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Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 2
3a. Information made available to customers and the importance given to effective marketing .................. 3
3b. Benefit of user and non-user surveys in determining customer needs .................................................... 4
3c. Methods of consultation employed in one quality scheme to encourage participation by under-
represented groups ........................................................................................................................................ 5
3d. Value of complaints procedures and analyze how each is used to improve quality ............................... 6
4a. Role of self-assessment in order to determine an organization‟s current „state of health‟ ...................... 8
4b. Stages of staff consultation for effective implementation of a quality scheme .................................... 10
4c. Propose new systems or modifications to existing systems that could improve service quality........... 11
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................. 15
References ................................................................................................................................................... 16
Appendix ..................................................................................................................................................... 18
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Introduction
As the new Quality Director for the Mozilla Foundation, which has previously made an in-depth
study for pertaining to the quality system in the organization, I prepared this report to support
Mozilla in implement their quality system. A range of quality controls and assess their benefits to
the customer is reported. Some principles of quality management to improve performance of an
organization were suggested to Mozilla. Hope that this report will be useful for Mozilla and also
for other users.
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3a. Information made available to customers and the importance given to effective
marketing
When decide to use any kind of products, customers always want to understand as much as
possible about this. Thus, company need to provide them some necessary information.
Mozilla has an official website on which users can access to various kinds of information such as
vision, mission, support, about the two main products of Mozilla. From this, customers have
general view about Mozilla Company.
Beside the general information, Mozilla also allow users to access to the detail information about
each product. For example: the feature of Firefox in each version.This information attracts users
to use Firefox as their browser. Thus, it contributes effectively to the marketing strategy of
Mozilla.
Not only the good information but also the information about the bug is also public through the
Bugzilla application. Bugzilla is a web-based tool that lets users report and look up existing
bugs. Changes made to a bug's status are automatically sent to users. This means the information
about the weaknesses of Firefox also available to customers through Bugzilla. It seems to be
unusual, because it can effect badly to decision making of users.
However,when public this information about bugs of Firefox, it‟s marketing strategyof Mozilla.
Based on the purchasing psychology of customers, the more information they know about the
products, the more attention they pay to this. Thus, Mozilla provide customers as much
objectives information as possible. Users will suppose that Firefox hasn‟t perfect, and Mozilla
aware of that, so they leaseBugzilla to control the quality. It shows that Mozilla care about the
quality. They want find out the bugs in their products by the contribution of customers. Mozilla
shows that they respect and care for their users, so this will satisfy them.
Not only public the information about the bugs, Mozilla also fixes them and notice back to their
users. Thus, it can avoid customers from the bad psychology of afraid of using Firefox on the
future. They will keep using this product for the long term to see how this product will be
improved by the company. The increasing in numbers of users of Firefox every year proved that
facts.
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3b. Benefit of user and non-user surveys in determining customer needs
Mozilla defines quality based on the satisfaction of customers. Thus, to complete their quality
management system, they need to understand customer needs firstly.
There are many ways to understand customer needs, but survey is one of the most popular ways.
However, businesses need to decide what kind of survey will they use? To whom?Users or non-
users?
The first survey‟s target is the users of Mozilla. The survey with their users helps Mozilla
understand their actual strengths and weaknesses. The respondents are using the products, thus
their answers will be relevant. With the relationship of seller and customers, the voice of users
will represent the demand and needs for Mozilla products.Moreover, Mozilla will use internet
survey as a main tool to do survey, so the people who actually use these two products will have
the opportunities to see this survey higher than others. It meansuser‟s survey has the response
rate higher.
Beside the user‟s survey, Mozilla can also use non-users surveys. Non-user surveys can be
unusual in marketing research, but it‟s also very useful. Because they aren‟t current customers of
Mozilla, they will let the company know why they don‟t use Mozilla‟s products. What do they
want from a browser? What do they best satisfy with their current browsers? Etc. From these
information, Mozilla can know what they aren‟t goods as their competitors? What criteria effect
customer‟s using decision? Thus, Mozilla will have the strategy to fulfill the distance between
their actual products with the customers‟ need. Moreover, using non-user survey shows that
Mozilla care about the customer need. This will make customers want to use Mozilla‟s
products.Besides the advantages, non-user survey also has some disadvantages such as the
response rate is low, because the opportunities for non-users to see the survey of Mozilla are low.
