Course syllabus

Jump to today

Course description Quality Management IEK313 (7,5 credits)

Examiner: Henrik Eriksson, henrik.eriksson@chalmers.se
Course/Teaching Assistant: Daniel Gyllenhammar, Daniel.gyllenhammar@chalmers.se

Version: 2020-01-14

Aim

The aim of the course is to help the students to acquire knowledge about various initiatives to improve quality and to better understand the area of Quality Management. The course also aims to help the students to develop practical skills as a means to facilitate improvement initiatives.

Learning outcome

  • Describe quality management, and its principles and the content of the principles
  • Describe the reasons for organizations to improve and barriers to improvements
  • Describe how successful organizations work, and being able to apply different ways to assess organizations
  • Describe how and when different principles and methodologies of quality management can be used in practice
  • Apply different principles and methodologies practically to improve organizations, processes and products

Content

The course provides an overview of the quality management field and practical training. The course includes lectures, seminars, exercises, and group work. Guest lecturers provide insights into how quality management initiatives are carried out in practice. Topics covered in the course:

  • Key principles of quality management
  • Purpose-driven organizations, customer focus, customer needs
  • Process management and process improvements
  • Six Sigma, lean production, agile
  • Management, leadership, and motivation
  • Improvements
  • Quality management in practice
  • Management systems, and assessment and audit
  • Standards like ISO 9001 and excellence models
  • Successful and high-performing organizations
  • Management Innovations and trends

Organisation

The main building blocks of the course consist of lectures, seminars, group work and individual studies. Students are encouraged to explore other content related to the course online. Some activities are compulsory (see Schedule). The course webpage on Canvas is used as the main communication tool.

Schedule

QM Schedule vt2020.png

 

Teachers: Henrik Eriksson (HE), Andrea Birch-Jensen (ABJ), Jan Lenning (JL), Torbjörn Jakobsson (TJ), Ludvig Lindlöf (LL), Daniel Gyllenhammar (DG).

Guest Teachers: Marco Santos (MS) from Jönköping University, Mats Deleryd (MD) from SIQ, Tina Bohlin (TB) from SIS.

Students are expected to read material and make them selves familiar with key concepts prior to the particular lecture and prepare for discussions of theoretical concepts and their applicability in different contexts.

Literature Book (B)

  1. Eriksson, H. (2020). Five principles of Excellent Organizations. Förbättringsakademin, Göteborg, Sweden. The book is handed out by the teacher in charge the first week of the class. If you are not present the first week contact the teaching assistant for a copy.

Articles (A) The articles can be found via Chalmers Library.

  1. Moore, C. H. (1994). Experimental design in health care. Quality management in health care, 2(2), 13-26. UPLOADED ON CANVAS
  2. Olsson, J., Terris, D., Elg, M., Lundberg, J., & Lindblad, S. (2005). The one-person randomized controlled trial. Quality Management in Healthcare, 14(4), 206-216.
  3. Mohammed, M. A., Worthington, P., & Woodall, W. H. (2008). Plotting basic control charts: tutorial notes for healthcare practitioners. BMJ Quality & Safety, 17(2), 137-145.
  4. Porter, M. E., & Heppelmann, J. E. (2014). How smart, connected products are transforming competition. Harvard business review, 92(11), 64-88.
  5. McKinsey Consultancy Report, “Are you really listening to what your customers are saying?”, https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/our-insights/are-you-really- listening-to-what-your-customers-are-saying
  6. Anabela C. Alves, Jose ́ Dinis-Carvalho and Rui M. Sousa (2012), Lean production as promoter of thinkers to achieve companies’ agility, The Learning Organization, Vol. 19 No. 3, 2012, pp. 219-237
  7. Liker and Meier, D. (2006), The Toyota Way fieldbook: a practical guide for implementing Toyota ́s 4Ps, McGrewHill. page. 6-14
  8. Rigby, D. K., Sutherland, J., & Takeuchi, H. (2016). Embracing agile. Harvard Business Review, 94(5), 40-50.
  9. Kotter, J. P. (2007). Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail. Harvard Business Review, 85(1), 96–103.

Standard (S)

  1. ISO (2015). ISO 9001:2015, Quality Management Systems- Requirements. http://proxy.lib.chalmers.se/login?url=https://enav.sis.se/Standard/?std=STD-8016642

Models (M)

  1. SIQ (2019). The SIQ Management Model. Uploaded on Canvas.
  2. SIQ (2019). The manual SIQ Management Model. Uploaded on Canvas.

