Unit 2 Quality Guru and their Contribution & kaizen Concept & system

Lecture Guide

Gurus of Total Quality Management

In order to fully understand the TQM movement, there are philosophies of notable
individuals who have shaped the evolution of TQM. Their qualitative and quantitative
contributions have been critical in the emergence and development of contemporary
knowledge regarding quality. Their common thrust is towards the concept of continuous
improvement of every output, whether a product or service by removing unwanted
variation and improving underlying work processes. Their philosophies and teachings have
contributed to the knowledge and understanding of quality.

DR. WILLIAM EDWARDS DEMING (14th October, 1900- 20th December 1993)
Dr. William Edwards Deming is often referred to as the "Father of Quality Control." Deming
is best known for initiating a transformation in the Japanese manufacturing sector in the
after effects of World War II, which enabled it to become a big player in the world market.
The Deming Prize, the highest award for quality .in Japan, is named in his honor. He is also
known for his 14 points, for the Deming Chain Reaction and for the Theory of Profound
Knowledge. He also modified the Shewhart PDSA (plan, do, study, act) cycle to what is now
referred to as Deming Cycle (plan, do, check, act). Deming does not define quality in a
distinct phrase. He said that only the customer can define the quality of any product or
service. Quality is a relative term that will adjust in meaning based on the customer's
needs. Deming approach to TQM is mainly concentrated on the creation of an
organizational system that is based on cooperation and learning for facilitating the
implementation of process management practices, which, in turn, leads to continuous
improvement of processes, products, and services as well as to employee fulfillment, both
of which are critical to customer satisfaction, and ultimately, to firm survival. Deming
stressed the responsibilities of top management to be the leader in changing processes and
systems. He said that leadership plays an important role in ascertaining the success of
quality management. It is the top management's responsibility to create and communicate
a vision to move the firm toward continuous improvement. Top management is in charge
for most quality problems. Top management should give employees clear standards for
what is considered acceptable work, and provide the methods to achieve it. These methods
include an appropriate working environment.
Deming also emphasized the importance of identification and measurement of customer
requirements, creation of supplier partnership, use of functional teams to identify and
solve quality problems, enhancement of employee skills, participation of employees, and
pursuit of continuous improvement. He is cautious in defining quality and characterizes the
difficulty of achieving it. "The difficulty in defining quality is to translate future needs of the
user into measurable characteristics by using statistical approach, so that a product can be
designed and turned out to
give satisfaction at a price that the user will have to pay".
Deming's 14 Point Methodology

1. Constancy of purpose - Create firmness of purpose for continual improvement

of products and service and distribute resources to accommodate long term needs rather
than short-term profitability with a plan to become competitive, stay in business and
provide jobs.
2. The new philosophy - Espouse the new philosophy for one can no longer allow
delays, mistakes and faulty workmanship. Transformation of the Western
management style is necessary to bring to an end the continued decline in the industry.

3. Cease dependence on inspection - Remove the need for mass inspection as a

technique to attain quality by building quality into the product in the first
place. Insist statistical evidence of built-in quality in both manufacturing and purchasing
functions.
4. End lowest tender contracts - Reduce total cost. Many companies and
organizations grant contracts to the lowest bidder as long as they meet certain
requirements. However, low bids do not promise quality. Unless the quality
. aspect is carefully thought of, the effective price per unit that a company
pays its vendors may be understated and, in some cases, indefinite. Deming
advised businesses to utilize single-sourcing for long-term relationships with
a few suppliers leading to loyalty and opportunities for shared improvement.

Using several suppliers has been long acceptable for reasons like providing protection
against strikes or natural disasters or making the suppliers compete against each other on
cost. However, this approach has overlooked hidden costs like increased travel to visit
suppliers, loss of volume discounts, increased set-up charges resulting in higher unit costs,
and increased inventory and administrative expenses. In addition, always changing
suppliers only on the base of price increases the deviation in the material supplied to
production, since each supplier's process is different.

5. Improve every process - Management's job is to constantly make better the system
with contribution from workers and management. Deming was a follower of Walter A.
Shewhart, the developer of control charts and the continuous cycle of process
improvement known as the Shewhart cycle. Deming popularized the Shewhart Cycle as the
Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) or Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle. Therefore, it is also often
referred to as the Deming cycle. In the planning stage, chances for improvement are
acknowledged and operationally defined. The theory and course of action developed in the
earlier stage is tested in the doing stage, on a small range through performing trial runs in a
laboratory or prototype setting. The results of the testing phase are examined in the
check/study stage using statistical methods. In the action stage, a decision is prepared
about the implementation of the proposed plan. If the results were encouraging in the pilot
stage, then the plan will be implemented. Or else alternative plans are developed. After
complete scale implementation, customer and process feedback will once more be taken
and the process of continuous improvement continues.

6. Institute training on the job - Introduce up to date methods of training on the

job, incorporating management to make greatest use of all employees. Fresh skills are
essential to sustain changes in materials, methods, product design, machinery, techniques
and service.

7. Institute leadership - Espouse and introduce leadership, aimed at helping people

carry out a better job. The responsibility of managers and supervisors must be altered to
highlight on quality rather than quantity. This will automatically increase productivity. The
management has to make sure that urgent action is taken on reports of inherited defects,
maintenance requirements, poor tools, fussy operational definitions and other conditions
damaging to quality.

8. Drive out fear -Build a fear-free environment where everyone can contribute and
work effectively. There is a financial loss related with fear in an organization. Employees
strive to satisfy their superiors because they believe that they might lose their jobs. They
are cautious to ask questions about their jobs, production methods, and process
parameters. If a supervisor or manager reflects the feeling that asking such questions is a
squander of time, then employees will be more focused about satisfying their supervisors
than meeting long-term goals of the organization. For that reason, creating an environment
of trust is a significant task of management.

9. Break down barriers - People should work cooperatively with reciprocal trust, respect,
and appreciation for the needs of others in their work. Internal and external organizational
barriers hamper the flow of information, put off entities from perceiving organizational
goals, and encourage the quest of subunit goals that are not essentially align with the
organizational goals. Barriers between organizational levels and departments are internal
barriers. External barriers are between the company and its suppliers, customers,
investors, and community. Barriers can be removed using better communication, cross-
functional teams, and changing attitudes and cultures.
10. Eliminate exhortations - Do away with use of slogans, posters and exhortations
demanding zero defects and new level of productivity from the workforce, with no
commensurate methods provided. Such exhortations only form adversarial relationships.
The volume of the cases of low quality and low productivity belong to the system; thus, lie
outside the power of the workforce.
11. Eliminate arbitrary numerical targets Remove work standards that stipulate numerical
quotas for the workforce and the numerical goals for people in the management. Replace
these with aids and useful supervision and employ statistical methods for continual
improvement of quality and productivity.
12. Permit pride of workmanship - Eliminate the barriers that steal from hourly workers
and people in the management of their rights to pride of workmanship. This implies the
eradication of the annual merit rating and management by objectives. Again, the
responsibility of managers, supervisors and foremen must be changed from absolute
numbers of quality.
13. Encourage education - Deming's philosophy is founded on long-term, continuous
process improvement that cannot be carried out without properly trained and motivated
employees. This point tackles the need for ongoing and continuous education and self-
improvement for the whole organization. This educational investment serves the following
objectives:
a. it leads to better motivated employees;
b. it communicates the company goals to the employees;
c. it keeps the employees up-to-date on the latest techniques and supports teamwork;
d. training and retraining offer a mechanism to ensure enough performance
as the job responsibilities change; and
e. through increasing job loyalty, it lessens the number of people who "job-hop.

14. Top management's commitment - A clearly defined commitment by the top

management to constantly improve quality and productivity and strengthening of
obligations to put into practice all these principles is always advantageous to the workforce
and the organization. Form a structure in the top management whose main task will be to
push these 13 points continually and take action in order to achieve the change.

