization. These two elements — customer requirements and design requirements — are pivotal to constructing the TQM House of Quality (Ooi, Lin, Tan, & Chong, 2011).

The scoring of factors in the TQM House of Quality can also ensure that further efforts to increase service quality levels are on the right track, focusing on the most meaningful metrics. As a foundational structure for guiding future Six Sigma, TQM, lean, and BSC initiatives, the TQM House of Quality anchors all other initiatives back to a quantified, customer-centric set of priorities (Dervitsiotis, 2011). Of particular interest is the roof of the House of Quality, as the prioritization of factors in this effort will determine which problem areas must be addressed first with Six Sigma-based improvement strategies (Li, Wu, Yen, & Lee, 2011).

At Rubicon, the main problems will surface through a TQM House of Quality audit. Immediately apparent in applying this tool to the Rubicon case is the lack of synchronization and the absence of a single system of record across all systems and strategies used to serve customers. This is an ideal project to be undertaken using the DMAIC methodology of Six Sigma, placing the customer and their needs at the center of the problem statement and the steps taken to resolve it (Li, Wu, Yen, & Lee, 2011).

There is clearly a lack of system integration and, more systemically, a complete lack of process integration as well. While further research would be needed to validate this fully, the symptoms point to a significant disconnect across products and data areas, which is contributing to increased customer wait times, declining satisfaction levels, and a growing number of clients assigned to each customer service representative. All of these symptoms point to faulty or incomplete systems of record and a problem-solving approach that is manually based — and therefore slow and prone to error. It would be premature at this point to create a Balanced Scorecard (BSC), as the systems and processes in place are not yet ready for that level of quantification and measurement (Apgar, 2011).

Applying Six Sigma and the DMAIC Methodology

Using Six Sigma to resolve the system-of-record challenges will be critical, as will the need to better manage internal performance metrics. This latter point involves creating a series of metrics and KPIs that measure only the most critical factors, rather than every single available variable (Maklan & Klaus, 2011). Too often, quality management initiatives in customer service attempt to "boil the ocean" with respect to analytics and KPIs, instead of first determining which factors need to be resolved through Six Sigma (Li, Wu, Yen, & Lee, 2011).

For Rubicon to continuously improve its processes, it will need to combine lean process management techniques, Six Sigma, and the prioritization framework provided by TQM to create an effective strategy for reversing the deteriorating situation. Only by first focusing on measuring the right things (Maklan & Klaus, 2011) and creating an effective series of processes for managing those metrics (Apgar, 2011) using Six Sigma (Li, Wu, Yen, & Lee, 2011) will the company be able to regain control of its customer service function.

Conclusion

Without the use of these quality management strategies, Rubicon would never find its footing amidst the rapidly changing dynamics of its company and customer base. Furthermore, the absence of robust metrics would lead to a complete breakdown in how performance is measured for customer service staff. Using the concepts of TQM, Six Sigma, lean principles, and Balanced Scorecards introduces an entirely new foundation of performance and continuous improvement to the organization. The likelihood of remaining profitable and achieving significant growth increases substantially as a result.