Postgraduate Diploma in Quality Management

Purpose

The primary purpose of this Postgraduate Diploma in Quality Management is to provide learners with knowledge and skills in quality management. This qualification will provide learners with the ability to recognise, implement and manage quality systems in the context of manufacturing and service organisations. Learners will acquire knowledge and understanding of the theoretical and statistical concepts together with practical skills that will enable learners to devise quality management strategies in their organisation. This qualification will provide learners with statistical techniques to measure, analyse, identify problems, correct, improve and implement improvement processes in manufacturing and services organisations. Furthermore, it also provides improvement tools such as Six Sigma principles, process reengineering, benchmarking, ISO 9000 systems, etc.

Upon completion of this qualification, qualifying learners will be able to

• Plan and implement quality in a manufacturing or service organisation by employing quality control, quality assurance and quality management methods and tools to improve the internal structures of the organisation.
• Apply the statistical techniques and concepts used in quality management.
• Develop, implement, manage and improve the overall performance to sustain and develop quality initiatives in any manufacturing or service organisation.
• Conduct, manage and assess the performance of quality audits in manufacturing and service sectors.

Rationale

The institution identified the necessity for a qualification in Quality Management to serve the needs of lower management and middle management and also support and improve quality management systems in manufacturing and services organisations. Regular communication from learners and communication with the quality professional body known as the Southern African Society for Quality Industry has become the motivation to develop this qualification. The are dramatic changes that occurred in the business environment over the last two decades where service and manufacturing organisations re-engineer, design and implement systems in their organisations. Hence, a need to have an appropriate qualification in quality management has been identified. The shortage of persons both in the service and manufacturing sectors with the requisite quality management knowledge and skills to execute their duties efficiently and effectively presents an ideal opportunity to develop this qualification. This qualification aims to target persons in junior and/or middle management positions, as well as learners who completed a Bachelor's Degree in the relevant field and those who wish to increase their promotion prospects by acquiring this qualification. For this reason, the department requests support from industry partners to forge new adventurous and creative university-industry alliances, which are key to our growth and sustainability with SAP, AIDC, Hellmann Logistics, Nampak, and Evelyn Hone College of Applied Arts and Commerce in Zambia. The Department of Operations Management (OM) considers its future over the next five years against the backdrop of considerable flux in the college's system in the immediate post-restructuring and phasing in of a new qualification.

The qualification is designed to meet the needs of service and manufacturing sectors for employees with the appropriate critical, analytical and organisational skills in the following key management and business disciplines: Management, Business, Work Study, Operations, Quality Management, Human Resources, and Administration.

The institution's recognition of prior learning is based on the premise that people who learn both inside and outside formal learning structures are worthy of recognition and credit. The value in learning an individual who acquired informally, non-formally and even formally and thus presents learning and expertise in the areas of Quality Management by a reflexive candidate will gain access to or advance or gain credits within the qualification. However, the process involved in converting this intrinsic value to extrinsic value is a complex one, demanding a high level of commitment, self-analysis, reflection and objectivity on the part of the candidate and a high level of flexibility, specialised activities, functions and procedures on the part of the institution's employees.

In the RPL process, the emphasis falls on the outcomes of learning, not on the site of learning, which may comprise formal training, work and life experience, and indigenous knowledge among other things. This reflects a shift in learning from a lecturer-centred approach to a student-centred approach and makes the RPL candidate an important stakeholder in the RPL process.

RPL for access

• Learners who do not meet the minimum entrance requirements or the required qualification at the same NQF level as the qualification required for admission may be considered for admission through RPL.
• To be considered for admission in the qualification based on RPL, applicants should provide evidence in the form of a portfolio that demonstrates that they have acquired the relevant knowledge, skills, and competencies through formal, non-formal and/or informal learning to cope with the qualification expectations should they be allowed entrance into the qualification.
• The RPL thus assumes that the competencies, skills and knowledge gained in one context are transferable. It has been internationally defined in the RPL context as the application of generic cognitive skills learned in one situation to a new situation, therefore knowledge that can be utilised and applied in a few different contexts.

RPL for credit

• The informal or non-formal training, life and work experience will be assessed against a set of clearly defined specific learning outcomes relating to the curriculum of Quality Management in service and manufacturing organizations where the results of that learning can be reliably assessed and certified for credits. To facilitate this process, module learning outcomes should be easily available to RPL candidates. Credits can be achieved through the RPL process towards the awarding of qualifications.