Deming's 7 Deadly Diseases

Deming's seven deadly diseases recap the factors that he believes can slow down the
transformation that the fourteen points can bring about. The seven deadly diseases are:
1. Lack of constancy of purpose to plan products and services that have a market
sufficient to keep the company in business and provide jobs.
2. Stress on short-term profit; short-term thinking that is driven by a fear of
unfriendly takeover attempts and pressure from bankers and shareholders to
generate dividends.
3. Personal review systems for managers and management by objectives with no
methods or resources provided to achieve objectives; includes performance evaluations,
merit rating, and annual appraisals.
4. Job-hopping by managers.
5. Using only evident data and information in decision making with little or no
consideration given to what is unknown or cannot be known.
6.Extreme medical costs.
7. Too much costs of liability driven up by lawyers who work on contingency
fees.
PHILIP CROSBY (18th June, 1926 -18th August, 2001)

Philip Crosby came to national prominence with the publication of his book Quality is Free in
1979. He established the absolutes of quality management, which states that the only
performance standard is zero defects and the basic elements of improvement.
While Crosby, like Deming and Juran stresses on the importance of the management's
commitment and error-cause removal, some aspects of Crosby's approach to quality are quite
different from Deming's. Zero defects, the heart to Crosby's philosophy, was censured by
Deming as being directed at the wrong people and forming worker frustration and bitterness.
Goal setting, vital to Crosby's theory was also scorned for leading to unhelpful accomplishment.
The truth is that Deming was most likely reacting to the wrong use of slogans and goals. Deming
may not have censured them if they had always been used correctly within the Crosby system.
The essence of Crosby's teachings is contained in what he calls the "four
absolutes of quality."
1. The definition - Quality is conformance to requirements, not goodness.
2. The system - Prevention, not appraisal.
3. The performance standard - Zero defects.
4. The measurement - The price of non-conformance to requirements, not
quality circles.
Crosby defines quality as a means "conformance to requirements". Quality
must be defined in quantifiable and clearly stated terms to aid the organization
take action based on feasible targets, rather than experience, or opinions. For
Crosby, quality is either present or not present. There is no such thing as varying levels of
quality. Management must assess quality by continually tracking the cost of doing things
erroneously. Crosby calls this as the "price of nonconformance."
The requirements of a product need to be defined and specified clearly so that they are correctly
known. He emphasized that higher quality lessens costs and increases profits. Quality is
measured by the quality cost. His categories of quality costs are identical to those of Juran which
are prevention, appraisal and failure. This needs an accent on prevention rather than after-the-
fact inspection. Crosby also presents the quality management maturity grid which contains five
stages which are uncertainty, awakening, enlightenment, wisdom, and certainty. These stages can
be employed to appraise progress in management understanding and attitude, the standing of
quality in the organization, problem treatment, cost of quality as a fraction of sales, quality
improvement actions.
Based on these premises, he developed a 14-step methodology.
1. Management commitment - To make clear the management's position on quality.
2. Quality improvement team - To carry out the quality improvement program.
3. Quality measurement - To exhibit existing and possible non-conformance
problems in the way that permits objective evaluation and remedial action.
4. Cost of quality - To identify the components of the cost of quality, and give
details on its application as a management tool.
5. Quality awareness - To give a method of elevating individual concern among
the personnel in the company towards the conformance of the product and
service, and the status of the company on, the subject of quality.
6. Corrective action - To offer a systematic method of deciding the problems
recognized through actions taken in the past.
7. Zero defects planning - To study the different activities that must be performed as
groundwork for officially initiating the zero defects program.
8. Supervisor training - To name the type of training that supervisors require to
energetically perform their roles with regard to the quality improvement
program.
9. Zero defects day - To produce an event that will allow all employee appreciate, through a
personal experience, that there has been change.
10.Goal. setting - To twist promises and commitments into action by persuading
individuals to set up improvement goals for themselves and their groups.
11. Error-cause removal - To offer individual employees a way of communicating to the
management, the situations that make it not easy for employees to fulfill the promise to
improve.
12. Recognition - To be thankful for those who contribute.
1. Quality control must be essential part of management13. Quality councils - To bring
collectively professionals in the realm of quality for planned communication on a
customary basis with the workforce and management alike.
14. Do it over again - To accentuate that the quality improvement program never ends.
Crosby claims "mistakes are caused by two factors: lack of knowledge and lack of
attention". Education and training can eradicate the first cause, and a personal commitment
to excellence (zero defects) and attention to detail will cure the second.

DR. JOSEPH MOSES JURAN (24thDecember, 1904 -28th February, 2008)

Dr. Joseph Juran assisted the Japanese in their reconstruction processes after World War II.
Juran first became well-known in the US as the editor of the Quality Control Handbook
(1951) and alter for his paper introducing the quality trilogies which are quality planning,
quality control and quality improvement.
1. Quality planning - This involves identifying the customers' needs and expectations,
proposing products and services, setting goals, giving training, implementation of projects,
reporting, recognizing, and communicating outcome and improvements in systems.

2. Quality control - This concerns creating standards, naming measurements and methods
thereof, contrasting results with actual standards and construing the differences and taking
action on differences.

3. Quality improvement - This is about the use of structured annual improvements projects
and plans, need of improvement, organizing to guide the projects, detecting the causes,
giving and verifying remedies and establishing control to keep up gains made.

Questioning which aspect of the quality trilogy is most vital is like asking "Which leg of a
stool is the most important?" The stool cannot function effectively without all three. Juran
defined quality as "fitness for use" and also developed the idea of cost of quality. While
Deming's approach is radical in nature, Juran's approach is more evolutionary. For Deming
statistics is the language of business while Juran says that money is the language of
business and quality efforts must be communicated to the management in their language.
Juran concurs with Deming that more than 80% of defects are caused by the system rather
than the workers and lists motivation of workers as a solution to quality problems.

Juran propounded the following message on quality:

1. Quality control must be essential part of management
2. Quality is no mistake
3. Quality must be planned
4. There are no shortcuts to quality
5. Make use of problems as sources of improvement

Juran's formula consists of:

1. Create an awareness about the need and propose an opportunity for improvement
2. Set goals for improvements
3. Systematize paths to attain the goals (begin a quality council, identify
problems, choose projects, assign teams, delegate facilitators and so on)
4. Give training
5. Do projects to resolve problems
6. Inform progress
7. Provide recognition
8. Communicate outcome
9. Keep score
10. Uphold thrust by making yearly improvements component of the regular systems and
processes of the company

In his view, the approach to managing for quality consists of:

1. The irregular problem is detected and acted upon by the process of quality control;
2. The constant problem needs a special process, namely, quality improvement;
3. Such constant problems are traceable to a poor-quality planning process.
Like Deming, Juran believes most quality problems are due to management, not employees.
He also states that the distinction between constant and irregular problems is essential
because there are two different approaches to handling the problems. Constant problems
require the principle of "breakthrough", while irregular problems require the principle of
"control".
He further elaborates the sequence of activities required for "breakthrough" and "control".
Breakthrough activities or quality improvement include:
1. Breakthrough in attitudes - persuading those responsible that a change in quality level is
advantageous and practical;

2. Discovery of the vital few projects - determining which quality problem areas are
essential;
3. Organizing for breakthrough in knowledge - defining the organizational system for
attaining the knowledge for accomplishing a breakthrough;

4. Formation of a steering arm - defining and staffing a system for directing

the study for quality improvement;
5. Formation of an investigative arm - defining and staffing a system for executing the
technical inquiry;

6. Diagnosis - collecting and examining the facts necessary and proposing the action
desirable;
7. Breakthrough in cultural pattern - determining the effect of an anticipated change on the
people involved and looking for ways to rise above opposition to change;
8. Breakthrough in performance - getting agreement to take action;
9. Transition to the new level - implement the change.

