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Solutions February 2006
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Total
Quality Management
Total
Quality Management (TQM) involves
all members of an organization
to improve processes, products,
services and the culture. TQM
consists of 14 points, a set of
management practices, which help
companies increase their quality
and productivity:
1.
Create constancy of purpose for
improving products and services.
2.
Adopt the new philosophy.
3.
Cease dependence on inspection
to achieve quality.
4.
End the practice of awarding business
on price alone; instead, minimize
total cost by working with a single
supplier.
5.
Constantly improve every process
for planning, production and service.
6.
Institute training on the job.
7.
Adopt and institute leadership.
8.
Drive out fear.
9.
Break down barriers between staff
areas.
10.
Eliminate slogans, exhortations
and targets for the workforce.
11.
Eliminate numerical quotas for
the workforce and numerical goals
for management.
12.
Remove barriers that rob people
of pride of workmanship, and eliminate
the annual rating or merit system.
13.
Institute a vigorous program of
education and self-improvement
for everyone.
14.
Put everybody in the company to
work accomplishing the transformation.
Source:
The American Society for Quality
Lean
Manufacturing
Lean
manufacturing is a system of techniques
and activities used to run a manufacturing
or service operation. The techniques
and activities differ according
to the application, but are based
on the principle of eliminating
non-value-adding activities and
waste from the business. Waste
includes overproduction, waiting
in queue, transportation, inventory,
and costs of scrap, rework and
inspection. Lean manufacturing
extends the concept through the
entire supply chain.
Source:
The American Society for Quality
ISO
9000 Series
The
International Standard Organization
(ISO) developed the ISO 9000 Series
standards to help companies effectively
document the elements they need
to maintain an efficient quality
system. The standards aren’t
specific to any one industry.
The standards underwent major
revision in 2000. They now include
ISO 9000:2000 (definitions), ISO
9001: 2000 (requirements) and
ISO 9004:2000 (continuous improvement).
The ISO 9000 Series is based on
eight quality management principles:
1.
Customer focus: Organizations
depend on their customers and
therefore should understand current
and future customer needs, should
meet customer requirements and
strive to exceed customer expectations.
2.
Leadership: Leaders establish
unity of purpose and direction
of the organization. They should
create and maintain the internal
environment in which people can
become fully involved in achieving
the organization’s objectives.
3.
Involvement of people: People
at all levels are the essence
of an organization and their full
involvement enables their abilities
to be used for the organization’s
benefit.
4.
Process approach: A desired result
is achieved more efficiently when
activities and related resources
are managed as a process.
5.
System approach to management:
Identifying, understanding and
managing interrelated processes
as a system contributes to the
organization’s effectiveness
and efficiency in achieving its
objectives.
6.
Continual improvement: Continual
improvement of the organization’s
overall performance should be
a permanent objective of the organization.
7.
Factual approach to decision-making:
Effective decisions are based
on the analysis of data and information.
8.
Mutually beneficial supplier relationships:
An organization and its suppliers
are interdependent and a mutually
beneficial relationship enhances
the ability of both to create
value.
Source:
ISO
Make
the System Work
Follow
these five tips to ensure your
quality approach is successful:
1.
Don’t be afraid to experiment.
Top executives in different companies
have different management styles.
A quality approach may work well
for one company, but may not in
another. “So you have to
find the one that works, but don’t
be afraid to try,” Jim Clark,
director of customer and business
services at McNaughton-Gunn Inc.,
a book manufacturing company in
Saline, Mich. “We started
with total quality management
(TQM), moved toward lean manufacturing,
and now use a combination of ISO
standards and lean.”
2.
It’s a business solution.
Instead of introducing a quality
management system as a program,
tell your employees that it’s
the way your company conducts
business. “You don’t
want them to think this of it
as a program of the month,”
Clark says. “We never described
it as TQM. We just said it’s
a business solution. That’s
the best approach.”
3.
Provide the best training.
When McNaughton-Gunn started implementing
the TQM system in 1989, Clark
hired a training coordinator.
