Introduction
Tesla has reported several cases of quality in its automobile production. Elon Musk has been heavily criticized by car enthusiasts who expected his innovations to be life-changing. In February, Tesla was forced to recall 135,000 of its automobiles due to faulty infotainment touch screens (Himes, 2021). This move was mainly inspired by a backlash from the regulators, who deemed the challenge a potential hazard. Before the persistent persuasion, Tesla had downplayed the issue and even charged its customers for the screen replacement. Tesla’s faulty car touchscreen hits at its incompetent total quality management. There is a need for a revision of its total quality management procedures (Himes, 2021). This paper will reexamine the necessary revisions on the existing Tesla’s total quality management procedures. It will also suggest how the automotive giant will incorporate the cost of quality reports to rectify total quality management challenges. Furthermore, areas of the balanced scorecard, such as the business processes and customer perspectives, are crucial in readdressing Tesla’s production challenges. These balanced scorecard aspects will solicit a cause and effect of Tesla’s production challenges and suggest its solutions. Tesla will also successfully eliminate its production bottlenecks through benchmarking from related industry giants (Lee and Kim, 2014). Varied benchmarking options will produce more accurate solutions to the automotive manufacturer’s challenges.
Key total quality management principles
Total quality management is mainly targeted at improving the general production capabilities of an organization. It constantly empowers employees to evaluate their product quality in line with required standards. Total quality management benefits a company’s development by minimizing production costs (Aquilani et al., 2017). Improves product quality delivered to customers and improves the company’s adaptability to the changing market requirements. Total quality management principles include customer focus, systematic and strategic approaches, fact-based decision-making, and communication (Aquilani et al., 2017). Customer focus ensures that there is value for their money. It ensures satisfaction to win the customer’s trust. Tesla needs to be more focused on the customer focus through the frequent substandard product deliveries. It has also underperformed in total employee commitment, which ensures the whole company is in sync with the goals and targets expected through its operation (Oakland et al., 2020). TQM also upholds a strict process approach. The process approach illustrates the required tasks in the organization to ensure the activity is complete. Sandy Munro, an automotive specialist, has raised issues on incomplete manufacturing procedures of Tesla’s automobiles. He notes uneven gaps on the exterior panels and unfished paintwork. TQM guarantees an integrated system where all the personnel in the company are familiar with the procedures. It also needs a systematic and strategic approach to a company’s procedures. This includes identifying and managing all interrelated processes along the production path. Identification and management are achieved through continuous training, product quality improvement, and innovation acknowledgment. Most importantly, the TQM is reliant on communication and fact-based decision-making. This requires accurate data analysis based on product performance. Tesla pushed for charges on the customer’s faulty screen replacement without accurate information about their errors in production. Communication will allow for familiarity in the production departments. Tesla should vigorously incorporate the cost-of-quality reports to rectify total quality management flaws. The cost of quality reports indicates how the organization utilizes its resources in addressing poor production quality outcomes (Moges et al., 2014). It includes the appraisal, prevention, and internal and external failure costs. These cost-of-quality reports will clearly illustrate Tesla’s investment toward preventing errors during its automobile production. Tesla should ensure substantial financial figures are allocated to the cost of quality to curb the errors evident in its automobiles.
Areas of the balanced scorecard relevant to Tesla’s competition
Balanced scorecards are invaluable tools in organizations that prioritize procedures and communicate the importance of products and services. Tesla will benefit from the customer perspective and business processes in improving its competitive strategy in emerging markets. Considering Tesla’s current product quality issues, these two aspects will aid in rejuvenating customer trust and improving its overall sales. Internal business processes perspectives are concerned with how the measures and objectives can help the company achieve its goals and objectives (Hassan and Chyi, 2017). Tesla requires an urgent makeshift of its internal procedures governing its automotive productions. Due to the quality concerns frequently communicated by the customers, Tesla will benefit from this internal business strategy. Tesla’s faulty touchscreen may occur due to a disconnect between the production and quality assurance teams. Tesla should ensure all the automotive and critical components are adequately tested for quality before being released to their customers. This section of the balanced scorecard will allow Tesla to improve its competence regarding total quality management and cost of quality reporting. Tesla should equally address the customer perspective section on the balance sheet to ensure its product quality adequately meets its customer’s expectations. Customer perspective equally evaluates the level of customer satisfaction (Hassan and Chyi, 2017). Customer satisfaction will highly impact Tesla’s profitability and securing of the market share in the new investment geographies. Tesla can, however, face several challenges to the implementation of its balanced scorecard perspectives. More data is needed to ensure the automotive’s balanced scorecard directives are implemented. Insufficient data will cause challenges in appropriate mechanics for implementing the balanced scorecard directives (Kopecka, 2015). It will also challenge the effectiveness of the quality mechanisms due to the need for reference material. Poorly defined metrics also affect the implementation of balanced scorecard directives, depriving competent organizations of strategies. Moreso, too much internal focus may cloud the general company perspective on the world, especially its customers. It prevents the focus on the customer’s views and feedback.