"Control" activities include:

1. Choosing the control subject which is choosing what is intended to regulate;

2. Choosing a unit of measure;
3. Setting a goal for the control subject;
4. Creating a sensor which can measure the control subject in terms of the unit of measure;
5. Measuring real performance;
6. Interpreting the difference between actual performance and the goal;
7. Taking action (if any) on the difference.

"Planning" activities include:

1. Establish the quality goal

2. Identify customers
3. Discover customer needs
4. Develop product features
5. Develop process features
6. Establish process controls and transfer to operations

DR. WALTER ANDREW SHEWHART (18th March, 1891 – llthMarch,1967)

Dr. Walter Shewhart the "Grandfather of Quality Control" was a giant among giants in the
quality movement during the first half of the 20th century. His mentoring of other
engineers at Western Electric and his groundbreaking work with control charts arguably
led a quality revolution and launched the quality profession.
Walter Andrew Shewhart was born to Anton and Esta Barney Shewhart on March 18, 1891,
in New Canton, IL. Shewhart died on March 11, 1967, in Troy Hills, New Jersey. He received
from the University of Illinois both bachelor's and master's degrees. In 1914, he married
Edna Hart and moved to California where he earned his doctoral degree in physics while
studying as a Whiting Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1917.

He had short stints of teaching at University of Illinois, University of California at Berkeley,

and La Crosse State Teachers College (renamed Wisconsin State University), but his
academic career was brief.
In 1918, Shewhart joined the inspection engineering department of the Western Electric
Co. in Hawthorne, IL. Western Electric manufactured telephone hardware for Bell
Telephone Co. Although no one could have realized it at the time, Shewhart would alter the
course of industrial history.
Shewhart was part of a group of people who were all destined to become famous in their
time. This group included Harold Dodge and Harry Romig, known for their work on
product sampling plans. George D. Edwards, who became the first president of the
American Society for Quality Control (renamed American Society for Quality) in 1997, was
Shewhart's supervisor.
Shewhart mentored several during his tenure, including Joseph M. Juran. During the
summers of 1925 and 1926, W. Edwards Deming worked as an intern at the Hawthorne, IL,
plant where he became interested in Shewhart's work.
By 1924, Shewhart determined the problem of variability in terms of assignable cause and
chance cause (Deming named this as common cause). On May 16, 1924, Shewhart prepared
a message of less than one page in length and forwarded it to his manager, George
Edwards. About 1/3 of the page was devoted to a plain diagram that people would today
recognize as a control chart. This memorandum set forth the essential principles and
considerations that became known as process quality control.
Shewhart's principle was that bringing a process into a state of statistical control would
permit the distinction between assignable (such as unskilled workers or equipment not
being calibrated) and chance cause variations. Through keeping the process in control, it
would be likely to forecast future output and to cheaply manage processes. This was the
birth of the modern scientific study of process control.
Shewhart developed what came to be known as the Shewhart cycle: Plan-
Do-Study-Act (PDSA) or Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) to manage the effects of variations. He
stressed that eliminating variability improved quality. His work created the foundation for
statistical process control measures used today.

DR. ARMAND FEIGENBAUM (Born in 1922)

Armand Feigenbaum is given the credit to the formation of the idea of total quality control
in his book Quality Control-Principles, Practice and Administration (1961) and in his article
Total Quality Control (1956). The Japanese version of this concept is called Company-wide
Quality Control, while it is termed Total Quality Management (TQM) in the United States
and elsewhere. He was also the first to classify quality costs as costs of prevention,
appraisal and internal and external failures. Feigenbaum philosophy is summed up in his
Three Steps to Quality which has been described as follows:
1. Quality leadership - This is apparent when the management stresses on sound planning
rather than reacting to failures. The management must maintain a constant focus and lead
the quality effort.

2. Modern quality technology - The traditional quality development processes cannot

resolve 80%-90% of quality problems. This task involves integration of office staff,
engineers as well as the shop-floor workers who continually assess and apply latest
techniques to satisfy customers in the future.

3. Organizational commitment - Continuous training and motivation of the whole

workforce as well as a combination of quality in business planning stage indicates the
significance of quality and offers the means for including it in all respects of the
organization's activities.

Feigenbaum 10 points on TQM include:

1. Quality is consciousness programmed not only a technical function.

2. Quality is not what an engineer or marketer says but it is that what the
customer speaks of.
3. Quality and cost are a sum, not differences.
4. Quality must be organized to identify everybody's job in the organization
5. Quality is a technique of managing an organization. Good management
means continuous stress on the quality.
6. The quality improvement highlighting must take place all through all activities of the
organization.
7. Quality is realized through assistance and contribution of each and every
person related to the organization. It is also an ethic.
8. Continuous quality improvement needs extensive range of new and existing quality
technology of information applications.
9. Total quality program approach leads to productivity and is most effective and less
capital intensive.
10. Quality comes, if it is clear, customer oriented, effective and structured.

Feigenbaum defines quality as the "total composite product and service characteristics of
marketing, engineering, manufacture and maintenance through which the product and
service in use will meet the expectations of the customer". He states that total quality
management covers the complete scope of the product and service "life cycle" from product
conception through production and customer service. The quality chain, he argues, begins
with the recognition of all customers' requirements and ends only when the product
delivered or service is rendered to the customer who stays satisfied. Thus, all functional
activities, such as marketing, design, engineering, purchasing, manufacturing, inspection,
shipping, accounting, installation, and service, and the rests, are involved in and influence
the attainment of quality. Effective total quality control needs, therefore, a high degree of
functional integration. Furthermore, it guides the synchronized actions of people, machines
and information to attain quality goals. He highlights a system approach to quality.
The stress is on the prevention of poor quality rather than detecting it after the event. He
argues that quality is an integral part of the day-to-day work of the line, staff and
operatives of an organization. It cannot be effectively separated from other activities
undertaken by employees and any attempt to do so more would than likely result in
substandard quality. He, like most other gurus, considers effective staff training and
education to be an essential component of TQM. He states that education and training
should address the three vital areas of quality attitudes, quality knowledge, and quality
skills.
One of the more well-known concepts developed by Feigenbaum was that of the "hidden
plant". He maintained that within every company or factory a proportion of the capacity
was wasted by not getting it right first time.
Quality control underlining that human relation was a fundamental issue in quality control
activities, and such things as statistics and preventive measures were only a fraction of the
whole equation.
Quality is what fits the customer at the right price for both the provider and customer and a
common-sense approach to quality standards, conformance, corrective actions, and
planning for improvement is the control necessary to achieve that quality. Through
inspiring and pushing everybody in an organization to realize their responsibilities and
potential effects on the quality of a product or service.

PROF. KAORU ISHIKAWA (13th July, 1915 —16th April, 1989)

Prof. Kaoru Ishikawa is the "Father of Quality Circles" for his role in launching Japan's
quality movement in 1960s. He is recognized with developing the idea of company-wide
quality control in Japan. He established the use of quality circles and championed the use of
quality tools to know the root causes of problems. He developed one of those tools, the
cause-and-effect diagram, which is also known as the Ishikawa diagram or the fishbone
diagram.

