ANALYSIS, DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF QUALITY
MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR KSA SOFTWARE COMPANY
Omar Saeed Almushayt
MIS Department, Business College, King Khalid University, Abha, KSA. [email protected]
ABSTRACT: Quality management, in all countries all over the world, has become recently necessary to face challenges among companies. Software companies in KSA suffer from two problems, namely, low customer satisfaction and low product quality. Implementation of quality management for a software company can solve these problems, by improving the quality of products and enhancing customer satisfaction. This will lead the company to be competitive. Introducing quality management system onto system analysis followed by system design and finally implementing that system can achieve these goals. Results of the present work showed that the proposed method can increase both the product quality by 10% and the customer satisfaction by 20 %.
1. INTRODUCTION
There is no fixed definition for quality although there exist many definitions for quality. The quality experts have their own definition for quality. Juaran defined quality as "fitness for use"[1], while Crosby defined quality as "conformance to requirements"[2].The quality is defined by the international organization for standardization (ISO) as "Quality comprises all characteristics and significant features of a product or an activity which relates to the satisfying of given requirements “and also by the German Industry Standard DIN 55350 Part 11 as "Quality is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or a service that bears on its ability to satisfy the given needs”. The related works in this field are(ISOSYSTEM [3], AIO Basic software [4], Track Wise [5], Metric Stream [6] and Master Control [7]). All of these systems work as an integrated system of modules that leverage the collaborative business management processes to support continuous improvement and optimization of today's heterogeneous enterprise. It helps the leading companies to attain a competitive edge through repeatable and predictable management process and compliance execution involving people across departments, business units, suppliers and customers.
2. Problems in KSA Software Company
Discovering problems that face software industry very hard to achieve. After asking software managers, quality consultants and managers Thayer, Pyster and Wood [8] found that the problems faced software industries are classified in 5 problems as shown below:
1.Poor estimates and plans.
2.Lack of quality standards and measures.
3.Lack of guidance about making organizing decisions.
4.Lack of techniques to make progress visible. 5.Incorrect success criteria.
3. Quality managementof software
Somerville[9] defines software quality as a management process concerned with ensuring that software has a low number of defects and that it reaches the required standards of maintainability, reliability, portability and so on, which are known as software specification. Software development is a complex process that covers various activities until the final product has been completed.
Quality of software has become one of the most important issues in the recent years. It is considered one of the most important factors affecting on customer satisfaction. Meeting customer requirements and expectations are very important. It helps any company to maintain its customers, gains new customers, makes good reputation in the market thus helping the company to be efficient in the market. To achieve this, the companies must clearly identify the needs and expectations of its customers and the level of quality required by its customers. Software Company must try to do their work hard from the beginning time to save time, effort, money and resources as well. This is true especially in the software company, as the quality plays a very important role in the customer satisfaction. The companies can be more efficient, productive, and profitable while providing superior quality for the product at low price and this will make the company survive the competition [10].
4. Quality management system model (QMS)
ISO is the International Organization for Standardization. It is located in Switzerland and was established in 1947 to develop common international standards in many areas. ISO has 157 national members, out of the 195 total countries in the world. In 1987, the British Government persuaded the International Organization for Standardization to adopt BS 5750 as an international standard. BS 5750 became ISO 9000." [11][12]. ISO 9000 refers to a set of quality management standards. ISO 9000 currently includes three quality standards: ISO 9001:2000 presents requirements, while ISO 9000:2005 and ISO 9004:2000 present guidelines. All of these are process standards. ISO's purpose is to facilitate international trade by providing a single set of
standards that people everywhere would recognize and
respect. The ISO 9001:2000 model shown in figure 1 applies to all kinds of organizations in all kinds of areas. Some of these areas include manufacturing, processing, servicing, pharmaceuticals [13].QMS enables the organizations to identify measure, control and improve the various core business processes that will ultimately lead to improved business performance [14]. A quality management system should at least include document control, auditing, and training of personnel, follow-up of corrective and preventive actions [15].
Figure 1 Quality management system (ISO 9001:2000)
5. ISO 9000 and quality management system
The quality assurance procedures in an organization are documented in a quality manual which defines the quality process .Customers look for ISO 9000 certification in a supplier as an indicator of how seriously that supplier takes quality. Figure 2 shows the relationship between ISO 9000, the quality manual and individual project quality plan.
