Business Operations to Enhance Performance - Essay Example

? Approaches to Total Quality Management Executive Summary The fundamental objective of this paper is to explore the approaches to total quality management as proposed by six quality gurus. Total quality management has evolved over years with new contributions from different personalities across the world. This research paper considers the six quality gurus including Crosby, Deming, Feigenbaum, Ishikawa, Juran and Taguchi because their works had the greatest impact on total quality management. The concept of total quality management is defined in the context of industry and its applicability to the modern world. The historical backgrounds of quality gurus, development of interests in quality, and their contributions to total quality management are also elaborated. The research used secondary methodology in collecting data. Data collected was analyzed using qualitative data analysis. Key words: total quality management, quality gurus, organization, contributions Introduction to the Topic During the 1960s, concerns about widespread global competitiveness forced most companies to show new interests in total quality management (Goetsch & Davis, 2013). The leading six quality gurus who augmented interests in quality management included Crosby, Deming, Feigenbaum, Ishikawa, Juran and Taguchi. These gurus were active consultants, lecturers, and authors with several years of experience. Most of the quality gurus were at advanced ages and widely influenced the growth of industries through development of distinctive approaches to total quality management. Total quality management philosophy seeks to integrate all organizational functions to focus on meeting customer needs and company objectives (Summers, 2009). Examples of organizational functions include marketing, customer service, engineering, finance, design, and production. It is critical for all organizations to comprehend the contributions of quality gurus and institute their ideas into business operations to enhance performance. Research Methodology The data collection method for this study was secondary methodology. This methodology involved collecting data from already available datasets and researches done by other people. The sources of secondary data the researcher considered include companies’ publications, journals, periodicals and books that have been published under the subject of total quality management. Secondary methodology was advantageous because it helped reduce the costs of research such as finances, time, and facilities. The researcher selected the most recent resources from credible sources such as libraries and websites. The research adopted evaluative research strategy. Evaluative strategy involved assessing systems, theories, and frameworks of total quality management in relation to their effectiveness and outcomes. Data analysis involved comparing the contributions of various quality gurus, identifying their similarities and differences, and forecasting their outcomes. Data was analyzed by reorganizing and refining it to adapt standards of simplicity and understandability. Findings, Analysis and Interpretation Philip Crosby Philip Crosby started his career in industry as an inspector. Later, he became a vice president of quality at ITT. Crosby left ITT in 1979 and founded Philipp Crosby Associates, Inc., and Crosby Quality College that had trained 35,000 managers and executives by 1986 (Summers, 2009). Crosby influenced General Motors; General Motors purchased over 10% of Crosby stock in addition to setting its own Crosby school similar to IBM, Johnson & Johnson and Chrysler (Besterfield, 2009). Crosby directed his messages to top managers and sought to change their perceptions and attitudes about quality. He spoke of quality as conformance to requirements and made managers to believe that products consistently reproducing its design specifications conformed to standards of high quality. According to Crosby, the goal of quality improvement is achievement of zero-defects. This is achieved through prevention rather than after-the-failures inspection. Crosby actively popularised the zero defects movement; this movement had actually originated in the US at Martin Company where Crosby was employed during the 1960s (Besterfield, 2009). Crosby elaborated on this approach through encouraging the management to establish highest standards of performance and communicating it to all levels of the organisation. Here, Crosby might have believed that the expectations of the management greatly influenced performance of the workers; if the management expects imperfections and defects, it would get them because workers would bring similar expectations to the job. Crosby provided two primary tools to help managers understand the problems of quality issues: cost of quality measures and the management maturity grid. He estimated costs of quality to be between 15% and 20% of sales (European Society for Organisational Excellence, 2003). The management maturity grid was used for self-assessment, and it identified five stages: uncertainty, awakening, enlightenment, wisdom and certainty. Once companies had positioned themselves on the management maturity grid, Crosby developed fourteen principles for quality improvement and sustenance. These principles include management commitment, establishment of quality improvement team, quality measures, evaluating cost of quality, quality awareness, generating corrective actions, planning for zero defects, supervisor training, scheduling for zero-defects day, goal setting, error cause removal, employee recognition, quality councils and repeating all these stages again. This 14-piont program is cyclical, hence the process must be repeated to review the commitment of old employees and bring new ones into the process. Edward Deming Deming is one of the thought leaders who were widely credited with leading the Japanese quality revolution. During the 1950s, the Japanese industrialists began to consider Deming’s advice on Statistical Process Control (SPC) and problem solving techniques; however, there was a lapse of thirty years before American companies began to respond (Krol, 2012). The central argument for Deming was that the best approaches are not enough; a program is required and organisations must adopt it whole-heartedly. Deming, therefore, developed a 14-point program that was vital in guiding organisations towards achievement of quality. Deming’s 14-point focused on creating constancy of purpose for improvement