For Ishikawa quality is the "development, design, production and service of a product that
is most efficient, most helpful, and constantly acceptable to the consumer". He argues that
quality control extends further than the product and includes after-sales service, the
quality of management, the quality of individuals and the company itself. He advocates
employee contribution as the input to the successful implementation of TQM. Quality
circles, he believes, are an essential medium to achieve this. In his work, like all other
gurus, he emphasizes the value of education. He states that quality starts and culminates
with education. In his book "What is Total Quality Control?" Ishikawa said that the seven
basic tools were "indispensable for quality control". These tools are:
1. Process flow chart
2. Check sheet
3. Histogram
4. Pareto chart
5. Cause - effect diagram (Ishikawa diagram)
6. Scatter diagram
7. Control chart
Ishikawa believed that with these tools, managers and staff could deal with and solve the
quality problems facing them. Ishikawa was the first quality guru to accentuate the
importance of the internal customer, the next person in the production process. Ishikawa
emphasized on quality as a way of management. He influenced the development of
participative, bottom-up view of quality which became the trademark of the Japanese
approach to quality management. Some of the key elements are:
1. Quality starts with education and culminates with education.
2. The first step in quality is to know the customers' requirements.
3. The perfect state of quality control happens when inspection is no longer compulsory.
4. Take out the root cause, not the symptoms.
5. Quality control is the duty of all workers and all divisions.
6. Do not mistake means with the objectives.
7. Set quality first and set your sights on long-term profits.
8. Market is the entry and way out of quality.

9. Top management must not demonstrate annoyance when facts are

presented by subordinates.
10. 99% of problems in a company can be resolved with easy tools for analysis
and problem-solving
11. Data without dispersion information (variability) are fake data.

Ishikawa's concept of total quality control contains six fundamental principles:

1. Quality first - not short-term profits first.
2. Customer orientation - not producer orientation.
3. The next, step is your customer - breaking down the fence of sectionalism.
4. Using facts and data to make presentations - use of statistical methods
5. Reverence for humanity as a management philosophy, full participatory management.
6. Cross - functional management.

GENICHI TAGUCHI (1st January, 1924 -2nd June, 2012)

Dr. Taguchi was born in Japan and completed his graduation in the subject of Mechanical
Engineering and obtained Ph.D. in the year 1962. He is a Japanese quality expert known for
his work in the area of product design. He estimated that 80% of all defective items are
caused by poor product design. Taguchi stressed that companies needed to center their
quality efforts on the design stage, as it was much less expensive and easier to make
changes during this stage later in the production process.
Taguchi underlines an engineering approach to quality. Taguchi defines quality as the "loss
imparted to the society from the time a product is shipped". Examples of loss include
failure to reach ideal performance, failure to meet the customer's requirements,
breakdowns, and harmful side-effects caused by products. This simply means that the
smaller the loss, the more desirable the product. The key elements of Taguchi's quality
concepts are briefly stated below:
1. Quality improvement should focus on reducing the variation of the product's
key performance characteristics about their target values.
2. The loss suffered by a customer due to a product's performance variation is often just
about proportional to the square of the deviation of the performance characteristics from
its target value.
3. The ultimate quality and cost of manufactured products are determined to a
great extent by the engineering design of the product and the manufacturing process.
4. A product's or process's performance variation can be lessened by exploiting the non-
linear effects of the product or process parameters on the performance characteristics.
5. Statistically planned experiments can be used to name the settings of product/ process
parameters that reduce performance variation.
Taguchi is known for applying a concept called design of experiments to product design.
This method is an engineering approach that focuses on developing robust design that
enables products to perform under varying conditions. He believed that it was more
difficult to control the environmental conditions. Taguchi's approach focuses on a
statistical method that zeros in rapidly on the variations in a product that distinguish the
bad parts from the good. He advocated that all factors that can hamper uniformity between
products and their long-term stable performance must be studied, and safeguards must be
built in the product design stage itself. He called it the concept of robust design. Robust
design results in a product that can perforin over a wide range of conditions.

Taguchi's eight-point approach

1. Determine the main functions, side effects and loss modes.

2. Determine the noise factors and the testing conditions for evaluating failure of quality.
3. Determine the quality characteristics to be observed and the objective functions to be
optimized.
4. Determine the control factors and their alternate levels.
5. Blueprint the matrix requirements and define the data analysis procedure.
6. Carry out the matrix.
7. Examine the data, identify optimum levels for the control factors and foresee
performance under these levels.
8. Perform the confirmation experiment and prepare future actions.

DR. SHINGO SHIGEO

Dr. Shingo Shigeo is the greatest contributor to modern manufacturing practices. While his
name has modest recognition in the western hemisphere, his teaching! and principles have
formed the backbone of efficient engineering practices. In applying his experience and
expertise in the field of industrial engineering, Dr. Shigeo was able to give a better way of
life for both the operators and the companies. His policies have earned reputation through
outcome in manufacturing among the companies that have implemented these teachings.
In view of his contributions, Utah State University founded the Shingo prize for excellence
in manufacturing in 1988. This prize encourages world-class manufacturing and
distinguishes companies that accomplish superior customer satisfaction and business
results, and has been matched up to a Noble Prize for manufacturing.
Dr. Shigeo was one of the greatest influences on Japanese quality control and his
contributions to quality improvement transformed the Japanese industrial sector and
accordingly influenced the industries in the west. Dr. Shingo Shigeo's teachings can be
classified into the three concepts listed as follows:

1. Just In Time (JIT) - The JIT manufacturing concept was originated in part due to the
contribution of Dr. Shingo Shigeo and Taichii Ohno of Toyota Motor Corporation from 1949
to 1975. During this period Dr. Shigeo took responsibility of industrial engineering and
factory improvement training at Toyota Motor Corporation. This is commonly referred to
as JIT or the Toyota Production System. The essential element in developing JIT was the
use of the Ford System along with the consciousness that factory workers had more to
contribute than just muscle power. JIT is about supplying customers with what they want
when they want it. The aim of JIT is to diminish inventories by producing only what is
necessary when it is necessary. Orders are "pulled" through the system when prompted by
customer orders, not pushed through the system in order to attain economies of scale with
the production of larger batches.

2. Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED) - It is a system for speedy changeovers

between products. The target is to make simpler materials, machinery, processes and skills
to significantly decrease changeover times from hours to minutes. As a consequence,
products could be produced in small batches or even single units with negligible
disturbance.

3. Zero Quality Control (ZQC) - The ZQC concepts are based on the theoretically ideal
scenario. However, quality improvement can be made using these principles and concepts.
Dr. Shigeo' basic idea was to implement error-proofing devices in the assembly line to
abolish the likelihood of flawed operations. In addition, his accent was on targeting the root
cause of defect whenever a defect ' took place, thereby almost abolishing the requirement
for statistical process control. The famous equation in the spirit of Zero Quality Control
Concepts formulated by the Japanese quality guru, Dr. Shigeo Shingo is:

Poka-Yoke Techniques to Correct Defects + Source Inspection to Prevent Defects = Zero

Quality Control

This technique by Dr. Shigeo makes use of the following engineering principles:
a. 100% inspections done at the starting place instead of sampling inspections

b. Instant feedback from consecutive quality checks and self-checks

c. Poka-yoke designed manufacturing devices-Poka yoke relates to stopping processes as

soon as a defect happens, searching the defect source and avoiding it from occurring once
more so that there will be reduced reliance on statistical quality inspections and the
production process will have zero defects. For example, Binney and Smith, maker of
Crayola Crayons, uses light sensors to verify if each crayon is present in each box of crayons
they produce. If a crayon is missing, the machines will discontinue automatically. Producing
complete boxes of crayons right the first time is the preferred outcome.
Using his key teachings, many modern-day manufacturing companies have realized
substantial profits.