“There’s a direct
correlation between how you educate
people and how they work in any
type of a system,” he says.
“We put tremendous emphasis
on education.” Make employees
understand their jobs as well
as how they fit into the entire
system, he says.
4.
Involve the top management.
“Leadership is everything
when it comes to driving quality,”
says Daniel Hanson, vice president
at Branch-Smith Printing, Fort
Worth, Texas. “If the top
management doesn’t buy into
it, people trying to do it at
the lower rungs will get terribly
frustrated. They won’t get
the time, resources and things
to execute it.”
5.
Build the right team. It’s
equally important to have the
right set of people who can lead
a quality management system in
the organization. “You need
people who are sold out to a system’s
value as opposed to people who
want to continue to manage the
things as they always have,”
Hanson says. “It requires
leaders to change.” Some
top people left Branch-Smith Printing
on their own while some were asked
to leave because they weren’t
a fit, he says. The company won
the coveted Malcolm Baldrige National
Quality Award in 2002.
Baldrige
Criteria for Performance Excellence
Congress
established the Baldrige award
program in 1987 to recognize U.S.
organizations for their achievements
in quality and performance, and
to raise awareness about the importance
of quality and performance excellence
as a competitive edge.
The
U.S. Commerce Department’s
National Institute of Standards
and Technology (NIST) administers
the awards, which are presented
annually in the manufacturing,
service company, small business,
education and health care categories.
An independent board of examiners
reviews applicants based on achievement
and improvement in seven areas,
known as the Baldrige Criteria
for Performance Excellence:
1.
Leadership:
Examines how senior executives
guide the organization and how
the organization addresses its
responsibilities to the public
and practices good citizenship.
2.
Strategic planning:
Examines how the organization
sets strategic directions and
how it determines key action plans.
3.
Customer and market focus:
Examines how the organization
determines requirements and expectations
of customers and markets; builds
relationships with customers;
and acquires, satisfies, and retains
customers.
4.
Measurement, analysis, and knowledge
management: Examines the management,
effective use, analysis, and improvement
of data and information to support
key organization processes and
the organization’s performance
management system.
5.
Human resource focus: Examines
how the organization enables its
workforce to develop its full
potential and how the workforce
is aligned with the organization’s
objectives.
6.
Process management: Examines
key aspects of the organization’s
process management, including
key product, service and organizational
processes for creating customer
and organizational value.
7.
Business results:
Examines the organization’s
performance and improvement in
its key business areas: customer
satisfaction, financial and marketplace
performance, human resources,
supplier and partner performance,
operational performance, and governance
and social responsibility. The
category also examines how the
organization performs relative
to competitors.
Source:
NIST
Quality
Management Approaches
Here
are two other quality management
principles that companies use:
Six
Sigma
Six
Sigma is a fact-based, data-driven
philosophy of quality improvement
that focuses on reducing variation
and waste to drive customer satisfaction
and bottom-line results. It means
no more than 3.4 defects per million
opportunities. There are several
definitions for Six Sigma, but
all share these common themes:
1.
Using teams that are assigned
well-defined projects with direct
impact on the organization’s
bottom line.
2.
Training employees in “statistical
thinking” and providing
key people with extensive training
in advanced statistics and project
management.
3.
Emphasizing the DMAIC (Define,
Measure, Analyze, Improve and
Control) approach to problem-solving.
4.
Offering a management environment
that supports these initiatives
as a business strategy.
Benchmarking
Benchmarking
is the search for best practices
that lead to superior performance.
The basic steps of benchmarking
are:
1.
Know your operation. Accurately
assess your strengths and weaknesses.
2.
Know your industry leaders or
competitors. Understand and compare
yourself to the best practices
in the industry and/or its leaders.
3.
Incorporate the best. Learn from
industry leaders and your competition.
If they are strong in given areas,
find out why and how they got
that way. Find best practices
wherever they exist and incorporate
them in your own operation.
4.
Gain superiority. Investigate
and install the best of the best
practices.
