MODULE 1

PRINCIPLES OF QUALITY

At the end of this unit the students can;

1. Define and discuss quality
2. Can articulate the history of quality management
3. Contrast quality in manufacturing as against quality in service
4. Identify quality in business support function.
5. Recognize quality and competitive advantage
6. Determine quality and personal values

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management philosophy and approach that focuses
on continuously improving the quality of products, services, and processes within an
organization. TQM aims to involve every member of the organization in the quality
improvement efforts to ensure customer satisfaction and overall organizational success.

TQM emphasizes the importance of understanding customer needs and expectations to

provide high-quality products and services that meet or exceed those requirements. It
involves a systematic and holistic approach that encompasses all aspects of an
organization, including leadership, employees, processes, systems, and customer
relationships.

Key principles of Total Quality Management include:

1. Customer Focus: Understanding and meeting customer needs is paramount. This
principle emphasizes the importance of delivering products and services that provide
value, reliability, and satisfaction to customers.
2. Continuous Improvement: TQM promotes a culture of continuous improvement in all
aspects of the organization. This involves identifying and eliminating defects, errors, and
inefficiencies, while seeking opportunities for innovation and lifelong learning.
3. Employee Involvement: TQM recognizes the importance of involving employees at all
levels in quality improvement efforts. Employees are considered valuable contributors who
possess knowledge, experience, and insights that can lead to better quality outcomes.
4. Process Approach: TQM emphasizes the importance of understanding and managing
processes within the organization. By focusing on effective and efficient processes, TQM
aims to eliminate waste, reduce variation, improve productivity, and enhance overall
performance.
5. Data-Driven Decision Making: TQM relies on the collection and analysis of data to make
informed decisions. Data helps identify trends, measure performance, and guide
improvement efforts, ensuring decisions are based on objective evidence.
6. Supplier Relationships: TQM recognizes the significance of strong relationships with
suppliers. Collaboration with suppliers helps ensure the quality of inputs, promotes mutual
understanding of requirements, and fosters continuous improvement throughout the
supply chain.

Implementing Total Quality Management often involves the use of various quality tools and
techniques, such as process mapping, statistical process control, benchmarking, root cause
analysis, and quality audits. TQM can provide significant benefits to organizations,
including improved customer satisfaction, increased efficiency, reduced costs, enhanced
employee morale, and a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

This document introduces seven quality management principles (QMPs). ISO 9000, ISO
9001 and related ISO quality management standards are based on these seven QMPs. One
of the definitions of a “principle” is that it is a basic belief, theory or rule that has a major
influence on the way in which something is done. “Quality management principles” are a
set of fundamental beliefs, norms, rules and values that are accepted as true and can be
used as a basis for quality management. The QMPs can be used as a foundation to guide
an organization’s performance improvement. They were developed and updated by
international experts of ISO/TC 176, which is responsible for developing and maintaining
ISO’s quality management standards. This document provides for each QMP:

 Statement: Description of the principle

 Rationale : Explanation of why the principle is important for the organization
 Key benefits: Examples of benefits associated with the principle
 Actions you can take:

Examples of typical actions to improve the organization’s performance when applying the
principle The seven quality management principles are:
QMP 1 – Customer focus
QMP 2 – Leadership
QMP 3 – Engagement of people
QMP 4 – Process approach
QMP 5 – Improvement
QMP 6 – Evidence-based decision making
QMP 7 – Relationship management

These principles are not listed in priority

In any order. The relative importance of each principle will vary from organization to
organization and can be expected to change over time.

CUSTOMER FOCUS
Statement:
The primary focus of quality management is to meet customer requirements and to strive
to exceed customer expectations.

Rationale:
Sustained success is achieved when an organization attracts and retains the confidence of
customers and other interested parties. Every aspect of customer interaction provides an
opportunity to create more value for the customer. Understanding current and future
needs of customers and other interested parties contributes to sustained success of the
organization.

Key benefits
• Increased customer value
• Increased customer satisfaction
• Improved customer loyalty
• Enhanced repeat business
• Enhanced reputation of the organization
• Expanded customer base
• Increased revenue and market share

Actions you can take:

• Recognize direct and indirect customers as those who receive value from the
organization.
• Understand customers’ current and future needs and expectations.
• Link the organization’s objectives to customer needs and expectations.
• Communicate customer needs and expectations throughout the organization.
• Plan, design, develop, produce, deliver and support goods and services to meet customer
needs and expectations.
• Measure and monitor customer satisfaction and take appropriate actions.
• Determine and take actions on interested parties’ needs and expectations that can affect
customer satisfaction.
• Actively manage relationships with customers to achieve sustained success.

