DEVELOPING
The quality of a product is a resultant, which emerges due to an interrelation of a set of processes that take place inside and outside of business organizations. The complex characteristics of such a process system are often ignored or underestimated, even some people and in companies consider that the production and / or service provision process is solely responsible for achieving the quality that people expect and they demand.
The objective of this work is to argue and demonstrate from the Holistic Configurational Theory (Fuentes González, H. and Álvarez Valiente, I. 2002) how the process of product quality management is much more complex and that it is not enough alone with the production and / or service process.
The Holistic Configurational Theory constitutes a theoretical approach to the understanding of social processes, from which these processes are interpreted as: systems of conscious processes, of a holistic and dialectical nature.
Conscious: Because of the marked relationship between the objective and the subjective, translated into the intentionality and protagonism of the subjects who participate.
Holistic: Due to the totalizing nature of its nature, which imposes the restriction of not reducing its analysis to the dismemberment of its parts, but expanding it to the establishment of links between expressions of its totality.
Dialectic: Due to the contradictory nature of the relationship that occurs within it and that constitutes its source of development and transformation.
This theory operates with the following category system:
• Process configurations.
• Dimensions of the process.
• Links in the process.
- Process configurations: They constitute those features and dynamic expressions of the object (process system), which when relating and interacting dialectically with others of the same nature, are integrated into a whole that is acquiring qualitatively higher levels of organization. Dimensions of the process: They are those expressions of the totality that account for the movement, the transformation of the process and that lead to a new quality of transcendent character with which it is identified, and which is the result of said movement. Links of the process: These are those expressions of the totality that in their relationships account for the internal logic of it.
Applying the category system (process configurations, process dimensions and process links) of the Holistic Configurational Theory to the study of the quality management process in production and services, the details are obtained that are expressed and explained to continuation.
The configurations of the quality management process are: quality management problem, quality policy, quality objectives, quality management object, quality management circumstance, quality management method. the quality and result of quality management.
The problem of quality management in production and services is the social need for products and services possessing quality characteristics capable of satisfying the specific needs of customers in terms of product and / or service.
The quality policy is the overall intentions and guidance of a business organization relating to quality as formally expressed by top management.
The quality objectives are quality goals to be achieved, it is something ambitious, or intended, related to quality.
The purpose of quality management is the needs and expectations of customers in terms of products, which go through different levels of determination through successive transformations in the different interrelated processes that lead to the generation of quality as a whole. These levels of determination of the object are the different states in which it manifests itself, ranging from the needs and potential expectations of customers in terms of products, then going through real needs and expectations of customers (customer requirements), then by technical specifications (product requirements) to the quality characteristics of the product.
The circumstance of quality management is the configuration of the process where the object of quality management is identified and transformed and where the problem is also solved. It constitutes the scenario where the quality management process is executed, formed by the organizational environment in interrelation with the internal strategic level, which in turn is interrelated with the processes at the operational level. In essence, the circumstance of the quality management process is manifested as an open system of processes of a dynamic nature of high complexity, formed by the processes according to the life cycle of a product in interrelation with the strategic management process of the company. quality.
In these circumstances, there are several contradictory relationships, the fundamental one being that between: quality as a whole and the processes in which it is generated.
The method of quality management is the way to face the problem of quality management in the circumstances of quality management by the men who carry it out, through an interactive, hermeneutical and dialectic of steps through which the object of quality management is gradually transformed, with a view to achieving quality objectives.
The result of quality management is the configuration that integrates the others. It is the materialization in products of the object of quality management in its last level of determination with a view to achieving customer satisfaction.
The dimensions and links in the quality management process arise from the dialectical relationships between the previously defined configurations (See figure 1)
The problem of quality management in production and services constitute the configuration that originates the process of quality management and as an antinomy of this, the political configuration of quality appears in business organizations, the configuration being objectives of the quality which plays a mediating role between the first two.
In the relationship between the problem of quality management and quality policy, the primary is the problem, while the quality policy expresses the solution of the problem, as this is the global intentions and orientation of an organization relative to quality, being the quality objectives the configuration that synthesizes the previous ones, since these are enunciated and deployed throughout the business organization, being consistent with the quality policy.
The previous contradictory relationships originate a movement in the object (quality management process in production and services), which in this case is specified in the design link of the process of quality management in production and services.
The dialectical relationships that are manifested between the three configurations that characterize the first link, reveal certain qualities of the object, appearing a strategic dimension.
T he second link in the quality management process is the dynamics of this process. In this link, the object configuration of quality management is primary (thesis), while the general objectives of quality configuration is the antithesis of the first, being the method configuration of quality management the one that plays the role mediating element of the first two. The various contradictory relationships that occur between these three configurations mentioned above develop in the context of another configuration called: circumstance of the quality management process.
In this circumstance, based on the method of quality management, the transformation of the object of quality management by different levels or states of determination from the general quality objectives, which must necessarily be unfold and materialize in the different transitions that the object undergoes. The dialectical relationships that are manifested between these configurations in this second link, allow a transformative dimension to be generated.
The link in the dynamics of the quality management process in production and services, in turn, has an internal logic determined by the sub-links that make it up and to which certain configurations and dimensions are inherent as shown in figure 1. Said Sub-links and dimensions arise due to the transformations that take place in the object of quality management through the method of quality management.
The third link in the process of quality management of production and services is control. In this link, the configuration object of quality management is primary, the general quality objectives being the opposite of the first and the configuration resulting from quality management, a synthesis of the previous ones. The dialectical relationships that occur between these configurations in this link give rise to a dimension of improvement.
Conclusions
1. The Holistic Configurational Theory offers an appropriate theoretical and methodological framework from which to establish the relationships of the dialectical nature between the configurations of the processes that constitute regularities and are manifested in the links of the process.
2. The configuration category is the cornerstone in the interpretation and characterization of social processes and its unit of analysis is the dialectical relationships between configurations.
3. The application of the Holistic Configurational Theory in the modeling of the quality management process in production and services, made possible a new understanding of this process from the revelation of the different expressions of its totality that account for its traits, transcendent qualities and internal logic.
Bibliography
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