Autor: Dennis Geers

Continuous attempt for improvement as well as the permanent impulse to explore and eliminate failures and flaws belong to the classical quality mindset, which is also reflected in CIP approaches. However, it is often difficult to systematically identify improvement potentials with minimal expenses, especially in knowledge intensive business processes. A purposefully combined disciplines and instruments of quality management, process management and knowledge management enables the development of a maturity model adjusted to the needs of SME. This maturity model, based on the methods of CIP, serves to uncover the potentials in the knowledge process. The following contribution demonstrates the development, application as well as the value of employing the quality-oriented maturity model for knowledge intensive business processes.

The quality endeavors of an organization, like other enterprise activities, must be oriented towards the economic principles. This approach give way to many organization to question the extent to which the quality management contributes for the overall business success and to pin point the areas where particularly a high value can be created in order to attain the maximum possible economic benefits out of QM-Systems. Without including the answer of this question in the decision making process, the resources can not be allocated optimally for the quality purpose. The following illustration depicts how the quality-based activities generate the value to enhance the performance and a variety of indicators reflects how they indirectly add value to an organization and hence contribute to its economic success.