Figure 2 ISO 9000 and quality management [9] It is widely acknowledged that proper quality management improves business, often having a great effect on investment, increasing the company sales, net profit margins, competitive advantage, and avoidance the procedures of litigation.[16][17].The quality management principles in ISO 9000:2000 are also sound, according to Wade,[18] and Barneswho says "ISO 9000 guidelines provide a comprehensive model for quality management
systems that can make any company competitive." Barnes also cites a survey by Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance that indicated ISO 9000 increased net profit, and another by Deloitte-Touche that reported that the costs of registration were recovered in three years. However, a broad statistical study of 800 Spanish companies [19] found that ISO registration in itself creates little improvement because companies interested in ISO have usually already made some type of commitment to quality and were performing just as well before registration. A common criticism of ISO 9000 is the amount of money, time may be for years and a lot of paperwork required for registration [20]. ISO itself advises that ISO 9000 can be implemented without certification, simply for the quality benefits that can be achieved. Who implemented ISO can feel these benefits [21].
6. Proposed QMS forKSA Software CompanyModel
The architecture of the proposed model for the software company is illustrated in Figure 3. The model starts from customer requirements and endsby customer satisfaction as previewed in ISO 9001 /2000 (QMS). The QMS for software company contains 10 processes: customer requirement process, planning process, production process, delivery process and customer satisfaction process, quality control process, , quality assurance process, maintenance process , motivation process and sales process.
Figure 3 QMS model for Software Company
7. Analysis and design of QMS for
KSASoftwareCompany
This study, which was performed in 2005, deals with knowledge and utilization of QM standards to produce the QMS that achieves the enhancedquality and customer satisfaction of software product to be compatible to standard. The analysis for this system was done by interviewing management and staff in the company and interviewing the manager of the company who qualifies the company to get the ISO certification. When the model was built we started in the next stage which is analysis of each process in the model as in Table 1.
Table 1 Analysis of QMS
4.Delivery to customer process
The customer chooses the way to receive his order of products by choosing the way of shipping. Insures his requirements as he ordered, pays the price of products and finally fills application of customer satisfaction.
5. Customer Satisfaction process
6. Motivation process
9. Maintenance process 1.Customer requirements process
2. planningprocess
3. Production process
10. Quality Assuranceprocess 8. Quality control process
The review of project services, construction work, management and documentation for compliance with contractual and regulatory obligations and accepted industry practices. Quality control is involved in developing systems to ensure products or services are designed and produced to meet orexceed customer requirements this is achieved by checking the process is done or not.
After analysis of the system is done, the second stage is starting by designing the QMSand determining the entity and the relationship between them. This design is built by making interaction diagram to show the sequence of processes. The interaction diagram in figure 4 will execute when customer choose to buy ready product.
Figure 4 Interaction diagrams to buy ready software product The interaction diagram in figure 5 will execute when customer chooses to buy new software product .
8. Implementation of QMS for KS Software Company
Automation of a system means that the control of the machines performing the work by a computer. It is essential, therefore, that the computer knows and responds to the purpose for which the system is established [22]. Automated system must be implemented for the purposes which are designed for and monitored by human being who has a full understanding of the purpose of the system. Automated systems are desirable because they are capable of achieving efficiency and accuracy far superior to that achievable in any other way To implement this system we used two languages connecting to database, the first language is visual basic 6 (VB6) and the second language is personal home page (PHP) as a web application which helps any customer around the world to buy his required product from the company by using the World Wide Web (www). Second we used Microsoft access as a database management system. The processes that have implemented are shown in figure 6.
Figure 6Implementation model of QMS
The following table 2 shows 4 figures for the system and its code in the right of the table. The figures 7 and 8 are implemented by php. The figures 9 and 10 are implemented by visual basic 6.