MASAKI IMAI

Masaki Imai is the Founder and President of Kaizen Institute who threw the word "Kaizen".
Kaizen refers to continuous or on-going improvement" in Japanese. Kaizen was originally
introduced to the West by Masaki Imai in his book Kaizen: The Key to Japan's Competitive
Success in 1986. Today Kaizen is acknowledged globally as an essential pillar of an
organization's long-term competitive strategy. Kaizen is continuous improvement that is
based on certain guiding principles:

1. Good processes carry good results

2. Go see for yourself to grab the present situation
3. Speak with data, direct by facts
4. Take action to contain and remedy root causes of problems
5. Work as a team
6. Kaizen is everyone's business
Kaizen is an inseparable aspect of TQM which is mandatory in all activities of the
organization. Kaizen has to essentially carry out with small, step-by-step continuous
improvement. Smaller and continuous improvements are more realizable, predictable,
controllable, and acceptable. Kaizen philosophy believes that people at all levels, together
with the lowermost levels in the organizational hierarchy, can add to improvements. This
is possible because Kaizen asks for
simply little improvements.
In order to carry on in an increasingly competitive world, top management must adopt a
just-in-time (JIT) approach and drive change down the hierarchy without yielding to
opposition. The key ideas associated with JIT were developed at the Toyota Motor
Company under the leadership of founder Eiji Toyoto whose father had founded the
successful Toyota Spinning and weaving company. JIT is the management philosophy that
endeavors to get rid of sources of manufacturing waste and producing the right part in the
right place at the right time.

KAIZEN: CONCEPTS AND SYSTEMS

Kaizen is a philosophy that calls for people and their organizations to experience ongoing
improvement at every level. Through focusing on small, incremental change rather than
dramatic innovation, Kaizen seeks to construct effective and efficient processes and quality
outputs.
Kaizen at the workplace means continuing improvement involving everyone, managers and
workers alike. The Kaizen business strategy involves everyone in an organization working
together to make improvements without large capital investments.

KAIZEN CONCEPTS
Kaizen is a Japanese word meaning continuous improvement. It is made up of two
characters which are "kai", meaning "change," and "zen," which meaning "good." It is used
to describe a company culture where everyone, from the CEO to the front desk clerk,
regularly evaluates his work and thinks of ways to improve it. The concept is that small
steps on a customary basis will lead to large improvements in due course. Kaizen entails
relatively little expense.
Kaizen originated in Japan as a result of World War II. Ironically, it evolved in part from
American business leaders like Dr. W. Edwards Deming who came to help restore the
country. It was first introduced by a 1951 training film created
by the American Economic and Scientific Section (ESS), although Dr. Deming is largely
credited for instituting the principles of Kaizen in Japan. Kaizen's
elimination of waste through the maintenance and improvement of processes
became fundamental to Japanese management philosophy. It has since stretch
around the world to companies and organizations wishing to follow the success of Japanese
business.

The main advantages of a correctly implemented Kaizen are most often:

 A better workplace and a safer working environment

 Better commitment and employee retention
 Improved problem-solving skills and quality of teamwork
 Increased competitiveness and customer satisfaction
 Reduced waste and overly hard work
 Increased productivity and overall company success

Toyota has been known as the initial company that has started Kaizen. The
application that Toyota used was called "Toyota Production System", where all line
personnel are expected to discontinue their moving production line in the
case of any irregularity, and suggestions for improvement are awarded reward.
They succeeded eradicating all the wastes. Kaizen is used for placing the terms as
productivity, total quality control (TQC), zero defects (ZD), and just-in-time (JIT).
Therefore, Kaizen is a main concept for all these practices.
A lot of people have misunderstood about Kaizen. People have the stereotype that Kaizen
can make dramatically changed immediately, and bring the profits
right away. However, this is not true. Improvements under kaizen are small
and incremental, but the kaizen will bring the huge results over time. Japanese
management and Western management are different from the concept of the
management. For Western management, they are inclined to focus on the worship of
innovations which is pretty much relying on the changes in the technological
breakthroughs. On the other hand, for the Japanese management, kaizen is not usually
remarkable incident. However, innovation is one -shot improvement, and its consequences
are often problematic. While the kaizen process, which is based on common sense, low-cost
approaches and low risk approach, guarantees gradual progress that pays off overtime.
There are two types of kaizen which are Gemba (actual workplace) kaizen and Teian (plan)
kaizen. Gemba and teian kaizen both intend to develop higher production and quality
standards. Gemba kaizen is an action-oriented approach and refers to improvement
activities that are carried out in the actual workplace, like on the shop floor or on the
manufacturing line. Gemba kaizen involves all
aspect of daily work that can be improved. The heart of gemba kaizen lies in small changes
that will transform the overall success of the company not automatically right away but in
the long run. Gemba kaizen methods are quality circles and suggestion systems. In quality
circles, a specialized team develops and designs ideas concerning how to improve the
company's performance. Suggestion systems encourage employees to submit suggestions
for improving work processes and customer satisfaction. Teian kaizen, on the other hand,
represents a theory-based approach and refers to strategic improvements that are
prejudiced by top management. Here, the implementation of latest processes and practices
play the most dominant role. The overall goals of teian kaizen are improved business and
manufacturing practices. The most prominent teian kaizen methods include total quality
control and just-in-time management.

Kaizen and Management

It is also essential that management is trained and be behind the effort. Kaizen will result in
many more suggestions for improvements and changes and will take away from a strict
focus on moving items quickly through the existing production process. Management must
be prepared to recognize some time away from current work to focus on changes with
longer-range impact.
Management has two major components which are maintenance, and improvement. The
objective of the maintenance function is to maintain current technological, managerial, and
operating standards. The improvement function is aimed -at improving current standards.
Under the maintenance function, the management must first establish policies, rules,
directives and standard operating procedures (SOPs) and then work towards ensuring that
everybody follows SOP. The latter is achieved through a combination of discipline and
human resource development measures.
Under the improvement function, management works constantly towards modifying the
existing standards, once they have been mastered, and establishing higher ones.
Improvement can be broken down between innovation and Kaizen. Innovation involves a
drastic improvement in the existing process and requires large investments and big efforts.
Kaizen signifies small improvements as a result of coordinated continuous efforts by all
employees.
Initiating and implementing TQM programs need great quantity of planning and research.
Managers are required to acquire training in various TQM practices prior to implementing
the same. There are costs involved with the whole process of TQM. It is the manager's
responsibility to distribute budgets for TQM at the beginning of every financial year.
A manager needs to work closely with the senior management, human resource
professionals to 'develop perfect implementation strategies. A manager has to act as a
bridge between the senior management and the entire workforce.
1. The role of a manager is to act as a facilitator at the workplace. It is the duty of a manager
to assist employees in implementing TQM. As a manager, it is also
his responsibility to choose and assign right individuals who can work as line
managers and take charge of the whole project. The employees to be selected
must be reliable and diligent and capable as much as necessary to handle a
key project like TQM. It is the manager's responsibility to allocate resources
for TQM, schedule time for different training programs and be grateful for
employees who come up with a variety of improvement ideas and strategies
which would aid the organization bring better quality products. Further
train subordinates to guarantee smooth implementation of TQM without any
obstacles.
2. A manager must communicate the benefits of total quality management to all other
members of the organization. Call employees on a common platform and address the
benefits and importance of TQM. Make them understand how successful implementation of
TQM programs would give way to high quality products which would benefit the
organization and the employees as well.

A manager is always a strong source of inspiration for other employees. He needs to

practice TQM himself before expecting others to believe in the same
principle. Customer feedbacks should be cautiously screened and taken into
consideration while creating company's major strategies. A manager must also
provide frequent reports to staff members stressing scope of improvement.