To determine customers‟ needs, Mozilla should apply both 2 kinds of survey.This will help the
company find out what are they doing good or bad (user survey) and what they are hasn‟t meet
customer need? (non-user survey). Even using both will cost much administrative effort and take
time, but Mozilla can take advantages of both two kinds to get the best result in determining
customer need.
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There are some possible questions such as: Do you use Firefox? If yes, answer user survey, if no,
answer non –user survey.
For user survey: Are you satisfied with the current browser? Have you ever get crash or
trouble with Firefox? What annoy you best when using Firefox? What do you want to
change?etc..
For non-user survey: Have you ever use Firefox? What is your current browser? Why
don‟t you use Firefox? Do you have any suggestion for change for Firefox? Etc.
Using survey, Mozilla needs to consider about the number of question and the contents to be
convenient to respondents.
3c. Methods of consultation employed in one quality scheme to encourage participation by
under-represented groups
In quality management, one of the most important requirements is customers‟ satisfaction. Thus,
Mozilla need to understand customer need about their company to improve or maintain their
performance. The voice of every customer is equally important, but how Mozilla can hear this
voice from every representative group is difficult.
Underrepresented groups are the group of users has little communicate with the company. They
have little feedback for company. Thus their influence on the company is low. However, the
information that this group of users is also very useful for the company, so Mozilla should have
some method to encourage participation by this group.
To get the best results for hearing VOC, Mozilla first needs to understand why these people are
underrepresented. For example: the different in language, the communication culture, etc. For
each barrier, Mozilla can have different solutions to encourage participation.
If the differences in language prevent these users from communicating, Mozilla should have
language supports for them. For example: Mozilla have different channels that users can give
their feedback such as Bugzilla, Mozilla blogs, ect. Usually, this channel will be designed in
English. But not every people can understand this language, so Mozilla also can have different
choice in language for users. This will make users willing to share in detail than using the
language that they aren‟t familiar with.
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In many countries, people are usually passive in communication. Vietnamese people are an
example. They rarely share their feeling or experience with the suppliers. It‟s one reason to
become underrepresent group. To encourage the group of users have this reason, Mozilla should
make them feel free to share. The best ways to do is use people who have the same culture with
them to investigate. For example: Mozilla can build up a Mozilla‟s office in Vietnam, or
Mozilla‟s official website in Vietnam. People with the same culture can easy to understand each
other and make Mozilla‟s users in Vietnam feel easy when they give feedbacks.
3d. Value of complaints procedures and analyze how each is used to improve quality
Customer complaints can be an opportunity for a business. Effectively dealing with customer
complaints cannot only appease the unhappy customer, but also build loyalty. In the eyes of
many customers, it is not so much whether a business gets it right the first time - but how this
business reacts to mistakes.
Mozilla also understand the importance of users‟ complaints. Mozilla has 10 office centers in 10
different regions. However, the complaints procedure is applied the same in all Mozilla‟s centers.
One tool that Mozilla‟s centers use to collect customer‟s complaints is Bugzilla. When users
have any problem with Mozilla‟s products, they can report this to Bugzilla. The report will be
numbered. The more votes the report has, the more important the crash is. Mozilla will keep
track of these reports from users. They will fix these problem and email back to the reporters if
the problem was fixed. Using Bugzilla, the complaints of customers are collected in a systematic
way but it costs time and administrative effort from Mozilla.
Mozilla
Users Bugzilla Assess the
Mozilla Mozilla email
post their will importance
record fixed the back to
problem numberred by numbers
the reported used if
on the post of vote by
problem problem problem
Bugzilla (code) users
was fixed
Pic 1: Bugzilla’s process
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Pic 2: Bugzilla’s report
Besides Bugzilla, Mozilla also use Internet Relay Chat (IRC) to collect feedback from users.
