Quality Management Instructor Dr. Ahmad Warrak Arab International University Faculty of Business Administration the total Quality approach to Quality Management: 2
achieving Organizational excellence
Learning Outcomes After studying this chapter, you should be able to: • Define the term quality. • Compare and contrast quality and total quality. • Summarize the two views of quality. • Describe the key elements of total quality. • Identify the pioneers of total quality. • Explain the keys to success with total quality. • Analyze the future of quality management in the twenty-first century. • Explain how to become certified in quality management..
AIU What is Quality? To understand total quality, we must first understand quality. Customers that are businesses will define quality very clearly using specifications, standards, and other measures. This makes the point that quality can be defined and measured. Although few consumers could define quality if asked, all know it when they see it. This makes the critical point that quality is in the eye of the beholder. With the total quality approach, customers ultimately define quality. People deal with the issue of quality continually in their daily lives. We concern ourselves with quality when we are shopping groceries, eating in a restaurant, and making a major purchase, such as an automobile, a home, a television, or a personal computer. Perceived quality is a major factor by which people make distinctions in the marketplace. Whether we articulate them openly or keep them in the back of our minds, we all apply a number of criteria when making a purchase. The extent to which a purchase meets these criteria determines its quality in our eyes. One way to understand quality as a consumer-driven concept is to consider the example of eating at a restaurant. How will you judge the quality of the restaurant? Most people apply such criteria as the following: • Service • Response time • Food preparation • Environment or atmosphere • Price • Selection This example gets at one aspect of quality—the results aspect. Does the product or service meet or exceed customer expectations? This is a critical aspect of quality, but it is not the only one. Total quality is a much broader concept that encompasses not just the results aspect but also the quality of people and the quality of processes. What is Quality? Quality has been defined in a number of different ways by a number of different people and organizations. Consider the following definitions: • Performance that meets or exceeds expectations. • Performance that meets the customer’s needs. • Consistently meeting customer needs and expectations. Satisfying the customer today and getting better tomorrow. Although there is no universally accepted definition of quality, enough similarity does exist among the definitions that common elements can be extracted: • Quality involves meeting or exceeding customer expectations. • Quality applies to products, services, people, processes, and environments. • Quality is an ever-changing state (i.e., what is considered quality today may not be good enough to be considered quality tomorrow). With these common elements extracted, the following definition of quality can be set forth: • Quality is a dynamic state associated with products, services, people, processes, and environments that meets or exceeds expectations and helps produce superior value. the total Quality approach defined Total quality is an approach to doing business that attempts to maximize the competitiveness of an organization through the continual improvement of the quality of its products, services, people, processes, and environments How It Is Achieved • The total quality approach has the following characteristics: • Strategically based • Customer focus (internal and external) • Obsession with quality • Scientific approach to decision making and problem solving • Long-term commitment • Teamwork • Continual improvement of people, processes, products, services, and environments • Education and training • Freedom through control • Unity of purpose • Employee involvement and empowerment • Peak performance as a top priority two views Of Quality The total quality philosophy introduced a whole new way of looking at quality. The traditional view of quality measured process performance in defective parts per hundred produced. With total quality, the same measurement is thought of in terms of defective parts per million produced. The traditional view focused on after the fact inspections of products. With total quality, the emphasis is on continual improvement of products, processes, and people in order to prevent problems before they occur. The traditional view of quality saw employees as passive workers who followed orders given by supervisors and managers. It was their labor, not their brains, that was wanted. With total quality, employees are empowered to think and make recommendations for continual improvement. They are also shown the control boundaries within which they must work and are given freedom to make decisions within those boundaries. two views Of Quality • The traditional view of quality expected one improvement per employee per year. Total quality organizations expect to make at least ten or more improvements per employee per year. Organizations that think traditionally focus on short-term profits. The total quality approach focuses on long-term profits and continual improvement. The following statements summarize some of the major differences between the traditional view of quality and the total quality perspective: two views Of Quality • How quality is defined. The traditional view is that quality is defined solely as meeting customer specifications. The total quality view is that quality means satisfying customer needs and exceeding customer expectations. • How quality is measured. The traditional view is that quality is measured by establishing an acceptable level of nonconformance and measuring against that benchmark. The total quality view is that quality is measured by establishing high-performance benchmarks for customer satisfaction and then continually improving performance. two views Of Quality • How quality is achieved. The traditional view is that quality is inspected into the product. The total quality view is that quality is determined by product and process design and achieved by effective control techniques. • Attitude toward defects. The traditional view is that defects are an expected part of producing a product. Measuring defects per hundred is an acceptable standard. The total quality view is that defects are to be prevented using effective control systems and should be measured in defects per million (Six Sigma). two views Of Quality • Quality as a function. The traditional view is that quality is a separate function. The total quality view is that quality should be fully integrated throughout the organization—it should be everybody’s responsibility. • Responsibility for quality. The traditional view is that employees are blamed for poor quality. The total quality view is that at least 85% of quality problems are management’s fault. • Supplier relationships. The traditional view is that supplier relationships are short term and cost driven. The total quality view is that supplier relationships are long term and quality oriented. Key elements Of total Quality • Strategically Based: Total quality organizations have a comprehensive strategic plan that contains at least the following elements: vision, mission, broad objectives, and activities that must be completed to accomplish the broad objectives. The strategic plan of a total quality organization is designed to give it a sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace. The competitive advantages of a total quality organization are geared toward achieving world-leading quality and improving on it, continually and forever. • Customer Focus In a total quality setting, the customer is the driver. This point applies to both internal and external customers. External customers define the quality of the product or service delivered. Internal customers help define the quality of the people, processes, and environments associated with