Process Vs Results

Process-oriented thinking mostly centers on how processes are carried out through the
assessment of performance indicators generated by measuring or observing he process
flow. Result-oriented thinking basically disregards how processes flow and work. Instead,
process results/outcomes are obtained, monitored and evaluated systematically. For
example, micro level performance indicators include lead time, cycle time, throughput time,
and defective part ratio. While macro level performance indicators consist of profit or
customer satisfaction which would be monitored in result-oriented thinking.
Kaizen focuses at improving the process rather than at achieving certain results. Such
managerial attitudes and process thinking formulate a major difference in the manner an
organization masters change and achieves improvements. This
concept of process-oriented thinking indicates that there must be some problems in a
process if the outcomes are not encouraging to the firm.
Kaizen recognizes the connection between outcomes and processes. If the
results from an organization are of poor quality, the processes used to achieve
those results necessitate concentration. This understanding is a component of
the framework of Japanese society, even on the personal level, and explains why Kaizen is
so successful there.
The manner in which processes are addressed is a key element Of Kaizen. While in the
West, innovation or radical change is often sought, Kaizen hunts for constant incremental
change, which generates remarkable results eventually. Since the changes in Kaizen are
small, errors can effortlessly be corrected with no involvement of much risk or expense.
This is likely to make Kaizen processes less wasteful than innovation, where error can have
tremendous loss effects.
Quality gurus strongly note that a combination of process-oriented and result-
oriented management should be implemented throughout the entire operational system
instead of focusing on just one orientation (either process or result) as this heightened
focus may not be enough to generate successful continuous improvement strategy.
Continuous improvement can be either a team management or top management initiative.
In order to be able to utilize these two management approaches appropriately, the basic
features of process-oriented and result-oriented management should be studied prior to
getting on a continuous improvement journey. The distinctive features of process-
oriented and result-oriented criteria are given in Table 2 below.
PDCA/SDCA Cycles
Central to the philosophy of Kaizen are two cycles that involve processes for improvement
and for maintenance: Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) and Standardize-Do-Check-Act (SDCA).
When improving processes, the following are the phases:
1. Planning Phase - Planning is the most vital phase of total quality management. In this
phase employees have to come up with their problems and queries which need to be
addressed. They need to come up with the various challenges they face in their day-to-day
operations and also analyze the problem's root cause. Employees are required to do
necessary research and collect relevant data which would help them find solutions to all
the problems.

2. Doing Phase - In the doing phase, employees develop a solution for the
problems defined in planning phase. Strategies are devised and implemented to overcome
the challenges faced by employees. The effectiveness of solutions and strategies is also
measured in this stage.
3. Checking Phase - Checking phase is the stage where people actually do a
comparison analysis of before and after data to confirm the effectiveness of the processes
and measure the results.

4. Acting Phase - In this phase employees document their results and prepare
themselves to address other problems.

Maintenance cycle, SDCA is invoked when a failure occurs. Standardization seeks to

stabilize processes so they can be improved. Through understanding if a failure occurred
because of a poor or non-existent standard or because an existing standard wasn't
followed, managers can implement specific actions to correct it. Once a standard is put into
place and put into practice, it can become the focus of the PDCA cycle.
The SDCA cycle ensures that the improvements that have been done using Kaizen works
well and improvements do not slide back. SDCA prevents the deterioration and therefore it
is extremely important that both the SDCA and PDCA cycles are well established.
Improvement without standardization is stillborn to say the least.
Standard is the best, safest and easiest way, to achieve and maintain a defined quality level.
Standards should be:
1. Be simple, clear and conspicuous
2. Be the best, easiest, safest way- should only have one at a time
3. Preserve know — how
4. Be guide-lines that enable performance
5. Measurement of tasks delegated
6. Assure quality, cost, delivery and safety
7. Show relationship between cause and effect

With Standards:
I. Management becomes possible
2. There is a basis for training
3. There is a basis for audit or diagnosis
4. Problems are prevented from recurring and control variability

Putting Quality First

Kaizen also talks about improving performance in terms of three dimensions which are
quality, cost, and delivery (QCD). QCD offers a method of measuring processes while being
applicable to both simple and complicated business processes. It also represents a basis for
comparing businesses. For example, a business measuring supplier delivery performance
may easily compare its findings against other businesses' performance. But basically, QDC
altogether will be implemented as a single management in any corporate for man-power
reduction.
Quality is typically among the most essential criteria customers use to make the purchase.
Quality is usually customer-defined and referred to as the perceived characteristics and
features of a product. This includes the quality of processes that go into it.
Kaizen requires that quality is a primary goal. There could be so many goals
for the firms to achieve such as goals of quality, cost, and delivery. However, the firm
should always put quality first priority. Kaizen recognizes that without a quality product,
organizations will not be able to compete. If managers make some changes on delivery to
make it cheaper or cutting costs somehow, and it ends up making the quality worse, they
risk sacrificing not only quality but the life of the business as well.
Cost is generally looked at coming from the manufacturer's viewpoint, as the overall cost of
making and selling a product. An important factor, here, is the
elimination of waste in many aspects of work, such as production, inventory,
repair, rejects, motion, processing and so on.
Delivery refers to bringing the necessary quantity of products in the right place
at the right time. The company may offer better prices using reduced cost and
attractive delivery terms. However, this does not guarantee competitiveness, if
the quality of goods and services falls short of consumer expectations. Some cost-oriented
managers do not resist the lure of cutting cost at the expense of quality. This could work
well in the short-term, but would likely to endanger not only profitability, but also
reputation and market position of the product in the long-term.

Speak with Data

Kaizen is a problem-solving process. Since Kaizen deals with addressing

problems or limitations, every situation must be correctly understood. Kaizen
has no room for "seat of the pants" operations. In order to correct the problems
in a process, detecting the problems is the first thing to do. Sound data must be
gathered and evaluated for Kaizen to work for improvement. Without this data
the company will be like a flying blind. It will never be able to tell what is working and what
needs to be improved. Data is the lifeblood of kaizen.

The Next Process is Customer

The last concept of kaizen is that the next process is the customer. This means that all
workers think that next process is the customers. So, all workers in any process on no
account pass on flawed parts or imprecise pieces of information to those in next process
particularly when the organization has a strong commitment to consumer satisfaction. If all
workers have to be cautious on what they are doing, the customers get the high-quality
product and service as a result.
Kaizen promotes the concept of internal and external customers. Through regarding every
process in a series as a customer of the preceding process, every stage of production can be
concentrated for a quality result. If each internal customer is delivered high quality goods,
the external customer will have a high-quality product to purchase.
Kaizen views the whole work in a specific organization as a series of interrelated processes
where each consists of a supplier and a customer. The supplier provides the process with
inputs such as materials and/or information. The supplier can be another process within
the organization or someone outside the organization. Same goes to the customer; the
customer is either someone in the organization (internal customer) or the final customer
out in the market (external customer). The customer receives or deals with the output of
the process. Having this in mind, all individuals within an organization deal with customers
either internal or external ones. That is, the next process is always regarded as a customer.
Through this, Kaizen tries to set up a natural commitment to on-going process
improvement throughout the organization to ensure that external customers will always
receive high quality products.

KAIZEN SYSTEMS

Next, the systems of kaizen have to be understood. Kaizen encompasses many of the
components of Japanese businesses that have been seen as a part of their success. Total
quality control/total quality management, just-in-time delivery, total productive
maintenance, suggestion system, policy development, suggestion systems, and small-group
activities are all included within the Kaizen system of running a business.

TQM Control

Total quality control (TQC) and total quality management (TQM) are widely used in
manufacturing, education, government and service industry now. TQC / TQM have been
developed as a strategy to help management in becoming more competitive and profitable
through helping it to improve in all phases of business. TQM necessitates that the company
uphold some quality standard in all phases of its business. This need ensuring that things
are completed right the first time and that defects and waste are removed from operations.
TQC is a management tool for improving total performance. TQC means
organized Kaizen activities involving everyone in a company. Managers and
workers alike should be part of a totally systemic and integrated effort toward
improving performance at every level. It is geared towards increased customer
satisfaction through satisfying such corporate cross-functional goals as quality, cost,
scheduling, manpower development, and new product development.
In Japan, TQC activities are not limited to quality control alone. Elaborate
system of Kaizen strategies has been developed as management tools within
the TQC approach. TQC in Kaizen is a movement intended at improvement of
managerial performance at all levels.
According to the Japan Industrial Standards, "implementing quality control
effectively necessitates the cooperation of all people in the company, including
top management, managers, supervisors, and workers in all areas of corporate
activities such as market research and development, product planning, design, preparation
for production, purchasing, vendor management, manufacturing, inspection, sales and
after-sale services, as well as financial control, personnel administration, and training &
education. Quality control carried out in this manner is called company-wide quality
control or total quality control (TQC)."
Quality control in Japan deals with quality of people. It is the fundamental concept of the
Kaizen-style TQC. Building quality into its people brings a company a half-way towards
producing quality products.