of product and service. Organisations should adopt a new philosophy where shoddy materials, defective products, poor workmanship and lax services are unacceptable. Deming argued against dependence on mass inspection and the practices of awarding businesses on price tags alone (Krol, 2012). Inspection is equivalent to planning for defects and price does not have any meaning without a message of quality. Consistency and constant improvement of the system of production and service promises reduced wastes and defects that are the greatest drivers of poor quality. Deming encouraged managers to institute modern methods of on-the-job training and supervising to equip their staff with advanced skills and knowledge. According to Besterfield (2009), constant training is crucial especially considering the rate of technological advancement in the modern world. Workers need to be abreast of technology in order to ensure continuous improvement in quality. Deming considered fear one of the impediments to improvement because it can result in tremendous economic losses (Krol, 2012). Management has the responsibility of driving out fear by encouraging the staff to ask questions, report problems and express their ideas. Another major focus of Deming was the necessity of breaking the barriers between departments and eliminating numerical goals for the workforce. According to Deming, work standards and numerical quotas are not sustainable because they focus on quantity, not quality. Deming also encouraged managers to remove all barriers that affect the pride of workmanship. In Deming’s view, the strategic management are responsible for 85% of quality problems (Krol, 2012). The top management, therefore, has to create a structure that will push every day to ensure performance of the 14-point program. Deming delineated two means of process improvement, that is, changing the common causes that were systemic and removing the special causes that produce non-random variation within systems (Garcia-Sabater, Marin-Garcia & Perello-Marin, 2012). Examples of common causes include poor product designs, defective machinery, improper billing of materials and poor physical conditions. Special causes constitute lack of knowledge and skills, inattention among workers and poor selection of raw materials. The top management is responsible for common causes while operators are responsible for special causes. Deming proposed that both operators and management should stay tuned to ensure they avoid these causes at all costs. Deming advocated Statistical Quality Control as a key tool to distinguish between systemic and special causes (Krol, 2012). Statistical Quality Control is investable because it can distinguish acceptable variation from variations that could indicate problems. Armand Feignbaum Armand Feignbaum was a Director of Manufacturing operations at General Electric between 1958 and 1968 (European Society for Organisational Excellence, 2003). He has wrote several books about quality management and served as a President of quality in the American Society for Quality between 1961 and 1963. Feignbaum stressed on systems approach to quality, where all organisations are focussed on quality. When all organisations are directed by quality objective, it becomes easy to manage quality because of guaranteed collective responsibility. Costs of quality must be separated into costs for failures, prevention and appraisal. This makes it possible to identify areas of weaknesses in the quality management process; the management can thus, institute countermeasures to eliminate possible failures. Feignbaum defined total quality control as an effective system for integrating quality maintenance, quality improvement, and quality development efforts of various teams to enable production of products that meet customer requirements at the lowest costs. He introduced the concept of “hidden” plant, implying that much of the efforts are used in correcting mistakes (Garcia-Sabater, Marin-Garcia & Perello-Marin, 2012). This is costly and cannot guarantee quality productivity. Feignbaum argued that since quality is everybody’s job, it might become nobody’s job. Therefore, accountability for quality has visibility at the highest levels of management and must be actively managed. Kaoru Ishikawa (1915-1968) Ishikawa developed the concept of true and substitute quality characteristics. He argued that the true characteristics of the product are the customer’s view while substitute characteristics are the producer’s view (Summers, 2009). The degree of match between the true and substitute characteristics ultimately determines customer satisfaction. Thus, the manufacturer needs to produce the product at the lowest possible costs and ensure that it meets customer requirements. Ishikawa believed that the equilibrium between the manufacturer’s view and customer’s view was critical in quality management. Ishikawa advocated for optimum use of quality circles. A quality circle is a small group of people who meet frequently to indentify, analyse and solve quality issues. The structure of quality circles constitutes top management, steering committee, facilitator, leader, members and other non-members interested in quality management (Garcia-Sabater, Marin-Garcia & Perello-Marin, 2012). Quality circles give opportunities to employees to use their wisdom and creativity in solving organisational issues. Quality circles also encourage team spirit, promote personal and leadership development, ensure employee motivation and improve communication. Another approach developed by Ishikawa was the Japanese Total Quality Control. He advocated that quality should come first and not short-term profits. Producers should focus on customer needs and tailor products to meet those needs. When making presentations, organisations should use data and facts as opposed to mere assumptions (Summers, 2009). Ishikawa also advocated cross-functional management where people from different functional expertise are afforded an opportunity to contribute towards management decision-making. Thus, respect for humanity as a management philosophy that allow full participation was a central idea in Ishikawa’s total quality control. Joseph M. Juran Juran influenced the development of Japanese industries towards quality management. He enjoyed a distinguished and varied career at the age of 82 that included business executive, government administrator, consultant, writer and lecturer. Juran’s years of independent activities ended with the establishment of an institute in 1979 