It is a form of real-time text messaging between multiple users at the same time. IRC also allows
one to one communication between connected users. This is the primary form of communication
for members of the Mozilla community; developers, testers, users, and the like. There are several
different applications which allow you to connect to IRC networks. The easiest to use is an add-
on for Firefox called Chatzilla. Using IRC will help Mozilla respond to their user immediately
but it‟s has no historical record, so it hard for Mozilla in constantly management.
Pic 3: Chatzilla
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Other ways that Mozilla is using to collect complaint to improve quality of products are Mozilla
forum or blogs of Mozilla. The availability of many different channels makes users easy to
connect to Mozilla.
4a. Role of self-assessment in order to determine an organization’s current ‘state of health’
It‟s necessary for the organization to understand its “state of health” to see whether their business
operation well or not. That‟s why organizations should do self-assessment. “Self-assessment is a
comprehensive, systematic and regular review of an organization‟s activities and results,
referenced against the excellence model‟‟.(anon, n.d.)
Mozilla are engaged in number of activities with an intention to achieve their objectives.
However, how can they say that they are performing well? They decided and designed the
system according to their best knowledge and experience or not? Thus, unless they verify, they
cannot be confidence.
The assessment needs to be done against the objectives and to determine the extent to which it
was achieved. There is no second opinion about this and Mozilla needs assessments. The Quality
Management Systems, therefore, insist on periodic assessment. The model of Self-assessment is:
Pic 4: Seft-assessment process
Assessments might be planned, systematic and explicit or unplanned and implicit.There are
many ways that Mozilla can use to do their self-assessment.
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The first method is benchmarking.Benchmarking is a tool which allows organizations to
compare with others, to identify their strengths and weaknesses and improve. Benchmarking
gives company a comprehensive view of their current health by compiling metrics of business
performance. Beside the benefit, benchmarking also has disadvantages such as needing the
agreement of the partner for benchmarking. Moreover, even the successful benchmarking; the
company is still the follower, not the first innovator. Benchmarking costs lots of time, money and
effort.
When benchmarking, Mozilla should do with their direct competitor or the best-in-class of the
field which they want to benchmarking (Marketing-Apple, customers‟ services-Toyota, etc).
Determine which
Identify the key factors and Select the best-in-class
functional areas to
variables with which to measure companies for each area to
be benchmarked (eg: those functions (eg: financial be benchmarked (Apple or
marketing or data or markting strategy) Toyota, Chrome ot IE)
customer services )
Measure the performance of
Specify those programs and
Measure Mozilla's the company for each
actions to meet and surpass the
performance for each benchmark being considered
competition based on a plan
-- from sources such as the
developed to enhance those areas variable to find out SEC, companies
that show potential for the gap themselves, articles in the
compliment
press or trade journals
Implement these programs by
setting specific improvement
targets and deadlines,
Pic 5: Mozilla’s benchmarking process
Besides, Mozilla can also evaluate their business activities by internal assessment.
Questionnaires for employees will be prepared in different categories (appendix). This kind of
assessment should be conducted quarterly to ensure that the improvement in performance is kept
track frequently.
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One of the cons of internal assessment is bias, so Mozilla can pay for an external agency to do
assessment for more objective results. This method can be expensive so Mozilla only need to do
it every 2 years.
4b. Stages of staff consultation for effective implementation of a quality scheme
Implementing a new quality scheme, there will be much change in Mozilla. Staffs of Mozilla
can feel worried about what will happen. These bad feelings affect badly to their performance.
Thus, Mozilla should do staff consultation. It will help employees feel more confident. The
Andre Changing Management Model (2012) is suggested for Mozilla:
Plan
Stabilize Do
Pic 6: Andre Changing Management Model
Plan: The planned changes should be prepared for employees. For example: the change is in the
organizational structure of Mozilla, the manager of the company need to plan who and what
position will be changed. Not only the changing candidate but also relevant employees should be
motivated toward this change. The time pressure (urgency) will push people into trying their
best. The candidate should be empowered to do some jobs to be familiar with new position.