LEADERSHIP
Statement
Leaders at all levels establish unity of purpose and direction and create conditions in which
people are engaged in achieving the organization’s quality objectives.

Rationale:
Creation of unity of purpose and direction and engagement of people enable an
organization to align its strategies, policies, processes and resources to achieve its
objectives.

Key benefits
• Increased effectiveness and efficiency in meeting the organization’s quality objectives
• Better coordination of the organization’s processes
• Improved communication between levels and functions of the organization
• Development and improvement of the capability of the organization and its people to
deliver desired results

Actions you can take

• Communicate the organization’s mission, vision, strategy, policies and processes
throughout the organization.
• Create and sustain shared values, fairness and ethical models for behaviour at all levels
of the organization.
• Establish a culture of trust and integrity.
• Encourage an organization-wide commitment to quality.
• Ensure that leaders at all levels are positive examples to people in the organization.
• Provide people with the required resources, training and authority to act with
accountability.
• Inspire, encourage and recognize people’s contribution.

ENGAGEMENT OF PEOPLE
Statement:
Competent, empowered and engaged people at all levels throughout the organization are
essential to enhance its capability to create and deliver value.

Rationale: To manage an organization effectively and efficiently, it is important to involve

all people at all levels and to respect them as individuals. Recognition, empowerment and
enhancement of competence facilitate the engagement of people in achieving the
organization’s quality objectives.

Key benefits:
• Improved understanding of the organization’s quality objectives by people in the
organization and increased motivation to achieve them
• Enhanced involvement of people in improvement activities
• Enhanced personal development, initiatives and creativity
• Enhanced people satisfaction
• Enhanced trust and collaboration throughout the organization
• Increased attention to shared values and culture throughout the organization

Actions you can take:

• Communicate with people to promote understanding of the importance of their individual
contribution.
• Promote collaboration throughout the organization.
• Facilitate open discussion and sharing of knowledge and experience.
• Empower people to determine constraints to performance and to take initiatives without
fear.
• Recognize and acknowledge people’s contribution, learning and improvement.
• Enable self-evaluation of performance against personal objectives.
• Conduct surveys to assess people’s satisfaction, communicate the results, and take

appropriate actions.
PROCESS APPROACH
Statement:
Consistent and predictable results are achieved more effectively and efficiently when
activities are understood and managed as interrelated processes that function as a
coherent system.

Rationale:
The quality management system consists of interrelated processes. Understanding how
results are produced by this system enables an organization to optimize the system and its
performance.

Key benefits:
• Enhanced ability to focus effort on key processes and opportunities for improvement •
Consistent and predictable outcomes through a system of aligned processes
• Optimized performance through effective process management, efficient use of
resources, and reduced cross-functional barriers
• Enabling the organization to provide confidence to interested parties as to its
consistency, effectiveness and efficiency

8 Actions you can take:

• Define objectives of the system and processes necessary to achieve them.
• Establish authority, responsibility and accountability for managing processes.
• Understand the organization’s capabilities and determine resource constraints prior to
action.
• Determine process interdependencies and analyse the effect of modifications to
individual processes on the system as a whole.
• Manage processes and their interrelations as a system to achieve the organization’s
quality objectives effectively and efficiently.
• Ensure the necessary information is available to operate and improve the processes and
to monitor, analyse and evaluate the performance of the overall system.
• Manage risks that can affect outputs of the processes and overall outcomes of the
quality management system.

IMPROVEMENT
Statement:
Successful organizations have an ongoing focus on improvement.

Rationale:
Improvement is essential for an organization to maintain current levels of performance, to
react to changes in its internal and external conditions and to create new opportunities.

10 Key benefits:
• Improved process performance, organizational capabilities and customer satisfaction •
Enhanced focus on root-cause investigation and determination, followed by prevention and
corrective actions
• Enhanced ability to anticipate and react to internal and external risks and opportunities
• Enhanced consideration of both incremental and breakthrough improvement
• Improved use of learning for improvement
• Enhanced drive for innovation

Actions you can take:

• Promote establishment of improvement objectives at all levels of the organization.
• Educate and train people at all levels on how to apply basic tools and methodologies to
achieve improvement objectives.
• Ensure people are competent to successfully promote and complete improvement
projects.
• Develop and deploy processes to implement improvement projects throughout the
organization.
• Track, review and audit the planning, implementation, completion and results of
improvement projects.
• Integrate improvement considerations into the development of new or modified goods,
services and processes.
• Recognize and acknowledge improvement.

