Module 5 - Chapter 2 – Maturity Assessment PDF

# MODULE 5 | QUALITY ASSURANCE ## CHAPTER 2: MATURITY ASSESSMENT ### 2.1 INTRODUCTION This chapter contains the maturity assessment of Quality Assurance. It tells the story of the journey that must be travelled to become a company that applies leading practice in terms of continuous improvement. ##...

# MODULE 5 | QUALITY ASSURANCE ## CHAPTER 2: MATURITY ASSESSMENT ### 2.1 INTRODUCTION This chapter contains the maturity assessment of Quality Assurance. It tells the story of the journey that must be travelled to become a company that applies leading practice in terms of continuous improvement. ### 2.2 MATURITY LEVELS The term 'maturity level' is used to describe the level of performance in relation to best practice. There are five levels of a company's maturity, which can be described as follows: - Novice - Learning - Competent - Sophisticated - World-class ### LEVEL 1: NOVICE A novice company is just in business. Its performance signifies the lowest possible score and it is characterized by a very traditional style of thinking. - People on all levels use phrases such as: 'we have no time for this' and 'this is the way it has always been done'. - Level 1 companies lack the supportive conditions for improvement activities and people resist new ideas with comments like: 'We have always done it like this' and 'there is no money'. - Teams often hear words like: 'You know what you're supposed to do, so get to work.' This creates an environment in which people only do what is necessary and as little improvement as possible. - Often companies are complacent and competitiveness is not high in a specific industry. - People engagement is little, if any, and often instructions from seniors are needed for something to happen. - Teams are dependent on seniors to make decisions and risk is avoided. - The company is in business. However, it takes effort to conduct business. Staff, suppliers and clients experience a lot of wasteful activities and frequent delays in service delivery. - There is a climate of suspicion and antagonism towards studying current conditions and potential improvements, especially in terms of the time measurement of activities or when quality or safety incidents are investigated. ### LEVEL 2: LEARNING During the learning phase, improvement efforts have started with a single focus or they have undertaken a range of unrelated initiatives. - Performance-Driven Teams and Continuous Improvement Teams have been trained in the techniques of root cause analysis and problem-solving. Examples are available of improvements made through these methods. - Continuous Improvement Teams are well-established and are being used as the vehicle to implement Quality Assurance. They have begun to adopt more systematic methods, such as process mapping, listing obstacles to improvement and applying the 5W1H method (asking who, what, when, where, why, and how). - Team members start to identify gaps in performance and would like to improve these gaps. People use a phrase such as: 'We have never thought about it this way'. - People engagement has started. Sometimes energy is directed in all directions. - Some ideas are raised and implemented for improvement. - The company competes comfortably within the industry and the country. ### LEVEL 3: COMPETENT Reaching competence means that people have started to buy into the concepts and principles of world-class thinking pertaining to continuous improvement of the work environment. The culture of the company has started to change and 'the way we do things around here' has improved for the better. - The principles, tools and techniques of problem-solving and innovation are applied on a broad scale in the company and significant improvements in productivity, cost, quality and delivery have been quantified. - Management actively encourages continuous improvement activities and ensure that value is created through a supportive leadership style. - People have learnt how to make systematic improvements at each process and to focus on individual activities, with an eye for improving quality. - This level demonstrates that 'knowledge' has now developed into a 'skill'. - Through Lean implementation the business results are improving. - The company can compete comfortably on a world-class level. ### LEVEL 4: SOPHISTICATED Sophistication is characterised by company-wide cross-functional teamwork. End-to-end processes are managed. - Team activities go smoothly without much support from management, and team members are proud of their self-made successes. - The entire business area celebrates the success that they had with quality improvement. - As the interrelationship of Mediclinic's Continuous Improvement Modules become clear, it is easier to understand improvement objectives. To get this far in this Module, the business area must already have reached at least level 3 in all the other Modules. - In addition, the company usually needs to introduce new technology, which requires capital investment. - The company is becoming the benchmark for the industry in the country and others regularly visit to learn from the specific applications. - This level proves that the company is flexible, especially to respond to changing or different client needs, without having to incur the additional cost associated with it. - People engagement is evident on all levels and in all departments of the organisation. ### LEVEL 5: WORLD-CLASS A world-class company embraces change and is fully prepared to deal with changing conditions in the pursuit of its goals. The company is a true leader in its field and highly flexible, reliable, innovative, productive and competitive. It is able to adapt to the external environment and continuously improves itself to meet ever-changing client requirements, demands and expectations. - Management regularly embarks on benchmark activities and enhances the long-term vision and strategy of the company. It continuously challenges teams for further improvement towards a world-class company. - Continuous Improvement Team activities are regularly successful, and as soon as one goal is reached, the team already thinks about the next challenge. - The improvement-making process is systematic and implemented repeatedly. The processing system is adaptive to changes in service design and work volume. - Automated and integrated processing systems are utilised for all relevant functions in the company. No bad quality is encountered and special requests can be processed with zero defects. - Integrated processes, systems and databases are enablers for complete end-to-end-processes, with no bad quality or non-conformance. ## ACTIVITY 2 1. **What is the purpose of the maturity assessment?** 2. **How often should an internal maturity assessment be conducted?** 3. **How would you use the results of the maturity assessment?** - Internal (i.e. within the team): - External (i.e. outside the team):