William Edward Demings Total Quality Management System - Case Study Example

Quality Management Contribution of one of the major theorist to the development of a quality management system William Edward Deming’s Total Quality Management System Abstract William Edward Deming is just one of the many quality improvement theorists in history but his works is the most popular and influential. He is the only quality guru that brought out the cultural issues in traditional business management such as exhortations and slogans forcing employees to achieve unrealistic goals, depriving workers of pride of workmanship, and denial of opportunity for advancement. Deming’s main contribution to the development of quality management system is his 14 points for the transformation of management, which is a set of guidelines, or operating principles for organizational leaders who are willing to change and focus on continuous development. As evidenced by the success of Japanese companies, Deming’s idea contributed significantly to the development of quality management system particularly in the area of statistical quality control and management efficiency. Along with SPC or Statistic Process Control and PDCA Cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act), his TQM or Total Quality Management is an internationally recognized standard. Deming’s contribution made success a reality for organizations that are willing to change and stay longer in business Quality Management Contribution of one of the major theorist to the development of a quality management system William Edward Deming’s Total Quality Management System In the mid-twentieth century, the concept of quality improvement was already being practiced at least in part by few Western business organizations. However, although the idea came from American theorists and practitioners, it was given more importance by business organizations in Japan than those in the West. It was only when Japanese companies successfully invaded Western markets in the mid 1980s that commercial organizations in the West realized its value and embraced the idea (Beckford 2010, p.3; Sallis 2002, p.6). The American theorist and practitioners mentioned here are those who view organizations as a whole but with interrelated parts. A system transforms inputs into outputs where each independent part is expected to perform efficiently (Lussier, 2008). It is a well-organized collection of ideas, principles and theories, and interrelated operational chain producing precise results (Hoyle p.58). Quality theorist like Philip Crosby, William Edwards Deming, Armand Feigenbaum, Kaoru Ishikawa, Joseph Jauran, John Oakland, and others seems to believe that processes and systems can be enhanced and perfected to achieve quality. For instance, Philip Crosby developed the concept of zero defects as the only standard of performance that can be achieved through prevention of waste produced by traditional processes (Speegle, 2009, p.31). William Deming on the other hand developed the route to quality and productivity by eliminating traditional mass inspection and building quality into the product processing itself to avoid waste and delay (Scherkenbach, 1986, p.24). Similarly, Kauro Ishikawa’s believed in the effect of poor processing when developed the cause-and-effect diagram aimed to help organizations find and sort out the causes of variation of quality in the production process (Ho, 1999, p.61). Out of the many quality improvement theorists, William Deming is probably”the most influential” (Sallis 2002, p.6; Kondalkar 2009). In fact, his Total Quality Model or TQM is an internationally recognized quality standard and in his name, the Deming Award Criteria is being given by the Japanese Union of Scientist and Engineers to companies and individuals with outstanding TQM (Charantimath, 2003). He started developing his theory in the 1930s while working with other quality theorist in Western Electric’s Hawthorne plant in Chicago. This is where Elton Mayo, Joseph Jauran, and other colleagues in Harvard University developed the “Hawthorne effect”- a theory pointing to leadership style and group cohesiveness as primary factors affecting productivity rather than physical conditions at work. However, it was only when Deming moved to the Department of Agriculture and introduced to Walter Shewhart that he finally made serious steps in pursuing and completing his theory. Shewhart originally developed “statistical control”, a technique to enable prediction and control of industrial processes by removing the sources of variability such as waste and delay. The initial contribution of William Deming to quality improvement is the now famous Statistic Process Control or SPC, which is an improvement of Shewhart’s technique and Deming’s PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle. Along with Elton Mayo and his group’s idea in human relations and Deming’s SPC, the theoretical foundation of Total Quality Management was conceived (Sallis, 2002). William Deming’s TQM is generally promotes the idea that quality is a mindset or a work ethic that pushing everyone in the organization to one direction (Swansburg 1996). When Deming was summoned by the General Douglas MacArthur to create a quality circle in Japan in the 1950s, he presented his method to different Japanese executives who willingly applied it afterwards. The result was remarkable since after about three months some of these executives were reporting gains without any new investment. According to Swansburg (1996), the success of these companies was because Deming’s method ensures that managers and workers knows what they are doing and aware of the improvement required by the system. The method reduces rework, eliminate delays, and consider customer satisfaction as most important part of the production process. More importantly, it enables production of better quality products at a lower price thus placing the company into a much better position in the market (Hakes, 1991). William Edward Deming’s contribution to quality improvement seem so much that he is regarded as the father of the TQM revolution (Pike & Barnes, 1996) because his name is strongly identified with quality and total quality management (Kondalkar, 2009). For instance, it was Juran’s and Deming’s idea that enable the Japanese to develop Total Quality Control or TQC and capture the automobile, electronics, and other consumer items in the 1970s and 1980s. This is the phenomenon that pushed businesses in the United States and Western Europe to adopt Deming’s brand of quality management in the late 1980s (Sallis, 2002, p.8). The Deming’s 14 points for management is Deming’s best contribution to quality management (Janakiraman & Gopal, 2006). These points provide the framework for transforming top management’s