Entry Requirements

• Advanced Diploma in Quality Management, NQF Level 7.

Or

• Advanced Diploma in Project Management, NQF Level 7.

Or

• Relevant Bachelor's Degree, NQF Level 7.

This qualification consists of the following compulsory modules at National Qualifications Framework Level 8 totalling 120 Credits.

Compulsory Modules, Level 8, 120 Credits

• Quality Management Systems, 24 Credits.
• Quality Planning and Implementation, 24 Credits.
• Statistical Quality Techniques, 24 Credits.
• Continual Quality Improvement, 24 Credits.
• Quality Auditing Techniques, 24 Credits.

1. Demonstrate the ability to plan and implement quality in a manufacturing or service organisation by employing quality control, quality assurance and quality management methods and tools to improve the internal structures of the organisation.
2. Demonstrate the ability to apply the statistical techniques and concepts used in quality management.
3. Demonstrate the ability to develop, implement, manage and improve the overall performance to sustain and develop quality initiatives in any manufacturing or service organisation.
4. Conduct, manage and assess the performance of quality audits in manufacturing and service sectors.
5. Develop improvement processes in strategic management, and quality culture by identifying and implementing Six Sigma principles, processes and activities when examining customer needs, product improvement and supply chain processes in the manufacturing and service sectors.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 1

• Formulate strategic quality plans for quality products by designing and managing quality in the supply chain of manufacturing and service organisations.
• Implement quality control, quality assurance and quality management using the appropriate quality tools and statistical applications such as Six Sigma.
• Measure, manage and control quality to ensure the validation of the organization's internal structures.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 2

• Calculate and interpret data that apply to probability, probability distributions and probability densities
• Calculate Statistical inferences and analyse sampling distributions, inferences concerning means, Inferences concerning variances
• Interpret more advanced statistical techniques by computing designed experiments, analysing variances, analysing factorial experiments and regression analysis
• Apply statistical content of quality improvement programmes to: Statistical Process Control (SPC), Acceptance sampling and statistical sampling techniques, and reliability and life testing.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 3

• Develop and implement a suitable quality management system for a manufacturing or service organisation.
• Implement and manage the internal and external processes to ensure products and services are consistent with statutory and regulatory requirements.
• Apply improvements such as breakthrough, innovation and re-organisation for contingencies in products and services according to statutory and regulatory requirements by ensuring the appropriate documentation is in place.
• Negotiate resources with leadership and address customer and supplier quality and risks to ensure a compliant quality management system Monitor, review, analyse, evaluate and formulate improvement plans to ensure conformity of products and services for customer satisfaction.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 4

• Distinguish the profile of the quality auditor's qualifications, education, training, experience, personal characteristics and knowledge skills to ensure the auditor is qualified to conduct an audit.
• Plan, prepare and conduct a preliminary assessment of the quality manual, quality plans, quality procedures, work instruction, and product-specific documents and verify the internal audit process by integrating management systems for the audit.
• Implement ISO 9001:2015 requirements: documentation processes, audit procedures, and audit types under the differentiated categories of quality auditing. Conduct the audit by collecting and verifying information to generate findings and conclude and distribute the audit report.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 5

• Conduct a companywide assessment of optimizations, and cost of quality activities.
• Apply quality improvement and cost reduction using a project-by-project approach
• Employ measurement processes in supplies, customer service and processes to establish standards.
• Assess the changing business conditions affecting quality, productivity, costs, cycle time and value.

INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT

Formative assessment will be done in the form of two online assignments with practical applications and portfolios with a weighting of 40% of the final marks. These assessments will take the form of online discussions, portfolios by learners, short critical essays and case studies based on learning materials, tutorial letters, assigned readings from prescribed texts and supplementary materials. The key categories of knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, integration and evaluation will be covered through problem-solving and real-world applications.

Summative Assessments

Summative assessments are venue-based examination papers with case studies and applications of theory, scenarios and statistics with a weighting of 60%.

Summative assessments consist of a written paper with a section of questions and answers to test learners' knowledge of their application of theory to practice from all the study units. This examination consists of a section on the selection of theoretical models, frameworks, statistical applications and concepts relevant to each module. The learner is required to provide detailed explanations of how the models and frameworks are applied to the given scenarios provided in the examination paper. Learners are required to identify problems, analyse the problems and recommend solutions to the problems.