Quality is an important issue for any company. Nokia does take Quality serious: one of their objectives is to produce quality mobile phones, which meet customer satisfaction. All mobile phones that are produced go through a thorough inspection. At the moment the company do produce quality products, and with the technology behind each new product, they cannot afford to jeopardise any mistakes, as the telecommunication market is more on quality and customer demand.
The way that Nokia ensure quality is a step-by-step process of using all levels of quality (Quality Control, Quality Assurance and Total Quality Management) The diagram below will show you the process that Nokia takes on in checking their products, this diagram is used in many manufacturing business: For Nokia to add value to their organisation, Nokia have to cover all their input expenses like parts and components, energy used and business services. To make an output bigger than there input costs.
As the majority of Nokia mobile phones have similar parts, the organisation buys these parts in large proportions as this cuts down on cost. As if Nokia mass-produce the parts, it would cost the company more than buying it from a manufacturer. However the technical parts, Nokia itself produces, as this is the key to the success of Nokia’s products, also if a manufacturer produced these parts than every phone company would want this to produce similar products.
Many organisations buy in business services from agencies and consultants that specialise in a certain field. However for Nokia they have their own agencies that work for only them. Like for example they have their own financial, recruitment, advertising and design departments and also there own commercial services such as transport, security, buildings maintenance and catering services. However in some cases like for example, banking and insurance, the company have to consult outside contractors. By only having a few outside contractors Nokia has a smaller fee to pay but then has bigger revenue instead.
The firm Nokia has its own resources of labour and Capital which are combined that adds value to the product as it passes through the different stages of production. The labour input includes everything form workers who directly produce the product to employees that provide the service in all the functional areas: human resources management and marketing. Marketing especially for Nokia looks for the customers, which would buy their products and relates it back to the whole company. The Capital side like the factories and machinery are used to make the assembly lines or to even work on the assembly line like the machinery. This makes it more efficient and cheaper to produce the products than labour costs do. The types of machinery are custom made for the job by specialised manufacturers, also the aid of computers to control the machinery to assemble the parts of the mobile phone.
Benchmarking is an approach to quality improvement based on the study of best practice in other organisations. A company makes an in depth study of the production, administrative and marketing methods used by competitors in the areas which are the most successful in each particular area. The key to benchmarking is to decide which organisations demonstrate best practice. Before making this decision, companies consider a wide range of opinion, both from customers, industry analysts and journalists working in the business and financial press. The standards adopted by the ‘best practice’ organisations will then be used to benchmark the company’s own practice. Different organisations may be used for different aspects of quality, such as uniformity of output, delivery periods and reliability, after- sales services, efficient invoicing and payments system and customer care.
To set benchmarks, companies must collect information on how each best practice organisation carries out particular process. This may come from the organisation’s own in-house publications, articles in specialist publication or information held by research companies. The information must be analysed and assessed in the relation to the firm’s own performance and techniques in areas that influence quality. This analysis helps identify the processes where changes are needed and help the firm adapt the practices of its competitors to its business. Benchmarking is enabled as well. This also enables quality improvements from inside and outside the business. This will make sure that the company does work as a team and work quickly. This will aid Nokia to see how each department works, and to see what practices is the best in efficiency. Therefore all departments are in competitions.