EVIDENCE-BASED DECISION MAKING

Statement:
Decisions based on the analysis and evaluation of data and information are more likely to
produce desired results.

Rationale:
Decision making can be a complex process, and it always involves some uncertainty. It
often involves multiple types and sources of inputs, as well as their interpretation, which
can be subjective. It is important to understand cause-and-effect relationships and
potential unintended consequences. Facts, evidence and data analysis lead to greater
objectivity and confidence in decision making.

Key benefits:
• Improved decision-making processes
• Improved assessment of process performance and ability to achieve objectives
• Improved operational effectiveness and efficiency
• Increased ability to review, challenge and change opinions and decisions
• Increased ability to demonstrate the effectiveness of past decisions

12 Actions you can take:

• Determine, measure and monitor key indicators to demonstrate the organization’s
performance.
• Make all data needed available to the relevant people.
• Ensure that data and information are sufficiently accurate, reliable and secure.
• Analyse and evaluate data and information using suitable methods.
• Ensure people are competent to analyse and evaluate data as needed.
• Make decisions and take actions based on evidence, balanced with experience and
intuition

RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
Statement:
For sustained success, an organization manages its relationships with interested parties,
such as suppliers.

Rationale:
Interested parties influence the performance of an organization. Sustained success is more
likely to be achieved when the organization manages relationships with all of its interested
parties to optimize their impact on its performance. Relationship management with its
supplier and partner networks is of particular importance.

14 Key benefits
• Enhanced performance of the organization and its interested parties through responding
to the opportunities and constraints related to each interested party
• Common understanding of goals and values among interested parties
• Increased capability to create value for interested parties by sharing resources and
competence and managing quality-related risks
• A well-managed supply chain that provides a stable flow of goods and services

Actions you can take

• Determine relevant interested parties (such as suppliers, partners, customers, investors,
employees, and society as a whole) and their relationship with the organization.
• Determine and prioritize interested party relationships that need to be managed.
• Establish relationships that balance short-term gains with long-term considerations.
• Pool and share information, expertise and resources with relevant interested parties. •
Measure performance and provide performance feedback to interested parties, as
appropriate, to enhance improvement initiatives.
• Establish collaborative development and improvement activities with suppliers, partners
and other interested parties.
• Encourage and recognize improvements and achievements by suppliers and partners

Topic 2
Introduction to Quality Management

Introduction:
Quality is by no means a new concept in modern business. In October 1887, William
Cooper Procter grandson of the founder of Procter & Gamble told his employees “The first
job is to turn out quality merchandise that customers will buy and keep on buying. If we
produce it efficiently and economically we will earn a profit, in which you will share.”
Procter’s statement addresses three issues that are critical to managers of manufacturing
and service organization; productivity, cost, and quality. productivity (the measure of
efficiency defined as the amount of output achieved per unit of input), the cost of
operations and the quality of goods and services that create customer satisfaction all
contribute to profitability, of these three determinants of profitability, the most significant
factor in determining the long-run success or failure of any organization is quality. some
123 years later this sentiment was echoed by the Conference Board, which concluded from
a survey of more that 700 CEO’s and executives from around the world that quality is
uniquely positioned that accelerate organizational growth through better execution and
alignment .and it also provide the voice of the customer critical to developing innovative
products and services.

Defining Quality:
Quality can be a confusing concept partly because people view quality subjectively and in
relation to differing criteria based on their individual roles in the production-marketing
value chain. In addition, the meaning of quality continues to evolve as the quality
profession grows and matures. Neither consultants nor business professionals agree on a
universal definition. For example, one study that asked managers of 86 firms in the
eastern United States to define quality produced several dozen different responses
including the following:
1. Perfection
2. Consistency
3. Eliminating waste
4. Speed of delivery
5. Compliance of policies and procedures
6. Providing a good, usable product
7. Doing it right the first time
8. Delighting or pleasing customers
9. Total customer service and satisfaction

History of Quality Management:

As the philosopher George Santayana once said. “Those who cannot remember the past
are condemned to repeat it.” Thus, understanding of the history of quality can be quite
insightful. Quality has been an important aspect of production operations throughout
history. For instance the Egyptian wall paintings circa 1450 BC show evidence of
measurement and inspection. Stones for the pyramids were cut so precisely that even
today it is impossible to put a knife blade between the blocks. The Egyptian’s success was
due to good design, the consistent use of well-developed building methods and procedures
and precise measuring devices. Modern quality assurance methods began millennia ago in
China during the Zhou Dynasty. Specific governmental departments were created and
given responsibility for.

