1.After looking through the information about the quality management and control program, Six Sigma, the main lesson I have learned is that under the modern conditions of globalization the way of conducting any business is changed. Now we need new models to run business. The competitive environment makes high demands to controlling every side of business, from production to human resources. Companies have to find right ways to delight their customers and exceed their expectations. And just Six Sigma is proved to be that efficient program which could guide any company to improve customer satisfaction, increase profits, reduce costs, provide tangible business results. Six Sigma is a very effective program, as it is used for any activity that is concerned with cost, timeliness, and quality of results.
Six Sigma is an approach that gives companies the opportunity of improving products, processes and also to eliminate various defects existed. It uses different data-gathering and statistical analysis.
Six Sigma is a program that gives clients proper knowledge on the way of improving processes and making it better and more effective, and in lower cost.
The very interesting thing that I’ve found out is that Six Sigma is an advance over traditional quality improvement programs. Because traditional process improvement methods depend upon measuring outputs, but Six Sigma program demands that the problems be addressed at the input root cause level. That’s why there is no need for reworking processes.
Six Sigma is a program that provides organizations with the tools that can improve the capability of their business processes. Using this program the companies can achieve defect reduction and vast improvement in profits, employee morale and quality of product.

Six Sigma allows the companies not only to improve their process or to diversify the skills of a few strategic individuals. But it can initiate a company-wide culture shift towards effective changes and the pursuit of perfection.
I also got to know that the application of Six Sigma can range from simply training a few employees to a larger scale application that can mobilize the entire organization.
2. This web site offers us the information about Baldrige National Quality Program. It is an award program established in 1987. There are only three awards, which are given annually in these categories: manufacturing, service, small business, education and health care.
There are some questions than I would like to discuss. At first, the Baldrige performance excellence criteria should be defined because any organization can use these criteria to improve overall performance. The award criteria are made up by seven categories: leadership; strategic planning; customer and market focus; measurement, analysis, and knowledge management; human resource focus; process management; business results. Trying to correspond these criteria, many organizations manage to increase market share and to improve profitability. They can achieve better employee relations, higher productivity, and greater customer satisfaction.
The significance of these award criteria is quite evident. As they include many factors that contribute to financial performance. In particular, business decisions and strategies that lead to better market performance, and customer satisfaction. The organizations use the criteria for self-improvement, they advance, developing performance and business processes.
The Baldrige Award has two goals to be achieved:
 delivering ever improving value to customers;
 improving overall organizational performance.
Originally, the Baldrige Award Program was created as a standard of excellence that would help organizations achieve world-class quality. And now these criteria are accepted widely, around the world, as the standard for performance excellence. Interest to Baldrige National Quality Program continues to grow both nationwide and internationally.
So, equally with Six Sigma, Baldrige National Quality Program plays an important role for achievements in quality and performance. It also makes organizations understand the importance of quality and performance excellence.
This program, Baldrige National Quality Program, is a very interesting item for discussion, as nowadays the business is to be done in more demanding, more competitive world market. And the quality management and control programs are much in demand. Because they, as the Baldrige Award does, allow to focus more on results and service, to involve in business processes different professional and trade groups. They also provide special innovative approaches to quality, include a strong customer and human resource focus, and stress the importance of sharing information.
3. The third question to be discussed concerns the International Organization of Standardization (ISO). There are two types of ISO: ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 that are widely known standards and are implemented by a lot of organizations through out the world.
ISO 9000 is regarded as an international reference for quality management and control in business dealings. ISO 14000 allows organizations to meet their environmental challenges. ISO 900 is concerned with such kinds of work as to fulfil customer’s quality requirements and regulatory requirements. It is also aimed to enhance customer satisfaction and to achieve continual improvement of its performance.
As for the ISO 14000, it does to minimize harmful effects of organizations on the environment and to achieve continual improvement of its environment performance.
There should be pointed out one item that interested me. Although the majority of ISO standards are highly specific and are applied to some particular products, materials, or processes, they all are known as “generic management system standards”.
It can seem unusual, but “generic” means that the same standards can be applied to any organization, large or small, whatever its product or its service, whatever it is a business enterprise, a public administration, or a government department. To my mind, it is very convenient, as it makes the implementation of these standards easier and allows comparing different organizations using one particular method without digressing to outside matters. Besides to cover a wide range of products or processes is almost impossible, and that’s why some general, suitable for various processes standards are needed.
The second interesting point is that “management system” refers to the organization’s structure and means that it’s very important to transfer inputs of resources into a product or service, which meet the organization’s objectives. The usual objectives of organizations are the following: the satisfaction the customer’s quality requirements, complying with regulations, meeting environment objectives. I am sure that using inputs of resources is very significant, since it helps in achieving organization’s objectives and makes it more effective.
There were discussed three quality management and control programs. They have some similar features, but nevertheless they must be distinguished. Speaking of the Baldrige Award and ISO, we should mention that their purpose, content, focus are very different.
The award program promotes quality awareness, quality achievements of organizations, and provides means of sharing successful strategies. The Baldrige Award criteria focus on results and continuous improvement. They provide a means of designing, implementing, and assessing a process for managing all business operations. And ISO standards are used to help to determine what is needed to maintain an efficient quality conformance system. ISO results determine whether a company complies with its own quality system.
4. I have some experience with the implementation of quality improvement initiatives in my workplace. Working hotel, we have our own problems that should be considered and improved.
Meeting the customer’s requirement is very important for us, and all our quality improvement efforts are directed to customer’s satisfaction. We tried to identify the service attributes that our customer cared about. We also tried to monitor and measure customer satisfaction, tried to know our customers, both external and internal. We tried to understand our customers in order to satisfy them in a proper way.
There were also used some other quality improvement initiatives that were directed to using teamwork and encouraging employee involvement. These directions of our work were applied because they could improve the quality of our services considerably. Anyway, using teams could allow us to maximize problem solving power, support and commitment. We tried to form the following kinds of group work around our work processes: meetings, conferences, seminars, group discussions, brain storming. This type of work presupposes discussions of some problems in group, that could be used for lessening of interpersonal tension and make the hotel staff closer to each other, and their work more effective.
It’s well-known that effectiveness of working with the customers to a great degree depends on the efficiency of communication in the very staff. So we used such methods as psychological trainings, role-plays, business plays. It was supposed to help the employees of our hotel to understand each other, to collaborate more effectively.
We tried to create a climate among employees that would allow their ideas and information to flow freely and without fear. We used participative methods to maximize input, ideas and commitment. We tried to make everyone understand quality and to have a personal responsibility for quality.
Unfortunately, our quality improvement initiatives were a bit vain, as our activities were not prepared properly, they were not thought over enough to be successful. We did not know exactly why it happened. But after reviewing
these three quality control programs (Six Sigma, The Baldrige Award, ISO), I learned a very important lesson. I realize that every objective, every improvement initiative requires to analyze conditions and trends in the market sector, which it serves. I think that next time when we try to improve quality of our services, we’ll use a certain program that will link its work with the sector’s requirements.
We also should generate clear priorities for which we need certain standards. We should determine the target dates for the completion of these standards and what resources are needed to do our job.

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