For your final paper, pick one of the following departments:

• A Manufacturing Department producing widgets with an internal production rejection rate of 2% and a return within warranty period of 5%.
• A Service Department with complaints from 7% of its customers.

Neither department has detailed records of what the issues are. In your paper, recommend a proposed quality improvement plan based on the COPIS model. The recommendation should include the following:

• Build the justification for a quality improvement plan.
• Identify several approaches to customer service and describe one more in depth; illustrate the relationship between customer loyalty and output satisfaction.
• Design an output-control and measurement approach to improve process performance.
• Evaluate different process-improvement and management approaches.
• Justify a recommended process-improvement approach.
• Develop an input-measurement and management approach.
• Develop a supplier-management approach to improve input and supplier quality.
• Propose your customer-focused recommendations in your summary or conclusion.

You improvement plan must incorporate at least three scholarly sources in addition to the course text.

The Final Paper

• Must be five to seven double-spaced pages (1,500 – 1,750 words) in length (not including title and references pages) and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s APA Style (Links to an external site.)
• Must include a separate title page with the following:

  Title of paper
  Student’s name
  Course name and number
  Instructor’s name
  Date submitted

For further assistance with the formatting and the title page, refer to

APA Formatting for Word 2013 (Links to an external site.)

.

• Must utilize academic voice. See the Academic Voice (Links to an external site.) resource for additional guidance.
• Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the purpose of your paper.

  For assistance on writing Introductions & Conclusions (Links to an external site.) as well as Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.), refer to the Ashford Writing Center resources.

• Must use at least three scholarly sources in addition to the course text.

  The Scholarly, Peer Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source for a particular assignment.

• Must document any information used from sources in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.)
• Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. See the Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.) resource in the Ashford Writing Center for specifications.

Carefully review the

Grading Rubric (Links to an external site.)

for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.

Required Resource

Text

Evans, J. R., & Lindsay, W. M. (2017).

Managing for quality and performance excellence

 (10th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage.

• Chapter 10: The Baldridge Framework for Performance Excellence
• Chapter 13: Leadership for Performance Excellence

Recommended Resources

Web Pages

ASQ. (n.d.).

About ASQ (Links to an external site.)

. Retrieved from http://asq.org/about-asq/who-we-are/index.html

• This web page provides information about ASQ (American Society for Quality) and may assist you in your discussions and/or assignment this week. ASQ is considered one of the most popular associations about quality. This website provides information for membership and other resources.
  Accessibility Statement does not exist.
  Privacy Policy (Links to an external site.)

International Organization for Standardization. (n.d.).

About ISO (Links to an external site.)

. http://www.iso.org/iso/home/about.htm

• This web page provides information about the International Organization for Standardization and may assist you in your discussions and/or assignment this week.
  Accessibility Statement (Links to an external site.)
  Privacy Policy (Links to an external site.)

National Institute of Standards and Technology. (n.d.).

Baldrige Performance Excellence Program (Links to an external site.)

. Retrieved from http://www.nist.gov/baldrige/

• This web page provides information about the Malcolm Baldrige Award and may assist you in your discussions and/or assignment this week.
  Accessibility Statement (Links to an external site.)
  Privacy Policy (Links to an external site.)

Website

The Baldridge Foundation (Links to an external site.)

. (http://www.baldrigepe.org/)

• This website provides information about the Malcolm Baldrige Award and may assist you in your discussions and/or assignment this week.
  Accessibility Statement does not exist.
  Privacy Policy does not exist.