Benchmarking methods to help Tesla address its challenges
Benchmarking helps identify probable approaches to quality issues in the automotive industry that can aid Tesla in improving its production. Several benchmarking mechanisms serve each purpose for the automotive producer (Azevedo et al., 2016). Firstly, Tesla can implement competitive benchmarking. Competitive benchmarking compares the automotive’s statistics with equal industry players. It will compare the automobile’s product quality with similar automotive producers. Tesla can gauge its production capabilities with similar hybrid and electric vehicle producers. It will analyze the quality of their touchscreen system to troubleshoot the potential shortcomings in manufacturing the models. It will also entail analyzing their level of technology against their industry competitors. Competitive benchmarking should also ensure the differentiation of key performance indicators. This will ensure the detailed aspects are met to maintain a desirable industry standard (Lee and Kim, 2014). Secondly, Tesla will benefit from strategic benchmarking. Strategic benchmarking will primarily encompass Tesla’s automotive competitors’ total quality management techniques. Through evaluation of the competitors’ total quality management system, Tesla will have a clearer picture of the loopholes in their systems. It will also include the higher market share and performance metrics and isolation of performance strategies that can be borrowed by Tesla Inc. Lastly; Tesla will benefit from performance benchmarking. It will evaluate the current company’s procedural achievement. Research indicates that automotive performance benchmarks are vital for assessing future productivity. A specific time duration, such as 18-24 months, is essential for the company’s evaluation of its software and hardware’s competitiveness (Azevedo et al., 2016). Moreso, Tesla should fully revolutionize its visualization tools to ensure the computational model’s performance can be adequately seen. Improved benchmarks in production are the answer to Tesla’s production challenges.
Conclusion
Total quality management ideals target solving the internal challenges at Tesla. Automotive will benefit from this production mechanism since they can constantly evaluate their quality. TQM will increase Tesla’s profit margins since it devises practice strategies to minimize its operating costs. Also, improved production quality and reduced recall incidences will reduce extra amounts spent on improving their automotives’ quality. The company is set to benefit from the principles of TQM, such as communication and timely fact-based decision-making. This involves a hasty response to quality issues raised by customers after the release of the company’s automotive models. Communication should also ensure transparency in the company concerning its production challenges and the suggested changes. Equally, TQM suggests a customer-focused approach that majors on ensuring customer satisfaction. It involves a consistent review of production and challenge address mechanisms to ensure Tesla’s customers enjoy value for their money. Some areas of the balanced scorecard, such as internal business perspectives and customer perspectives, will aid in tackling the challenges at Tesla. Business internal perspectives will ensure the establishment of competent internal procedures such as quality assessment. Tesla requires a functional production system where the workers are interconnected to produce a final quality product. The corporation will increase since its engineers and quality management team can work in unison to eliminate deliberate production errors. Internal procedures also include reporting and response to technical challenges encountered during production. The management should respond quickly to the production team’s challenges and ensure a quality service is delivered at the end. More so, Tesla should address the customer perspective aspect of the balanced scorecard to ensure an increased market share in their new investment areas. Customer satisfaction is critical to a business’s success. Tesla will improve its market share by delivering vehicles meeting customers’ expectations. This will also include a competent after-sales service procedure. They should promptly address challenges experienced by customers when operating their new models. Tesla’s current product quality issues will be adequately addressed through a review of its quality management procedures and increased corporation between the production, quality team, and management.
Reference
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