traditional way of thinking into a disciplined quality oriented mindset (Mahapatra, 2010). Unlike Juran that developed only 10 steps to quality improvement, Deming is more specific and he include the need to cease dependence on traditional mass inspection for quality, establishing long-term relationship with suppliers, and drive out fear and let employees speak and express their ideas (Hewison, 2002). Similarly, although Crosby also presented 14 points for quality management, he never mentioned the specific defect of traditional approaches. For instance, although he is encouraging management to raise quality awareness and listen to personal concerns of all employees, he never mentioned anything about overcoming the inherent fear almost all employees have with top management. Moreover, although he asking management to determine the existing and potential problem in the organization, he never specifically asked them to get rid of traditional practices such as mass inspection and maintenance. The Deming’s 14 points include creating constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service; adopting a new philosophy because we are in a new economic age. Cease dependence on mass inspection to achieve quality and concentrate in improving processes. End the practice of awarding business based on price tag. Constant improvement of the system. Eliminate barriers and drive out fear among employees. Eliminate barriers between company departments. Remove numerical goals and quotas. Improve supervision and training. Institute educational and retraining programmes, and let everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation (Folsom & Boulware, 2004). These 14 points are the framework for Total Quality Management or TQM that generally focus on improvement of processes within a business system. TQM represents Deming’s belief that “quality product is one that meets customer’s needs” (Hoy, 2007, p.22) thus, management should aim toward quality. Moreover, TQM supports the idea that quality is only possible when management choose to focus on improving the system of production rather than blaming their workers for poor quality products (Hoy, 2007). The first of Deming’s 14 points for quality management is asking top management of a business organization to “create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service” (Hewison 2002, p.48). This means innovation, research and education, constant improvement of product and service and regular and proper maintenance of equipment including furniture and fixtures (Walton, 1986). The idea is to encourage organizations not to dwell too much on today’s problem but give adequate attention to their future as no company without future plans can survive. Apparently, organizations are being urged by Deming to plan and avoid lurching from crisis to crisis. Management should realize that they need to set their direction many years from now, as success do not come from fate but from plotting the course of action today (Williams & Thompson, 1998). The second reminds business owners that in the economic age, no one should live with traditional mistakes, poor quality materials and workmanship (Williams & Thompson, 1998). Deming knows the fact that most businesses are commonly used to the idea that a considerable part of their efforts will be defective thus they are always expecting some dissatisfied customers returning some of their products. Apparently, if the company behaved this way, it is only a matter of time until one competitor produce the same product without the defects and the company is on its way to self-destruction. In contrast, avoiding these mistakes can lead better customer service since once the organization achieved a certain level of excellence, it will remain for a long time. Three and four of Deming’s 14 points are actually associated with the first two since once excellence is achieved; mass inspection is no longer necessary. Moreover, if the process is well designed and perfected, it liberates the organization from exhaustive inspection just to ensure quality. Similarly, the organization will likely to keep quality suppliers and refrain from considering lower material cost over quality. The fifth point however, is associated with continuous quality improvement where management will continually find the problems, fix, and improve the system. This is Deming’s famous PDCA cycle or Plan-Do-Check-Act for quality management. It include working and improving design, quality of materials, maintenance, upgrading of machines, employee training and re-training, and quality supervision (Williams & Thompson, 1998). The Sixth and seventh points are asking management to institute training on the job while considering the variety of ways people learn. This means they must be knowledgeable with different methods of performing tasks and standardized training. Alongside with this training is instituting leadership in the organization to help employees improve their working abilities and learn ways to their job will less effort. However, this is not possible if the employees have fear (8th point) so management need to assure employees and remove the fear of reprisal, failure, expression, and change (Roussel & Swansburg, 2006). The rest of Deming’s points are mostly elimination of identified problems with traditional management approaches such as (point 9) miscommunication between various departments in the organization. Exhortations and needless slogans that seem to force employees into achieving unrealistic goals (point 10), quotas (point 11), defective equipments that deprived workers of pride of workmanship (point 12), lack of opportunity for improvement, advancement, and self-esteem (point 13), and lack of employee participation (point 14) (Deming, 2000). Deming’s contribution to the development of quality management system is unquestionably valuable in the sense that his idea brought many companies to success and surviving in the new economic age. Moreover, his approach seems practical and applicable to many organizations commercial or not because it closer than any other gurus in identifying the cultural issues involved in traditional management approaches (Sashkin & Kiser, 1993). Although some of his ideas were not original as some of them came from Crosby, Shewhart, Mayo, and Juran, which he further developed to build a framework for Total Quality Management, his work influenced more people in the business world than anybody else. His 14 points for quality management is specific and as mentioned earlier, it is more open, precise, and understandable. As evidenced by Japan’s success, Deming’s philosophy can make things happen if organizations are willing to change, become more competitive, and stay in business longer. 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