Human Resource Management

4. Quality Circle
A quality circle is a volunteer group composed of workers (or even students), usually under the leadership of their supervisor (or an elected team leader), who are trained to identify, analyze and solve work-related problems and present their solutions to management in order to improve the performance of the organization, and motivate and enrich the work of employees. When matured, true uality circles become self-managing, having gained the confidence of management. !uality circles are an alternative to the rigid concept of division of labor, where workers operate in a more narrow scope and compartmentalized functions. "ypical topics are improvingoccupational safety and health, improving product design, and improvement in the workplace and manufacturing processes. "he term quality circles was defined by #rofessor $aoru %shikawa in a &ournal entitled 'title needed( ')( and circulated throughout *apanese industry by *+,- in )./0. "he first company in *apan to introduce !uality 1ircles was the 2ippon Wireless and "elegraph 1ompany in )./3. 4y the end of that year there were 5/ companies registered with *+,- by ).67 the movement had grown to an estimated ) million 1ircles involving some )0 million *apanese workers. 1ontrary to some people8s opinion this movement had nothing whatever to do with 9r. -dwards 9eming or indeed 9r *uran and both were skeptical as to whether it could be made to work in the +,A or the West generally. !uality circles are typically more formal groups. "hey meet regularly on company time and are trained by competent persons (usually designated as facilitators) who may be personnel and industrial relations specialists trained in human factors and the basic skills of problem identification, information gathering and analysis, basic statistics, and solution generation. '3( !uality circles are generally free to select any topic they wish (other than those related to salary and terms and conditions of work, as there are other channels through which these issues are usually considered). '5(':( !uality circles have the advantage of continuity; the circle remains intact from pro&ect to pro&ect. (<or a comparison to !uality %mprovement "eams.

-mpirical studies of uality circles

%n a structures-fabrication and assembly plant in the south-eastern +,, some uality circles (!1s)were established by the management (management-initiated); whereas others were formed based on re uests of employees (self-initiated). 4ased on :6 !1s over a three-year period, research showed that management-initiated !1s have fewer members, solve more work-related !1 problems, and solve their problems much faster than self-initiated !1,. =owever, the effect of !1 initiation (management- vs. self-initiated) on problem-solving performance disappears after controlling !1 size. A high attendance of !1 meetings is related to lower number of pro&ects completed and slow speed of performance in management-initiated !1, '6( !1s with high upper-management support (high attendance of !1 meetings) solve significantly more problems than those without. '7( '.( Active !1s had lower rate of problem-solving failure, higher attendance rate at !1 meetings, and higher net savings of !1 pro&ects than inactive !1s.')0( !1 membership tends to decrease over the three-year period. >arger !1s have a better chance of survival than smaller !1s. A significant drop in !1 membership is a precursor of !1

failure. "he sudden decline in !1 membership represents the final and irreversible stage of the !18s demise.'))( Attributions of uality circles8 problem-solving failure vary across participants of !1s? @anagement, supporting staff, and !1 members.')3( "here are 6 uality control tools, namely? "he %shikawa or fishbone diagram - which shows hierarchies of causes contributing to a problem "he #areto 1hart - which analyses different causes by fre uency to illustrate the vital cause, #rocess @apping, 9ata gathering tools such as 1heck ,heets Araphical tools such as histograms, fre uency diagrams, spot charts and pie charts Bun 1harts and 1ontrol 1harts ,catter plots and 1orrelation Analysis <lowcharts

Student quality circles

,tudent uality circles work on the original philosophy of "otal !uality @anagement.')5( "he idea of ,!1s was presented by 1ity @ontessori ,chool (1@,) >ucknow %ndia at a conference in =ong $ong in Cctober )..:. %t was developed and mentored by duo engineers of %ndian Bailways #1 4ihari and ,wami 9as in association with #rincipal 9r. $amran of 1@, >ucknow %ndia. "hey were inspired and facilitated by *agdish Aandhi, the founder of 1@, after his visit to *apan where he learned about $aizen. "he world8s first ,!1 was made in 1@, >ucknow with then )5-year- old student, @s. ,ucheta 4ihari as its leader. 1@, conducts international conventions on student uality circles which it has repeated every 3 years to the present day. After seeing its utility, the visionary educationalists from many countries started these circles. "he World 1ouncil for "otal !uality D -Ecellence in -ducation was established in )... with its 1orporate Cffice in >ucknow and head office at ,ingapore. %t monitors and facilitates student uality circle activities to its member countries which are more than a dozen. ,!1s are considered to be a cocurricular activity. "hey have been established in %ndia, 4angladesh, #akistan, 2epal, ,ri >anka, "urkey, @auritius, %ran, +$ ($ingston +niversity and started in +niversity of >eicester), and +,A. %n 2epal, #rof. 9inesh #. 1hapagain has been promoting this innovative approach through !+-,"-2epal since ).... =e has written a book entitled FA Auide 4ook on ,tudents8 !uality 1ircle? An Approach to prepare "otal !uality #eopleF, which is considered a standard guide to promote ,!1s in academia for students8 personality development