Table 2 Implementations of QMS Figure 7 ?>phprequire_onceDIR_CORE.'couriers-'.$config['db_type'].'.php;'require_once DIR_CORE.'couriers.php;'require_onceDIR_CORE.'orders-'.$config['db_type'].'.php;'require_once DIR_CORE.'orders.php;'require_onceDIR_CORE.'products-'.$config['db_type'].'.php;'require_once
DIR_CORE.'products.php;' if( isset(
$_COOKIE['sOrderQC_'.LANGUAGE] ) && !empty(
$_COOKIE['sOrderQC_'.LANGUAGE ( ( [}
$aOrder = throwOrderMd5(
$_COOKIE['sOrderQC_'.LANGUAGE ( [; if( isset( $aOrder
) &&is_array( $aOrder ( (
$_SESSION['iOrderSession_'.LANGUAGE] = $aOrder[0]; setCookie( 'sOrderQC_'.LANGUAGE, null,time()– 1);
Figure 8 <?php require_onceDIR_CORE.'files-'.$config['db_type'].'.php ;' require_once DIR_CORE.'files-admin.php ;' require_once DIR_CORE.'files.php ;' require_onceDIR_CORE.'products-'.$config['db_type'].'.php ;' require_once DIR_CORE.'products-admin.php ;' require_once DIR_CORE.'products.php ;' require_onceDIR_CORE.'categories-'.$config['db_type'].'.php ;'
require_once DIR_CORE.'categories.php if( $a == 'List '
( } ;'
if( isset( $sOption ( (
}
if( $sOption == 'del ' ( $ content .= $tpl->tbHtml( 'messages.tpl', 'DELETED_SHORT ' ( ;
elseif( $sOption == 'save ' ( $ content .= $tpl->tbHtml( 'messages.tpl', 'SAVED_SHORT ' ( ; { Figure 9
Dim cn As New ConnectionDimrs_Machine_plane As New Recordset
Private Sub Command5_Click(); s = InputBox("Enter Project ID")
rs_Machine_plane.MoveFirst
rs_Machine_plane.Find "prod_id='" + s + "'"
If rs_Machine_plane.EOF = False ThenCallfullformElse MsgBox "The Project not found"
End IfEnd Sub
Private Sub Command6_Click() rs_Machine_plane.Delete Call Command3_Click End Sub
Private Sub Command6_Click() rs_Machine_plane.Delete Call Command3_Click End Sub
Private Sub Command7_Click()
If Text1 = "" Or Text2 = "" Or Text3 = "" Or Text4 = "" Or Text5 = "" Or Text6 = "" Or Text7 = "" Or Text8 = "" Or Text9 = "" Or Text10 = "" _
Or Text11 = "" Then MsgBox "ÇßãáÇáÈíÇäÇÊ"
Exit Sub End If
Figure 10
Private Sub Form_Load() Me.WindowState = 2
cn.Open"Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=iso.mdb;Persist Security Info=False" Call fullform End Sub
Sub fulltable() rs_soft_project(0) = Text1 rs_soft_project(1) = Text2 rs_soft_project(2) = Text3 rs_soft_project(3) = DTPicker1 rs_soft_project(4) = DTPicker2 rs_soft_project(5) = DTPicker3 rs_soft_project(6) = DTPicker4 End Sub Sub fullform() Text1 = rs_soft_project(0) Text2 = rs_soft_project(1) Text3 = rs_soft_project(2) DTPicker1 = rs_soft_project(3) DTPicker2 = rs_soft_project(4) DTPicker3 = rs_soft_project(5) DTPicker4 = rs_soft_project(6) End Sub .
Table 3 Specifications degree
No Criteria weight
Before applying QMS After applying QMS
P(1) degree P(2) degree P(3) degree P(1) degree P(2) degree P(3) degree 1 Reliability 45% 87.8 86.7 87.4 91.9 93.5 92.1 2 Flexibility 30% 70 65 70 85 80 78 3 Maintainability 25% 70 75 75 85 90 80
9. System testing and Results
When we designed this system we considered two factors: quality of product and customer satisfaction. To measure the quality of software product, we used the following formulas for 3specifications of software product which are: reliability= 1 – (errors/lines of code), maintainability= 1 - 0.1 *(average labor -days to fix), flexibility= 1 - 0.05 * (average labor-days to change).Each specification has its weight as in table 3. the three specifications are calculated to measures the quality of 3 software products P(1),P(2) and P(3) before and after applying the QMS. Table 3 shows the data for these specifications
Depending on the policy of the software company, we measure the quality percentage by summation of weighted degrees for each specification and for each product. This
summation represents the quality of the product. Weextracted and compared the results before and after applying the system. Quality of product before applying the system was (77%- 79.1%) and became after applying the system (84%-88.1%).
The second factor is customer satisfaction application which contains 10 questioners. Each question has degree from (0% to 100%).It’s measured by summation allcustomers degrees for question and each is multipliedbyits weight to get the required customer satisfaction percentage. Table 4 shows the questioners, its weight and degree before and after applying QMS. We have taken 3 samples for 3 products.
