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Quality Improvement

By Ed Bones

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Published: 07Nov2008
Word count: 597
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One doesn't have to be around for more than a decade or so to witness the apparent rise and fall of several management schemes (some say fads) intended to change the world, or at least the confined world of the operation in which you function. To start the sequence we had Quality Circles, supposedly to introduce participative management to organisations with a rigid management hierarchy, followed by Total Quality Management (TQM) that committed everyone to a process approach to quality improvement, and then Six Sigma, an expensive upgrade to TQM that relied on a massive training process with grades of operatives having allegiance to an eastern wrestling culture. Implementation of this latter scheme would require significant improvements just to pay for the 'training'.

Looking back over the years, the successful programs have been comparatively few, if we judge success by the benefits and the longevity of the program. Management has been told to 'do this and all your problems will be over'. Success, no matter how you measure it is yours for the asking, and we will show you how. Enter the consultant. Training in one form or the other was mandatory. Teams were the order of the day, with teams anything could happen, and probably did, but improvement - that was a different matter. If training input was anything to go by, improvement should have been automatic and continuous, but it wasn't.

A careful study of what was intended, and what was delivered, should lead to the conclusion that performance improvement was both possible and probable, but somehow it just didn't happen to the majority. Why is that so?

Over time I have reached the conclusion that each of these programs - Crosby called his a Process not a program, has the ingredients that would lead to a successful outcome, if some effort was made to understand what they were about. As I see it, the problem lies with two groups - business managers and the consultants they employed. Business managers expected something, but weren't sure what it was, while the consultants had a teaching role, and success for them was in transferring the lessons to the employee subjects. Only infrequently would the managers be willing participants in the training process. But what was being taught? Maybe the question should be what should have been taught? With hindsight, the problem is one of understanding. TQM is a philosophy that must be adapted to the task and people involved at the time. The techniques will therefore change to match the needs of the organisation, its technology and its staff. By seeing TQM as a set of techniques, more or less set in stone, the program managers, both consultants and corporate managers failed to establish the conditions for success in their programs. Those whose programs proved to be successful and long lasting have generally been found to have management teams that were serious about the objectives and the management of their programs, and who established ground-rules for the operation and achievement goals from the outset. The classic example of this is the Motorola Company. Under the guidance and direction of an informed management, the company moved progressively though a series of improvement objectives, eventually establishing a Six Sigma objective for performance. Today six sigma has been captured as a program name with objectives totally remote from the original statistical 'and for Motorola very real - performance objective.

My conclusion therefore is that programs fail because the philosophy has been interpreted as a set of rules, and rules unlike philosophy require a consistency of performance regardless of human cultural and technological differences.

Ed Bones formed Meon Consulting to assist clients with managing their businesses in a manner compliant with ISO 9001/14001. Ed had earlier held a number of senior positions with big companies in the UK, Europe and the USA. He has written and delivered lectures on quality improvement and TQM. http://www.rent-an-auditor.co.uk. Please visit http://www.rent-an-auditor.co.uk/contactus.html to obtain your FREE copy of the Presentation.

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