3: The Manufacturing Engineering Laboratories (MEL) have gone through a number of structural and organisational expansions to become a complex organisational entity. At present, MEL covers about 3,500 square metres, and houses high-technology equipment worth in excess of $10 million. MEL's 31 staff members include 24 technicians and programmers, 6 artisans and skilled laborers and 1 clerical staff. Following the institution-wide quality awareness initiative, the top management of the department and MEL management decided to initiate quality improvement in MEL. After conducting a staff appraisal exercise, the results revealed a genuine interest in quality improvement effort among the staff. Many staff members had thought seriously about problems concerning their work and made a number of positive suggestions. This ascertained the employee support and participation on quality improvement at MEL interventions. The MEL management also assured that the laboratories needed their own mechanism for continuous quality improvement in order to provide world-class service to its customers. The traditional, hierarchical and top-down ethos of laboratory could be complemented by a worker-oriented and bottom- up activity. Like other organisations, the target is to convert MEL from a traditional organisation with its emphasis on manpower to a teampower organisation. Understanding and embracing the requirements and difficulties of group activity approach in quality improvement at the outset, the MEL management committed to a teamwork-based approach. Team-building efforts have to go through a series of steps goal definition, data gathering and analysis, action-planning, implementation and evaluation. the team-building process, revitalisation or increase of work teams' effectiveness is a core issue. Team relationships, role, goals, and processes all have a direct bearing on the results that a team can produce. Effective teamwork requires the development of team motivation which cannot be created without team spirit, trust sharing and commitment. Proper training of team members on problem-solving techniques, conflict management, group communication skills, etc. to incorporate the teamwork activities are essential. In order to build the type of worker-oriented culture for quality improvement and enrich the development of employees, the MEL management decided to leave the quality campaign entirely in the hands of the MEL staff. The staff involved would decide what form of group activities they would "commit to". It would be management's responsibility to develop a broad understanding of improvement awareness and its corresponding requirements so that the staff members could make an informed choice. Once the workers committed themselves to a particular plan of action, management would demonstrate their belief in the plan and not only visibly support, but actively be involved in the ongoing process. You are to assume the role as Chief Laboratory Manager with rich experience in Industrial Engineering, and asked by the Head of the MEL, to design and launch a Quality Campaign in the laboratories. a) Quality control circles (QCC) is among the most popular approaches of group activity. Would you design the employee involvement (EI) programmes based on the QCC approaches? If so, develop a draft EI plan encompassing the main contents of the programme design with reference to QCC. If not, explain the rationale with your choice of other method(s) or approach(es). [12 marks] Question 3: (Continued) b) EI programmes often include several steps throughout the implementation from introduction to final assessment. You are asked to elaborate all the steps that you would put into the implementation of the EI Quality Campaign programme at the MEL