The percentages for these samples before applying the QMS was (56.8%-62.35%) and after applying the system (82.45%-84.96%).
Table 4 Customer Questioners
No Question weight
Before applying QMS After applying QMS
C(1) degree C(2) degree C(3) degree C(1) degree C(2) degree C(3) degree
1 Ease of installation of the software? 5% 60 70 60 75 85 75
2 Completeness and accuracy of
installation instructions? 8% 60 50 50 80 80 85
3 Ability of the initially delivered software to function without
problems? 8% 50 60 50 85 85 80
4 Ability of the initially delivered software to function without crashes or
service interruptions? 12% 40 60 60 80 75 75
5 Ability of the user to easily perform
required tasks using the software? 10% 70 60 70 90 90 85
6 User friendliness of the software? 10% 60 50 50 80 82 85
7 Completeness of the software in
providing all of the functions you need
to do my job? 13% 55 65 60 80 88 85
8 Completeness of the user
documentation? 10% 60 60 50 80 90 85
9 How satisfied are you with the XYZ
software product? 12% 60 70 55 90 90 85
10 How satisfied are you with the XYZ
software products support services5? 12% 70 75 60 75 85 7
10. CONCLUSIONS
We had developed and demonstrated an automated quality management system to serve as a user friendly interface development system in the field of quality management system of KSA Software Company. This is done by using visual basic (6) environment and php (internet language) to implement the functions that have been presented in figure 6. This quality management system is dedicated to meet the business needs, customer demands in the industries, optimize the product service and value, deliver high-quality products on time, meet customers unique requirements, increase operational efficiencies throughout the interface, embrace and leverage opportunities for business change. Implementation the QMS for a software company may upgrade the quality of product by 10% and increase customer satisfaction by 20%.
11. REFERENCES
[1] Juran, J.M. "Juran on leadership for quality: an executive handbook ",The free Press , a division of Macmilan,Inc, New York. 1989
[2] Fox, Michael J,"Quality assurance management", chapman & hall, London, (1993).
[3] http://www.softexpert.com/en/index.php,last last visited 5/6/2005
[4] http://free-shopr-softwares.blogspot.com/2007/09/aio-basic-iso-software.html, last visited 15/7/2005
[5] http://www.w3.org, last visited 22/8/2005 [6] http://www.metricstream.com, ,2006
[7] http://www.etymonline.com, last visited 1/12/2005
[8]Bob Hughes and Mike Cottrell, “software project management" book, McGraw Hill education, university of Brighton, 6th Edition ,(May,2001) , www.mcgraw.hill.co.uk.
[9] Ian Somerville, "Software Engineering" book, (Aug 11, 2004), (6th Edition).
[10]Nee, Paul A, "ISO 9000 in construction", united states of America, 1996.
[11]John Seddon,"The 'quality' you can't feel" , Sunday journal,( November 19, 2000).
[12] John Seddon, "The Case Against ISO 9000" book, Ireland,(November 2000).
[13] ANSI/ASQ ,"Quality management system-Fundamental and vocabulary", International organization for
standardization ISO, American Society for Quality,( December 15,2000).
[14]The European Standard EN ISO 9001: 2000, London, British Standard,http://www.bsigroup.co.uk.
[15] AnWynants&MiekeGielis,"Guidance report-Workshops on quality management,accreditation,managing the human side of change in genetic testing
laboratories",2009.www.eurogentest.org/laboratories/w orkshops.xhtml
[16] Scott Dalgleish ,"Probing the Limits: ISO 9001 Proves Ineffective". Quality Magazine ,April, 2005
[17] Frank Barnes ,"Good Business Sense Is the Key to Confronting ISO 9000", St. John's University,College of Business Administration ,March 2000.
[18] Jim Wade,"Is ISO 9000 really a standard?", ISO
Management Systems – May-June 2002.
www.a-t.co.uk.
[19] IñakiHeras, Gavin P.M. Dick, and MartíCasadesús,"ISO 9000 registration's impact on sales and profitability: A longitudinal analysis of performance before and after accreditation." International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, 2002.
[20] Stephanie Clifford,"So many standards to follow, so little payoff", May 2005.http://www.inc.com.
[21] The ISO Survey – (abridged version, PDF, 3 MB), ISO, 2005, www.iso.org
[22] Jim Brosseau, "Software Quality Attributes", August 29, 2007.
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