 

Videos. Note: Videos are complementary and not part of the Examination

  1. The Toyota Way to Excellence - Jeffrey Liker on Vimeo
    https://vimeo.com/44328452
  2. John Seddon - Re-thinking IT keynote speech part 1
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbNsQFd8DQw
  3. How great leaders inspire action | Simon Sinek – YouTube
    How great leaders inspire action | Simon Sinek
  4. Ricardo Semler: How to run a company with (almost) no rules | TED Talk
    https://www.ted.com/talks/ricardo_semler_how_to_run_a_company_with_almost_no_rules/transcript
  5. Gary Hamel on the Future of Management – YouTube
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYaYwCA-FaM
  6. Finn Øien Lecture - Professor Julian Birkinshaw – YouTube
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK9U_9XHRmM
  7. Reinventing Organizations – YouTube
    Reinventing Organizations
  8. Agile product ownership in a nutshell – Youtube
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=502ILHjX9EE

Examination

For passing the course, the following course elements have to be accomplished:

  • Two Interactive Assessments (pass/ no pass)

See uploaded instruction on Canvas.

If you cannot attend on the day of the assignment or not get a pass: Write an essay, minimum 2000 words. In the essay you should write your reflections of the content that the interactive assessment covered.

The essay is submitted via Canvas or to the teaching assistant.

  • Learning Log (pass/ no pass)

See uploaded instruction on Canvas. If you do not get a “pass” you have to redo the assignment. The date to submit the learning log is 11.59 pm 12/3.
The learning log is submitted via Canvas.

  • Study Visit (pass/no pass)

We meet 13.25 in the entrance to SKF. Address is: Hornsgatan 1.

An active participation in the study visit is requirement for a pass. Prior to the visit, all students need to prepare at least one question/issue that they are willing to ask the representatives of visited company.

If you cannot attend on the day of the assignment or not get a pass: Write an essay of about 1500 words. In the essay you should write your reflections of how quality is managed in an organisation where you have previously worked or have experience from. Every kind of organisation works, e.g. Non-profit, summer jobs, etc. Preferable you use some kind of model, for example, the five principles from the book to describe the organisation.

The essay is submitted via Canvas or to the teaching assistant.

  • Written digital exam

You need to have a pass on all compulsory assignments in order to be allowed to write the exam.

Grading scale: “Fail” (0-19p), “3” (20-29p), “4” (30-39p), “5” (40-50p). During the written exam, students are allowed to use non-programmable calculator, dictionary. The written examination place, date and time may be found on the student portal.

Information about digital examination, and necessary actions needed:

https://student.portal.chalmers.se/en/chalmersstudies/Examinations/Pages/Digital- Examination.aspx

Bonus Point for the final written digital exam

If you collect a minimum of 4 bonus points at the workshops/presentations marked as “Bonus points” in the schedule you are entitled to 4, 5 or 6 Bonus points. You are only entitled to add your Bonus points to the result if you have passed the exam in the first place. For example, if you score 27 points on the exam which is a 3 you are entitled to add your bonus points if you have attended at least four of the workshops. This mean that if you are entitled to four bonus points, your final result will be 31 points which is a 4. If you do not pass the exam, for example if you score 18 on the exam you can not count your extra points even if you have attended at least four workshops. In other words, the bonus points can only be used in order to upgrade the grade from 3 to 4 and from 4 to 5. The grading for the bonus points is “Pass” or “Fail”. If you get 3 or less bonus points, no extra points are given to the exam. It is not possible to get Bonus Points in any other way, for example if you can not attend a workshop you can not do any extra work in order to earn a bonus point. The bonus points can only be used on the regular exam, and not in any re-exam.

Exam dialogue is scheduled at 21st of April at 12.00-13.00 at the Division of Service Management and Logistics.

Course Evaluation

In order to improve the course, the course evaluation group of is to be formed with the aim of developing the goals, contents and pedagogy of the course, focusing on student learning. The process shall encourage a dialogue between teacher and students on how the education can be improved, i.e. current and future course. The course evaluation meetings with the course evaluation group and the teacher will be held on 3 occasions, usually at lunchtime at the division (12-13, lunch is provided by the department) on dates to be determined.

Office

Division of Service Management and Logistics is located in the right wing of the Technology Management and Economics building, one level up from the entrance floor. Course staff offices and the seminar room are in the division corridor.

Course summary:

Date Details Due