TQC of Japan vs. West

Main Differences between TQC Practices in Japan and West

Japan
Deals with quality of people Customer-oriented
Upstream
Process-oriented aimed at improving the total performance
Company-wide, everybody's responsibility

The West
Deals with quality of products Manufacturer-oriented
Downstream
Product-oriented, aimed at detecting and eliminating defective parts
Responsibility of quality control managers

JIT Production System

Many people have misconstrued Just-in-time (JIT) production. In one of most frequent
misunderstandings, a company expects its suppliers to deliver just-in-
time. However, JIT production has something to do with internal process. JIT is a
revolutionary way to trim down cost while at the same time meeting the customer's
delivery needs. For example, new stock will be ordered automatically when stock reaches
the re-order point level. So, this system ensures that the firm-can maintain the minimum
required number of stocks every day, which saves a lot of inventory costs. Also, the firm
can meet the customer's delivery needs.

Elements of JIT
1. Make stable and level the Master Production Schedule (MPS) with uniform
plant loading creates a uniform load on all work centers through regular daily
production and mixed model assembly.
2. Decrease or eliminate set up times. Aspire for single digit set up times less than
10 minutes or one touch setup. This is done through better planning, process, redesign, and
product redesign.

3. Trim down lot sizes. Decreasing set up times allows economic production of
smaller lots, close cooperation with suppliers which is necessary to realize reduction.

4. Shrink lead times. Production lead times can be reduced by moving work
stations closer together, applying group technology and cellular manufacturing concepts,
reduce wait-in-line length and improving the coordination and
cooperation between successive processes. Delivery lead times can be decreased through
close cooperation with suppliers, perhaps by inducing suppliers to be located very near to
the factory.
5. Preventive maintenance. Use of machine and worker idle time to preserve equipment
and avoid breakdown.
6. Flexible work force. Workers should be trained to work on several machines,
to carry out maintenance tasks, and to do quality inspections.

7. Oblige supplier quality assurance and execute a zero-defect quality program.

Small lots (single unit) conveyance. Make use of a control system like Kanban system (or
other signaling system) to transport parts between work stations in smaller quantities. In
its better sense, JIT with Material Requirements Planning (MRP) system is used to
transport the parts between workstations.

Reasons for a move from batch mode to Just-in-time (JIT)

1. Batch production system is the most inefficient way to make products.
2. Difficult to meet customer requirements, which come in varying orders, like
varying volumes in varying time frames and soon.
3. The batch system derives from the agricultural mentality. The batch system,
purchase material and produce in huge batches and there are many processes. At every
process, gather the batch and at the end collect the finished product in a batch, which is
stocked up in the warehouse.
4. This kind of production system is based on market projection, is good when
there is demand.
5. End up with large inventory of unsold products and overload capacity, and
then borrow money to carry that inventory. By that time, got hold of too many
people for every process.

Total Productive Maintenance

In industry, total productive maintenance (TPM) is a system of maintaining and improving
the integrity of production and quality systems through the machines, equipment,
processes, and employees that add business value to an organization. TPM focuses on
maintaining all equipment in top working condition to avoid breakdowns and delays in
manufacturing processes.
The term total productive maintenance is attributed to Nippondenso, a company that
created parts for Toyota. However, Seiichi Nakajima is regarded as the father of TPM
because of his numerous contributions to TPM.
One of the main objectives of TPM is to increase the productivity of plant and equipment
with a modest investment in maintenance. Total quality management (TQM) and total
productive maintenance (TPM) are considered as the key operational activities of the
quality management system. In order for TPM to be effective, the full support of the total
workforce is required. This should result in accomplishing the goal of TPM: "Enhance the
volume of the production, employee morale and job satisfaction."
Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is a modern Japanese concept. The origin of TPM can
be traced back to 1951 when preventive maintenance was initiated in Japan. However the
concept of preventive maintenance was taken from USA. Nippondenso was the first
company to begin plant wide preventive maintenance in 1960. Preventive maintenance is
the concept wherein, operators produced goods using machines and the maintenance
group was dedicated with work of maintaining those machines. However with the
automation of Nippondenso, maintenance became a problem as more maintenance
personnel were required. So the management decided that the routine maintenance of
equipment would be carried out by the operators which are termed as autonomous
maintenance, one of the features of TPM. Maintenance group took up only essential
maintenance works.
Thus Nippondenso which already followed preventive maintenance also added
autonomous maintenance made by production operators. The maintenance crew went in
the equipment modification for improving reliability. The modifications were made or
incorporated in new equipment which leads to maintenance prevention. Thus preventive
maintenance along with maintenance prevention and maintainability improvement gave
origin to productive maintenance. The intention of productive maintenance was to get the
most out of plant and equipment effectiveness to attain optimum life cycle cost of
production equipment.
By then Nippondenso had made quality circles, involving the employees' input. Thus all
employees took part in implementing productive maintenance. Based on these
developments Nippondenso was awarded the distinguished plant prize for developing and
implementing TPM, by the Japanese Institute of Plant Engineers (JIPE). Thus Nippondenso
of the Toyota group became the first company to achieve the TPM certification.
Another objective of TPM is to increase the overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) of plant
equipment. TPM also addresses the causes for accelerated deterioration while creating the
correct environment between operators and equipment to create ownership.
OEE has three factors which are multiplied to give one measure called
OEE Performance x Availability x Quality = OEE

Each factor has two associated losses making 6 in total , these 6 losses are as follows:
1. Performance - running at reduced speed and minor tops
2. Availability - breakdowns and product changeover
3. Quality - start-up rejects and running rejects
The objective finally is to identify then prioritize and eliminate the causes of the losses.
This is done by self managing teams that problem solve. Employing consultants to create
this culture is common practice.
The eight pillars of TPM are mostly focused on proactive and preventative
techniques for improving equipment reliability:
1. Focused Improvement
2. Autonomous maintenance
3.PlannedMaintenance
4. Quality Maintenance
5. Cost Deployment
6. Early Equipment Management
7. Training and Education
8. Safety Health Environment

With the help of these pillars productivity can be increased.

Types of maintenance
1. Breakdown maintenance - It means that people waits until equipment fails and repair it.
Such a thing could be used when the equipment failure does not
significantly affect the operation or production or generate any significant loss other than
repair cost.

2. Preventive maintenance - It is a daily maintenance (cleaning, inspection, oiling

and re-tightening), design to retain the healthy condition of equipment and
prevent failure through the prevention of deterioration, periodic inspection or equipment
condition diagnosis, to measure deterioration. It is further divided into periodic
maintenance and predictive maintenance. Just like human life is extended by preventive
medicine, the equipment service life can be prolonged by doing preventive maintenance.

a. Periodic maintenance (Time based maintenance - TBM) - Time based

maintenance consists of periodically inspecting, servicing and cleaning
equipment and replacing parts to prevent sudden failure and process
problems

b. Predictive maintenance - This is a method in which the service life of important part is
predicted based on inspection or diagnosis, in order to use the parts to the limit of their
service life. Compared to periodic maintenance, predictive maintenance is condition-based
maintenance. It manages trend values, by measuring and analyzing data about
deterioration and employs a surveillance system, designed to monitor conditions through
an on-line system.

3. Corrective maintenance - It improves equipment and its components so

that preventive maintenance can be carried out reliably. Equipment with design weakness
must be redesigned to improve reliability or improving maintainability
4. Maintenance prevention - It indicates the design of new equipment. Weakness of current
machines are sufficiently studied (on site information leading to failure prevention, easier
maintenance and prevents of defects, safety and ease of manufacturing) and are
incorporated before commissioning a new equipment.

