Developing a process-oriented and modern quality organization: A case study approach

The contemporary turbulent business world forces companies to seek new ways of doing business in novel situations. One of the areas mostly impacted by this turbulence relates to the design of appropriate organizational structures. The process-oriented organizational form seeks to attend these needs and recognizes the integrative and aligning nature of processes. However, an organization must do more than just focus its attention and efforts on processes. The layout design has also a significant impact on the system performance. In this paper we contribute to this field by developing a tailored process-oriented organizational structure for the quality assurance of a leading German automotive manufacturer. We present a structured methodology that primarily consists of identifying, analyzing and optimizing the core process model of the company. The target concept we developed was evaluated by process owners who were asked about the potential benefits of the new process-oriented quality organization. The effects most often reported include increased efficiency of quality processes, optimization of interfaces and communication and improvements within the cross-functional workflow management.