the products or services. Key elements Of total Quality • Obsession with Quality: In a total quality organization, internal and external customers define quality. With quality defined, the organization must then become obsessed with meeting or exceeding this definition. This means all personnel at all levels approach all aspects of the job from the perspective of “How can we do this better?” When an organization is obsessed with quality, “good enough” is never good enough. • Scientific Approach: Total quality detractors put off by such concepts as employee empowerment sometimes view total quality as nothing more than another name for “soft” management or “people” management. Although it is true that people skills, involvement, and empowerment are important in a total quality setting, they represent only a part of the equation. Another important part is the use of the scientific approach in structuring work and in making decisions and solving problems that relate to the work. This means that hard data are used in establishing benchmarks, monitoring performance, and making improvements Key elements Of total Quality • Long-Term Commitment: Organizations that implement management innovations after attending short-term seminars often fail in their initial attempt to adopt the total quality approach. This is because they look at total quality as just another management innovation rather than as a whole new way of doing business that requires an entirely new corporate culture. Too few organizations begin the implementation of total quality with the long term commitment to change that is necessary for success. • Teamwork In traditionally managed organizations, the best competitive efforts are often among departments within the organization. Internal competition tends to use energy that should be focused on improving quality and, in turn, external competitiveness. Key elements Of total Quality • Continual Process Improvement Products are developed and services delivered by people using processes within environments (systems). To continually improve the quality of products or services—which is a fundamental goal in a total quality setting—it is necessary to continually improve systems. • Education and Training: Education and training are fundamental to total quality because they represent the best way to improve people on a continual basis. It is through education and training that people who know how to work hard learn how to also work smart. • Peak Performance: When effectively practiced, total quality allows every aspect of an organization to operate at peak levels. This means that all personnel and processes are operating at their best. Peak performance is essential to organizations that operate in a global environment where competition is intense, constant, and unforgiving. Key elements Of total Quality • Freedom Through Control: Involving and empowering employees is fundamental to total quality as a way to simultaneously bring more minds to bear on the decision-making process and increase the ownership employees feel about decisions that are made. Total quality detractors sometimes mistakenly see employee involvement as a loss of management control, when in fact control is fundamental to total quality. The freedoms enjoyed in a total quality setting are actually the result of well-planned and well-carried-out controls. Controls such as scientific methodologies lead to freedom by empowering employees to solve problems within their scope of control. Key elements Of total Quality • Employee Involvement and Empowerment: Employee involvement and empowerment is one of the most misunderstood elements of the total quality approach and one of the most misrepresented by its detractors. The basis for involving employees is twofold. First, it increases the likelihood of a good decision, a better plan, or a more effective improvement by bringing more minds to bear on the situation—not just any minds but the minds of the people who are closest to the work in question. Second, it promotes ownership of decisions by involving the people who will have to implement them. Empowerment means not just involving people but also involving them in ways that give them a real voice. One of the ways this can be done is by structuring work that allows employees to make decisions concerning the improvement of work processes within well-specified parameters. Should a machinist be allowed to unilaterally drop a vendor if the vendor delivers substandard material? No. However, the machinist should have an avenue for offering his or her input into the matter. Should the same machinist be allowed to change the way she sets up her machine? If by so doing she can improve her part of the process without adversely affecting someone else’s, yes. Having done so, her next step should be to show other machinists her innovation so that they might try it. Keys to total Quality success Organizations that succeed never approach total quality as just another management innovation or, even worse, as a quick fix. Rather, they approach total quality as a new way of doing business. What follows are common errors organizations make when implementing total quality. The successful organizations avoid these errors. • Senior management delegation and poor leadership: Some organizations attempt to start a quality initiative by delegating responsibility to a hired expert rather than applying the leadership necessary to get everyone involved. • Deployment process. Some organizations develop quality initiatives without concurrently developing plans for integrating them into all elements of the organization (operations, budgeting, marketing, etc.). Keys to total Quality success • Team mania. Ultimately teams should be established, and all employees should be involved with them. However, working in teams is an approach that must be learned. Supervisors must learn how to be effective coaches, and employees must learn how to be team players. The organization must undergo a cultural change before teamwork can succeed. Rushing in and putting everyone in teams before learning has occurred and the corporate culture has changed will create problems rather than solve them. • Taking a narrow, dogmatic approach. Some organizations are determined to take the Deming approach, Juran approach, or Crosby approach and use only the principles prescribed in them. None of the approaches advocated by these and other leading quality experts is truly a one-size-fits-all proposition. Even the experts encourage organizations to tailor quality programs to their individual needs. Keys to total Quality success • Confusion about the differences among education, awareness, inspiration, and skill building. In order for people to do their part in making the total quality approach work effectively, they must have the skills to apply the fundamental tools of quality. Making them aware of quality and inspiring them to accept it at a philosophical level are good and necessary steps in the right direction. But helping them develop the actual skills necessary to implement the concept must also be part of the transformational process. Quality Management Characteristics for the Future • A total commitment to continually increasing value for customers, investors, and employees • A firm understanding that market driven means that quality is defined by customers, not the company • A commitment to leading people with a bias for continuous improvement and communication • A recognition that sustained growth requires the simultaneous achievement of four objectives continually forever: (a) customer satisfaction, (b) cost leadership, (c) effective human resources, and (d) integration with the supplier base • A commitment to fundamental improvement through knowledge, skills, problem solving, and teamwork • A commitment to fast-paced, constant learning, and an ability to respond quickly to changes in the competitive environment • A commitment to achieving end-to-end collaboration using web-based, on-demand tools that are fully integrated throughout the supply chain • A commitment to maintaining an environment in which creativity, critical thinking, and innovation are not just encouraged and supported, but demanded