that was named after him (Summers, 2009). The objective of the institute was to serve as a centre for the seminars, conferences, consulting and videotapes. The institute succeeded in training the staff from several companies such as Texas Instruments, Monsanto, Xerox and Du Pont. Juran defined quality as fitness for use. This implies that the users of a product of service must be able to derive the utility that they wanted from it. A manufacturer should be able to process the raw material to meet the demands of customers while achieving high yields and minimal downtime in the production process. Juran’s theory of fitness for use has five major dimensions; these include quality of design, availability, quality of conformance, field use and safety (Goetsch & Davis, 2013). Juran encouraged companies to focus on quality of design because it helps to distinguish one product from another. Product availability is critical in business performance because it inspires customer trust and market sustainability. Juran stressed on the necessity of conformance since it reflects the match between actual product and design intent. Product choices, workforce training, supervision and adherence to test programs are the primary factors that enhance quality of conformance. Juran developed Cost-of-Quality accounting system that concentrate on money as the language of strategic management. He categorised quality costs into internal failure costs, external failure costs, appraisal costs and prevention costs. Juran proposed a three-pronged approach that could help the management to reach a minimum cost of quality. Juran’s breakthrough sequence constitutes breakthrough projects, the control sequence, and annual quality programs. All breakthroughs were to follow a common sequence of discovery, organisation, diagnosis, control and collective action. Juran developed a trigoly for managing quality. The Juran Trigoly consisted of quality planning, quality control and quality improvement. His concept of the vital few and trivial many was the foundation for development of Pareto charts. Genichi Taguchi (1924-2012) Taguchi has been an advisor to the Japanese Standards Institute since 1982. He also worked as an executive director of the American Supplier Institute. Taguchi has worked with Electrical Communications Laboratory (ECL) as a statistical quality controller and later a visiting professor to the Indian Statistical Institute (Goetsch & Davis, 2013). Taguchi’s concepts pertaining to robust design, reduction of variation, experimental design and the loss function have influenced various fields of product design, manufacturing and sales process engineering. Taguchi developed a loss function, which he advocated to be used in measuring financial losses to the society resulting from poor quality management (Besterfield, 2009). Deviation from the target is a loss, not only to the business, but also to the society. Taguchi prompted to use parameter design or robust engineering. The philosophy of off-line quality control is meant to design products and processes that are “robust” or insensitive to parameters outside the design engineer’s control. Another key element in Taguchi’s approach was widespread innovations in the statistical design of experiments. This involved the use of an outer array of factors that are not controllable in real life, but are systematically varied in the experiment. The focus of developing statistical design of experiments was to ensure conformance and customer satisfaction, Conclusions and Recommendations Companies dedicated to customer satisfaction and continuous improvement should adopt the strategies of total quality management as an aspect of enhancing efficiency and effectiveness of business operations. Total quality management views organizations as collection of processes and maintains that businesses must strive to continuously improve these processes by incorporating the knowledge, skills, and experiences of workers (Chartered Quality Institute, 2013). Gurus of total quality management stressed on the importance of maintaining introspect regarding the organization’s commitment, strategies, development, teamwork, problems, and results. Currently, the world is in a midst of quality revolution, which constitutes a period of change influencing all types of business enterprises and organizations. Quality management has become a core concept in this era of massive changes. Quality gurus have revealed that total quality management continue to emerge as a predominant management philosophy across the world. Quality management personalities emphasize concepts support the philosophies of customer focus, defect prevention, continuous improvement, and the recognition that quality management is the responsibility of all the organisation publics. It remains the role of organisations to guide their members in studying the ideas of all the quality gurus and instituting their ideas into company’s operations. This will enhance the knowledge and skills of workers, and avail additional approaches for solving quality problems in organisations. Today’s market environment is characterised by cutthroat competition where managers must plan strategically to maintain their market share. Customers now place a higher value on quality than on loyalty to their home-based producers. Manufacturers, therefore, should adopt total quality management as an approach to improving the effectiveness and flexibility of a business as a whole. References Besterfield, D. H. (2009). Quality Control. Upper Saddle River (New Jersey: Pearson Education. Chartered Quality Institute. (2013). Total Quality Management. CQI. (Retrieved from http://www.thecqi.org/Knowledge-Hub/Resources/Factsheets/Total-quality-management/) European Society for Organisational Excellence. (2003). Total quality management & business excellence. Oxfordshire: Routledge. Garcia-Sabater, J. J., Marin-Garcia, J. A., & Perello-Marin, M. R. (2012). Is implementation of continuous improvement possible? An evolutionary model of enablers and inhibitors. Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing & Service Industries, 22(2), 99-112. Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2013). Quality management for organizational excellence: Introduction to total quality. Boston, Mass: Prentice Hall Krol, L. V. (2012). Deming. Charleston, S.C: Arcadia Pub. Summers, D. C. S. (2009). Quality management: Creating and sustaining organizational effectiveness. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson/Prentice Hall. Read More