Policy Development
People follow policies, good or bad. The need, therefore, is for organizations in developing
countries to realize the importance of clear, well-defined policy statement's on quality,
reflecting management's commitment and orientation and to propagate them through
various modes, such as circulation of documents,
newsletters, training, meetings, pledge cards and personal contacts.
It needs to state the level of defects or errors that is acceptable. The policy also needs to
state the relationship between the company and the customer. The policy should be direct
and concise and should clearly define management's commitment to quality. The policy on
quality has to be a statement that will not be misunderstood. It has to cover conformance to
requirements, time and money.
Once the policy is written, management needs to determine how to explain it to employees.
The best method is for top executives to meet personally with groups of employees to
explain the policy. This also ensures that the commitment and interest of top management
is properly understood by all.

Suggestion Systems
On the other hand, suggestion system is regarded as individual-oriented kaizen. Suggestion
system encourages all workers to talk about their suggestions orally with supervisors and
put them into action right away, even before submitting suggestion forms. However all the
workers don't need to expect to get economic benefits from each suggestion. The process to
think and have the idea of each worker is vital. This system is different from Western
management which emphasis on the economic benefits and financial incentives of
suggestion systems.
The suggestion system is an integral part of an established management system that aims
at involving employees in Kaizen. The number of worker's suggestions is regarded as
important criteria in reviewing the performance of the worker's supervisor and the
manager of the supervisor. The Japanese management encourages employees to generate a
great number of suggestions and works hard to consider and implement these suggestions,
often incorporating them into the overall Kaizen strategy. Management also gives due
recognition to employee's
efforts for improvement. An important aspect of the suggestion system is that each
suggestion, once implemented, leads to an upgraded standard.

Three Stages of the Suggestion System

A staff suggestion system is a formalized mechanism which encourages
employees to contribute constructive ideas for improving the organization in
which they work. The overall aim is to gather, analyze and implement ideas in
order to create results that have a positive impact on the business and/or deliver new
value to customers. The following are the three stages of implementing
suggestion system:
1. Encouragement. In the first stage, management should make every effort to help
the workers provide suggestions, no matter how primitive, for the betterment
of the worker's job and the workshop. This will help the workers look at the way they are
doing their jobs.

2. Education. In the second stage, management should stress employee education

so that employees can provide better suggestions. In order for the workers to provide
better suggestions, they should be equipped to analyze problems and the environment.
This requires education.

3. Efficiency. Only in the third stage, after the workers are both interested and
educated, should management be concerned with the economic impact of the suggestions.

Benefits of a Suggestion System

Implementing an effective Staff Suggestion System that generates a sustainable flow of
good quality ideas is not impossible. In Toyota, 700,000 ideas are generated annually with
a 99% implementation rate.
Here are the benefits of a suggestion system, namely:
1. Improves one's own work and the working environment
2. Engages and empowers employees
3. Creates ownership and trust
4. Improves motivation and morale
5. Improves customer satisfaction
6. Improves profitability

Many organizations have made the mistake of putting up suggestion boxes and expect
employees to participate and contribute good quality ideas to improve the products,
services and the working environment without creating a supporting infrastructure to
manage the flow of suggestions.
More often than not, these suggestion boxes are either empty or become collectors of trash.
For a suggestions system to be successful and effective, the following factors have to be
considered:
1. Formation of a suggestions committee to plan and manage the suggestions system
2. Defining the suggestions process, including a feedback system
3. Promoting the suggestions system
4.Evaluation system
5. Award system
6. Sustaining the suggestions system

Figure 11.
Why Suggestion System Stumbles and How to Avoid Them
Most suggestions remain to be suggestions because of:
1. Delays in approving ideas — Respond within the day to team member ideas
whenever possible. The approval may be a "go do it" or to give coaching to
ideas that require further thought and development. For complex or large
ideas, respond within- a week, or encourage the idea generator (person) to break the
problem down into several smaller parts.

2. Complex approval process (committees) - The approval process should undergo

observation, discussion and approval by the team leader or supervisor. It's better to go see
the actual issue in the actual place than to discuss the issue in a conference room based on
ideas written on a piece of paper.

3. Backlog of suggestions needing approval or implementation - Ironically, asking for

quantity over quality will force the identification of smaller problem that are easier to
solve. This reduces the backlog as more of them are "just do it" ideas. This increases the
skill and confidence of people to go through the problem-solving process (thinking) as well
as the action itself (experimentation).

4. Less than 99% of ideas implemented - An idea should be nurtured and the idea generator
(person) should be coached so that basically every idea is approved. Provide guidelines on
what is a good kaizen. Track approval rating visually and have a management team
problem solve the gap between current condition and 99% implemented.

5. Inappropriate kaizen suggestions - Once again, clear guidelines for what is

a good kaizen idea. Focus on the customer, improve own work; and keep
environmental targets from management policies in mind. Process focus, not people issues,
is appropriate.

6. Allowing anonymous suggestions - This defeats the purpose of kaizen as a people

development tool since the idea generator cannot be coached. It's alright to allow
anonymous suggestions where people feel need to "blow the whistle". Except that this
indicates that the workplace is not safe professionally,
emotionally or physically and is not a stable environment for kaizen. Fix that condition
before launching suggestion systems and anonymous suggestions would not be an issue.

7. Unfair rewards - Every idea should receive a small reward. Larger awards
may be given based on several categories like effort, creativity and impact
of the kaizen idea. Encouraging kaizen idea generation, development and
implementation by teams, and giving team rewards also lessens the possibility of unfair
rewards being given to individuals.

8. Motivating by cash only - Since humans are at the heart of kaizen, and humans need both
extrinsic (cash) and intrinsic motivation. Sustained kaizen needs intrinsic motivation like
recognition, self-actualization, skill development, feeling fulfilled, or saving the
environment through kaizen suggestions. Management attention and leadership is
required.

9. Lack of promotion and support of the kaizen suggestion program - Endorse kaizen in all
its forms in a variety of ways. Take a long-term view of kaizen a people development and
communication strategy. Start by encouraging idea
generation by teams, and aiming for quantity over quality. Hold periodic "championships"
or promotional events based on themes.
10. Lack of timely implementation - Companies can do these entire well and still not get the
ideas put in place quickly enough if resources. Meaning time, money,
materials, skills are not enough for the number of great ideas team members
are generating. The skill matrix is a great enabler for suggestion systems. Once
again, the management should evaluate the gaps in the 4Ms (manpower,
material, machine, method) resources to keep suggestions moving smoothly.

Small Group Activities

A kaizen includes small-group activities-informal and voluntary groups organized to carry
out specific tasks in a workshop environment. The quality circles are the most popular
type. Quality circles are designed to address not only quality issues but also such issues as
cost, safety, and productivity. Quality circles are regarded as group-oriented kaizen
activities.
Small Group Activity (SGA) is also known as focused or continuous improvement in
English. SGA finds its origin in the Japanese industry where it is called Quality Circles (QC).
SGA is a method for problem solving in teams by structurally searching for the root causes
and eliminating them. After standardization of the solution the reoccurrence of the
problem is prevented. The feeling of ownership is intensified because those who are
directly involved solve the problem in a multifunctional team.
The members of the team learn to use techniques (cause and effect diagram,
Fishbone-diagram) to find and eliminate root causes. The team is also taught
communication skills, working in teams and decision making, in order to use each other's
knowledge and experience.

The structure of an SGA project is derived from the PDCA-circle from Dr. W. Edward
Deming and exists of 8 steps on the basis of the SGA circle. The SGA team works
independently and reports the progress by means of communication boards.
The introduction of SGA leads to the following results:
1. Team-building
2. Improved communication
3. Higher involvement
4. Learn how to analyze and solve problems.