Do: Because new quality scheme will be implemented, some necessary training is needed for
employees. Mozilla can assign supervisors in quality management to train their employees. All
employees should be trained to commit with the new quality scheme. Some main part of quality
scheme can be conducted by empowered team. The better future when the quality scheme is
successful and its good effects are used to motivate employees.
Stabilize: This stage is to ensure that all employees are engaged with the new quality scheme.
Some adjustment should be flexible. Mozilla needs keep motivating and empowering.
Repeat: the first stage is repeated by prepare for more changes needed. After that is doing and
stabilizing stages.
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During the process, the communication among manager and employees is very important. The
vision and mission of the Mozilla need to be communicated. Eg: After setting up the vision,
goals and values, the CEO of Mozilla will inform them to all employees in the company to make
employees aware them. He can use memos, meetings and newsletters. Besides, CEO and
managers can use e-mail, intranets and online newsletters to communicate quickly and
effectively with employees. The CEO and every team leader of Mozilla need communicate with
enthusiasm and passion.
In the new quality project, empowering is effective. Because employees are more close to
customers, so their idea will be useful. Mozilla should empower their teams to do some part of
the quality schemes.
4c. Propose new systems or modifications to existing systems that could improve service
quality
To best delight customer, Mozilla should improve their service quality by upgrade their current
quality system. There are some necessary modifications that Mozilla can consider about:
1. Make commitment toward improvement and leadership from the top
Edward Deming-father of quality management laid out 14 points for management, one of
them is: “"Create constancy of purpose towards improvement". It means that the
company should replace the short term reaction by long term plan."End of month quality
is the same as beginning of month. It means that the long term benefit of the organization
is not sacrificed to hit quarterly targets. (Morgan, n.d)
Mozilla should clearly in their vision and mission and make sure that their staffs are all
commit with them. The clear objectives will be the motivation for improvement of
Mozilla.
Mozilla's commitment to quality had to come from the top, and it had to be reinforced
over and over again. Unless a business views quality as its single, non-negotiable goal,
workers will inevitably feel the need to make tradeoffs and quality will slip. Leadership
from the top should be applied.
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2. Keep track mistakes by SPC
As Mozilla define quality by customer‟s satisfaction, the defects in product are
unacceptable. Mozilla should keep track on their mistake and defect products to remove
them.
Currently, Bugzilla is one useful tool that Mozilla use to identify their bug and problem
in products. This tool is operating well, but Mozilla should still upgrade this tool to meet
the demand of customers. Some ways to encourage participation of under-represented
groups such as language support, open located centers should be applied. From these
feedbacks of customers, mistakes of Firefox can be kept track frequently.
When applying TQM as quality system, every data about the manufacturing process and
business activities needs to be recorded carefully. The Statistical Process Control can be
used in this situation.Eg: data about the defect products, data about the improvement, the
number of users, the financial data, etc. From these data, Mozilla can compare and
contrast to see the constancy improvement and have strategy to adjust the process.
Mozilla can apple SPC as following steps:
Plan: Mozilla identify the
problem in the process (Root
cause chart) . Plan corrective
action against these problem.
Act: If the result is Do: Mozilla makes changes
successful, standardize the designed to correct or improve
changes and then work on the situation.
further improvements or the next
prioritized problem
Study: Study the effect of
these changes on the
situation. Evaluate the
results and then replicate
the change
Pic 6: SPC’s process(anon, n.d.)
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Voice of customers need to be care about. Mozilla should consider it as a source of idea
and information. Some current channels such as: blog, forum, website, IRC, Buggilla
should be maintained. Other channel should be develops to meet the sharing demand of
customers.
3. Invest in training and focus on employees
Mozilla has few numbers of employees (250 employees in 2011) but huge number of
users. It means that the profit that each employee brings back to Mozilla is very much.
Mozilla should care much about their employees.
Mozilla should create a comfortable working environment for employees. For example
the uniform, slogan, logo of the company. These spirit symbols will make employees
close together and commit with Mozilla.
