Strategic quality and system management

CVS Operations

CVS Pharmacy is aware of how important establishing strategic objectives can be to improving the level of quality to transform the culture of the organization. Instilling quality in the organization will generate a high level of performance and customer satisfaction. The operations management team at CVS realized that having a shared vision can improve performance and quality. The CVS vision is " work to improve the quality of human life" (CVScaremark, 2010). The objective of the operations team is to identify areas where issues remain unresolved even though there has been some changes made to recruiting or hiring and training processes. Another objective is to be a leader of the Pharmaceutical service industry by providing quality system processes that improve operations performance within the organization.

Specifically one role of the operations team is to develop operational activities such as recruiting, hiring, and training the CVS team. There are problems with complaints from customers of incorrect orders in the pharmacy department, long wait times, and slow response time when calling in orders. This affects the level of quality in delivering good quality service. There has also been a number of turnovers in the HR department resulting in a poor level of customer service. Another role of operations is to oversee problems with the technological systems used to enter orders and the telecommunications processes are not up-to-date causing delays in service. The operations manager is concerned with the lack of quality due and is looking into the situation. The operations management team has recognized that the HR department and IT technical department need to work together to solve these problems. Operations management has implemented Total Quality Management (TQM) as a resource to bring improvement to quality throughout the CVS organization. It integrates different departments in the organization to maximize customer satisfaction by including feedback from the customer in the improvement process. In addition to HR reviewing its practices, the IT manager will take a look at the systems used and has evaluate the performance of transaction processing in relation to customer complaints. An TQM audit report completed on the systems in place at CVS help in identifying the problem areas and providing insight into how to make changes to the operational activities related to recruiting, hiring, training along with system processes.

Some of the issues in the TQM audit noted the Human Resource department that contributed to the problems with customer service. The ability to train and retain knowledgeable employees needs to be addressed. This quality analysis points out that high turnover results in a poorly equipped workforce that is unresponsive to meeting customer demands. The problem question is how to improve the level of customer service at CVS reducing complaints. The main goals of the leadership in the technology department were to retain the position of industry leader while continuing to improve operations with a higher standard or quality. This will mean addressing issues of slow response times and getting the HR and technical solutions that correct the problems with order processing.

The Processes, resources, and tools are needed to address the problem areas are TQM and SMART. Using specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely (SMART) process of identifying systems and processes that will improve customer service. The specific issues found during the quality audit were issues related to timeliness in responding to customer's ordering prescriptions online, by phone or onsite. There are also concerns that misinformation has resulted in customer dissatisfaction in getting updates as to the status of their orders. There are too many cases being reported where customers orders are deleted, missing, or left unfilled. The SMART measurement tool is found effective in evaluating the success of system processes (Hatch 2008). The system processing concerns that were uncovered in the quality audit centered around better technology processes to improve the level of efficient and responsiveness to customers.

Measurable improvement is also needed in these areas according to the quality audit.

First, problems in the HR department relating to hiring and retaining employees.

Second, the slow response times due to outdated telecommunications and technological processes.

The HR team must produce measurable, achievable, relevant and timely solutions in order to remain in compliance to SMART resource requirements. The hope is to create proactive processes that are aligned to meet quality level of customer service. Both the HR and IT departments must work together to resolve the issues together. By reviewing the problems revealed in the quality audit it was discovered that technology and training can improve the prescription order processing system. The SMART tool also uncovered how HR can raise the level of customer satisfaction by providing better trained employees. This will diminish the number of problems due to slow response time. The IT department is looking at how to track customer complaints and put a tracking system in place to follow up on errors and complaints that are cataloged by the system. Creating a measurable tracking system that reports on when and how each complaint is resolved. In effect this improves both the HR and the IT department operational objectives of increasing the performance levels of employee service while lowering the number of complaints in order processing (Bednarz, 2006).

Also the TQM process of building quality into the system revealed that customer complaints were somehow related to inventory management. The IT department is addressing this issue to update transaction processing by adding a monitoring system that reviews or reports each transaction processed. This SMART measurement allows monitoring of any discrepancy in transaction in orders with missing or unprocessed transactions (Berthiaume 2004).

Customer complaints also revealed that orders were delivered several days after being placed. This is unacceptable and the IT department immediately begin looking at how the order tracking and inventory system were related to customer order processing. A measurement was put in place to correlate these two processes that improved order processing and the inventory system (Dignan 2004). This one improvement resolved delays in processing customer orders. This created a SMART, achievable and relevant solution in creating operational efficiency that met operational objectives and improved customer satisfaction.

By listening to the customer, the HR department discovered that training needs to be addressed. CVS has implemented an operational objective to create a training center where employees are sent to a pharmacy training program. The curriculum includes how to counsel customers and contains in-depth study of medical conditions and how to respond to customer concerns meeting a higher level of satisfaction. Hiring practices were reviewed and partnerships with local and state employment led to a more secure better trained workforce (Johnsen 2002). Lastly, improvements to the telecommunications was achieved through automated voice responder systems that can track and record customer calls to produce a measurement to track the level of service. Adding automated systems to track calls and online order processing through email feedback or callback services have also increased the quality of customer service.