Total Quality Management Quiz

Total Quality Management

• Quality, from a consumer perspective, means meeting or exceeding expectations.
• Total quality is a business approach that improves products, services, people, processes, and environments to maximize competitiveness through continual improvement.
• Continual improvement is essential for company competitiveness.
• Key characteristics of total quality include: strategically based, customer focus, obsession with quality, scientific approach, long-term commitment, employee involvement and empowerment, teamwork, continual process improvement, bottom-up education and training, freedom through control, and unity of purpose.
• A strategically based total quality plan includes vision, mission, broad objectives, and activities.
• The customer is the driver in a total quality setting, and personnel should strive to continuously improve.
• A scientific approach involves the use of the scientific method in work structuring and decision making for problem solving.

Video Questions

• Aspects of quality that CFA might use to measure success
• How each aspect is measured
• If CFA's strategies are working.

Key Elements of Total Quality

• Strategically Based: Organizations must have a comprehensive strategic plan that includes vision, mission, broad objectives, and activities to accomplish objectives for a sustainable competitive advantage.
• Customer Focus: All personnel should consider how to serve internal and external customers better.
• Obsession with Quality: A standard for quality is that "good enough is never good enough."
• Scientific Approach: This includes skilled people, involvement, and empowerment, along with the scientific method for problem solving and work structure.

Long-Term Commitment

• Implementing management innovations after short-term seminars often fails.
• Teamwork: Internal competition, instead of concentrating on improving quality, uses energy on external competitiveness.
• Continual Improvement of Systems: Improvement is necessary for products and services.
• Continual Process Improvement: Improving processes within environments (systems) is crucial for quality improvement.

Education and Training

• Education and training are essential for continual improvement of people.

Freedom through Control

• Involving and empowering employees increases ownership and decision-making input.

Unity of Purpose

• Organizations need a shared goal (purpose) to effectively implement total quality.

Employee Involvement

• Employee involvement and empowerment is fundamental to decision making and improvement.

Peak Performance

• Total quality allows for all aspects of an organization to operate at peak levels.

Rationale of Total Quality Approach

• Total quality is a combination of related concepts. The goal is to create a comprehensive approach for global competitiveness.

Teams and Systems Thinking

• Juran's Three Basic Steps to Progress: achieve structured improvements, extensive training programs, and higher management commitment and leadership.

Juran's Ten Steps to Quality Improvement

• Awareness
• Improvement goals
• Organization
• Training
• Problem-solving projects
• Progress reports
• Recognition
• Communicating results
• Monitor (keep score)
• Build-in all improvements

The Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule)

• Focus on eliminating the 20% of problems that cause 80% of the problems.

The Juran Trilogy

• Quality Planning: Identifying customers and their needs, developing products and features, and executing plans.
• Quality Control: Assessing performance, comparing to goals, and closing gaps.
• Quality Improvement: Putting in infrastructure for yearly quality improvement and providing the necessary resources for success efforts.

Common Errors in Starting Quality Initiatives

• Senior management delegation and poor leadership.
• Team mania
• The deployment process
• A narrow dogmatic approach

Trends Affecting the Future of Quality Management

• Demanding global customers.
• Shifting customer expectations.
• Opposing economic pressures.
• New approaches to management (e.g. the need for quality and competitive prices).

Quality = Meeting or Exceeding Customer Expectations

• The customer is the ultimate driver of quality.

Quality Review Questions

• Quality encompasses people, processes, and environments. (True)
• Peak performance is crucial for global competition. (True)
• Juran focused on eliminating all areas of errors. (False)

Quality Planning, Control, and Improvement

• These are part of the Juran Trilogy.

Philip Crosby's Quality Vaccine

• Consists of determination, education, and implementation.

Quality and Global Competitiveness

• Organizations must continuously improve quality for global competitiveness.

Relationship Between Quality and Competitiveness

• The costs of poor quality (e.g., waste, rejects, retesting) affect competitiveness.
• Improving product or service features can lead to higher market share at a lower price.

Evolution of Rebuilding Efforts in Japan and Germany Post-WWII

• Japanese and German firms focused on world-class quality at reasonable prices.

Actions of U.S. Manufacturers During WWII Rebuilding

• US manufacturers were slow to address changing standards, which impacted global quality competitiveness.

Government and Education Impact on Competitiveness

• Government and family factors can affect competitiveness. Quality education is critical to competitiveness.

How Education Can Inhibit Competitiveness

• High-quality education systems lead to a higher-quality labor pool, leading to higher employee productivity and, consequently, competitiveness.

Comparison of Investment and Manufacturing Productivity

• The percentage of GDP spent on education, facilities, research, and development is higher in Japan than in the U.S.

Social Partner Concepts

• The concept of social partners (business, labor, and government) is a key factor in competitiveness.

High-Quality Education and Training

• Germany and Japan use structured apprenticeship programs and industry-based training. This is in contrast with the U.S., where more emphasis is placed on basic skills.

Employee Involvement and Empowerment

• Germany and Japan are known for employee involvement, where employees participate in management functions.

Leadership Levels

• Leadership should be at all levels of an organization, and leadership training is essential for managers and front-line employees.

Teamwork (Cooperation)

• Teams are crucial in planning, designing, introducing technologies, managing compensation levels, and management of work in organizations in Germany and Japan, compared to how work is managed in the U.S.

Strategic Management (Planning and Execution)

• The key strategies for gaining a sustainable competitive advantage are cost leadership, differentiation, and market-niche strategies.

Differentiation Strategy (Innovation)

• A company that uses a differentiation strategy is trying to create a unique product or service. It must do one or a combination of a few things, such as leading high-quality scientific research, highly skilled personnel in product development, good customer interfaces (sales/technical teams), and a strong reputation for high quality and innovation.

Cost Leadership Strategy (Operational Effectiveness)

• The goal of cost leadership is to obtain the lowest cost of operation in the industry.

Market-Niche Strategy (Customer Focus)

• Companies that use a market-niche approach are focused on a specific subset of customers. These companies normally have attributes such as a strong approach to customer feedback, good interfaces, and have a fast response.

Common Errors in Starting Quality Initiatives

• Senior management delegation
• Team mania
• Implementation process
• Narrow approach

Overview of Total Quality Tools

• Pareto Charts: Separating important issues from less important ones; 80/20 rule applies.
• Fishbone Diagrams: Analyzing causes of problems.
• Check Sheets: Collecting and visually presenting data.
• Histograms: Showing frequency of data ranges.
• Run Charts: Tracking data over a continuous period.