If in the past, quality of products is controlled by quality department, nowadays “Quality
experts recommend that businesses train workers at all levels to look for ways to improve
quality and to ameliorate problems.” (Wiley, 2010). It is suggested that Mozilla should
train 100% of their employees about some part of quality management or depend on the
position of this employee. For example: the IT man will be trained more than the support
staff or the cleaner, etc. However, 100% trained employee will help the company operate
well when the entire employee can aware of what they need to do and how they should
do. The trained cleaner can identify whether the quality process of Mozilla is operating
well or not to report to the higher manager. Moreover, the number of employees of
Mozilla isn‟t too much, so the training won‟t cause too much difficulty for the company.
Investing into training employees can cost money and effort of Mozilla but the benefit it
brings back will be uncountable.
Training takes on several dimensions. For starters, Mozilla should set up a new-employee
initiation program that trains workers to focus on quality issues from their first day on the
job. People learn in many different ways. Thus, Mozilla can use a combination of training
systems and tools, such as: video, classroom with and instructor, on the job training with
managers and key employees, computer based, Self- study manuals. Beside these
methods, the supervisors about quality management also provided to support employees
of Mozilla.
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“Finally, train workers to see the connection between their actions and, more broadly,
their work ethic, and the company's overall performance. By tying individual behavior to
an overall system of work, and then showing where that system can, on occasion break
down, you will be giving workers the information they need to be good stewards of your
business.” (Anon, 2010)
4. Empowering employees and team approach
Part of the TQM philosophy is to empower all employees to seek out quality problems
and correct them. TQM provides incentives for employees to identify quality problems.
Mozilla can reward for the employee who uncovering quality problems, not punished.
The empowerment will increase employee‟s involvement, thus motivate employees.
TQM stresses that quality is an organizational effort. To facilitate the solving of quality
problems, it places great emphasis on teamwork.
From these above modifications and the current operating ways, the quality scheme of Mozilla
will be best support their service quality.
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Conclusion
Quality management is very important activities that Mozilla need to do for the two products.
These analysis and suggestion above is from the fact and reliable information. It will be very
useful for quality process of Mozilla and also other companies.
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References
Anon, 5 Ways to Improve Quality (2010), 2 Sep, [Online], Available:
http://www.inc.com/guides/2010/09/5-ways-to-improve-quality.html [2 Jul 2012].
BPP Professional Education (2004) 'QUality Management'.
Anon, Bugzilla (2012), [Online], Available: http://www.bugzilla.org/ [4 Jul 2012].
ChatZilla (2012), [Online], Available: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chatzilla/
[3 Jul 2012].
Cohen, P. (2010) Deming's 14 points, [Online], Available:
http://www.hci.com.au/hcisite2/articles/deming.htm [3 Jul 2012].
Anon, Define quality in terms of businesses and service provisions (2010), [Online], Available:
http://www.universityessays.com/example-essays/management/define-quality-in-terms-of-
businesses.php [30 Jun 2012].
Anon, How to do Benchmarking Well (2012), [Online], Available:
http://www.benchmarkingpartnerships.com.au/wIH_benchmarkingInHouse.htm [3 Jul 2012].
Anon, http://www.universityessays.com (2010), [Online], Available:
http://www.universityessays.com/example-essays/management/define-quality-in-terms-of-
businesses.php [30 Jun 2012].
Pratt, M.K. (2009) 6 ways to train your employees on the cheap, 10 Aug, [Online], Available:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/340583/6_ways_to_train_your_employees_on_the_che
ap [2 Jul 2012].
'Quality Management'.
Anon,Underrepresented Groups (2011), [Online], Available:
http://www.blueprintforchangeonline.net/pages/stakeholders/underrepresented.php [2 Jul 2012].
Anon,WHAT IS "VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER" (VOC) AND HOW DOES IT APPLY TO SIX
SIGMA? (2011), [Online], Available:
http://www.businessknowledgesource.com/manufacturing/what_is_voice_of_the_customer_voc_
and_how_does_it_apply_to_six_sigma_021706.html [1 Jul 2012].
Anon, Why You Should Avoid Benchmarking Against Other Companies (2011), 3 Jul, [Online],
Available: http://www.willsbook.net/2011/03/why-you-should-avoid-benchmarking-against-
other-companies.html [2 Jul 2012].
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