This course aims to provide a broad understanding of the principles and practice of modern quality management strategies, and to develop the students' ability to integrate and apply the knowledge in the formulating, planning, implementing, and evaluating Total Quality Management (TQM) programs in order to enhance organisation-wide competitiveness.

For a student to pass the course, at least 30% of the maximum mark for the examination should be obtained.

Individual assignment:

Each student is required to submit a paper stating one of the current quality problems or potential quality improvement areas in their companies (For full-time students, it can be a literature-review based individual paper on a self-proposed topic in the scope of quality management). The background, causes, and needs and justifications for taking improvement actions must be well described in the paper. Improvement actions should then be proposed with supports of literatures and case studies (personal and subjective judgement without sufficient objective evidence and proven supports are not acceptable; full list of all supporting literature and references is required). In addition, the individual performance in various class exercises and case studies will be taken into account.

Quiz

40-45 minutes short quiz(s) will be used to assess students’ understanding of the contemporary quality concepts and techniques of quality management taught in the lectures.

Learner-centred group-based work on a quality management related topic:

Students are required to form a group, not more than 4 members, and then select one topic in the scope of quality management for this group-based literature-review project (only one group for one topic in each tutorial class). For each project, it is required to thoroughly search the recent literature on the chosen topic. The project must be finished by giving a 30-min presentation, including a 10-min Q&A session, in the period of Week 10 to 12, as well as the submission of the finalized presentation material and a write-up of min. 10 pages by Week 13.

Examples of topics and requirements:

• CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and Quality Management:  its basic philosophy, tools and techniques, implementation methods, organizational issues, case studies…


• Data Mining in Customer Satisfaction Management: its basic principles and approaches, tools and techniques, implementation methods, case studies…


• Innovation and Quality Management: the relationship between innovation and quality management in principles and practices and how to develop an integrated innovation and quality management system in an organization, case studies……..


• Integrative Management System, integration of quality assurance system with other management systems, such as environmental management, occupational health and safety, risk management, occupational health, etc…….


• Knowledge Management and Quality Management: its basic ideas, methodologies, scope of implementation of knowledge management in an organization and how it affects the practice of quality management, case studies……


• Managing Quality in Global Supply Chain: characteristics of global supply chain, outstanding quality issues in supply chain management, supplier policy, selection, evaluation, monitoring……, ways to assure quality in supply chain network, case studies ……


• New Product Planning and Quality Management: basic concepts and principles in customer-oriented new product planning, procedures of new product ideas generation, development and screening, transforming customer requirements to product specifications and product quality  standards, case st