• Production inventory, and product distribution of raw materials (what we now call supply
chain management)
• Production and manufacturing
• Formulating and executing quality standards
• Supervision and inspection
These departments were well organized and helped China’s central control over production
processes. The system even included and independent quality organization responsible for
end-to-end oversight that reported directly to the highest level of government.

The age of craftsmanship:

During the middle ages in Europe, the skilled craftsperson served both as manufacturer
and inspector. “Manufacturers” who dealt directly with the
customer took considerable pride in workmanship. Craft guilds, consisting of maters,
journeymen, and apprentices, emerge to ensure that craftspeople were adequately
trained. quality assurance was informal: every effort was made to ensure that quality was
built into products by the people who produced them. These themes, which were lost with
the advent of the industrial Revolution, are important foundations of modern quality
management.

The early twentieth Century:

In the ri1900s, the work of Frederick W. Taylor, often called the father of “Scientific
Management,” led to an new philosophy of production. Taylor’s innovation was to separate
the planning function from the execution function. Managers and Engineers were given the
task of execution. This approached work well at the turn of the century, when workers
lacked the education needed for doing planning. By segmenting a job into specific work
tasks and focusing on increasing efficiency, quality assurance fell into the hands of
inspectors. Manufacturer’s were able to ship good-quality products, but at great costs.
Defects were present, but were removed by inspection. Plants employed hundreds, even
thousands of inspectors. Inspection thus the primary means of quality control during the
first half of the twentieth century.

Post-world War II:

After the war, during the late 1940’s and the early 1950’s, the shortage of civilian goods in
the United States made production a top priority. In most companies, quality remained the
responsibility to quality managers. Top management showed little interest in quality
improvement or the prevention of defects and errors, relying instead on mass inspection.

The US Quality Revolution:

The decade of the 1980s was a period of remarkable change and growing awareness of
quality by consumers, industry, and government. During the 1950s and 1960s when
“made in Japan” was associated with inferior products, US customers, purchased domestic
goods and accepted their quality without question. During the 1970s. However, increased
global competition and the availability of higher quality foreign products led US consumers,
armed with increased access to information, to consider their purchasing decisions more
carefully and to demand high quality and reliability in goods and services at fair price.

Current and future challenges:

The real challenge today is to ensure that managers continue to focus on quality
management and performance excellence throughout their organization. An executing at
Texas instruments observed that “Quality” will have to be everywhere, integrated into all
aspects of winning organizations.” Unfortunately, a survey sponsored by ASQ found
significant gaps between executives” awareness of quality improvement processes and
implementation, suggesting that many organizations either are not using these process
approaches or simply don’t realize that approaches they do use are rooted in the quality
discipline ( and may miss key opportunities to improve them) as former Xerox President
David Kearns observed, quality is a “race without a finish line. In 2011, the American
Society for Quality identified eight key forces that that will influence the future of quality.

1. Global Responsibility. An organization must be fully aware of the global impact of its
local decisions and realize that as demand grows for the planet’s finite resources, waste is
increasing unacceptable. Global responsibility also involves human rights, labor practices,
fair operating practices, consumer interests an contributions to society.

2. Consumer Awareness. With today’s technology such as the internet, Twitter, and,
Facebook, consumers have access to a wealth of information, on which to make
purchasing decisions. As a result, organizations must be quick when responding to their
customer concerns and match their products to customer wants and needs, or risk having
their customers defect to a competitor.

3. Globalization. Globalization no longer means just an opportunity organizations to enter

new markets. Today, firms have to contend with a growing number of competitors and
sources of lower-cost labor and assume the risks associated with global supply chains.

4. Increasing rate of change. Technology has shifted the rate of change into an entirely
new gear, which brings with it opportunities and threats. The threat lies in the possibility
that humanity won’t be able to adapt to the disruptions that accompany technological
advances. But, if it can, the opportunities are nearly limitless. Product life cycle are getting
shorter, and industries come into existence, thrive, and die within our lifetimes.

5. Workforce of the future. Competition for talent will increase, and along with
technological advances, will change how and where work is done. As a result,
organizations will need to become more flexible with how and where their work forces
operate. Organizations will need to make a greater investment in training and education,
and place greater emphasis emphasis on professional certification, which will evolve based
on organizations’ demands for demonstrated competency from its employees.

6. Aging population. As people live longer, organizations face higher costs for health care
and social welfare re programs. Retirement becomes “ a short-lived artifact of the latter
half of the twentieth century.” Demographics predicts that by 2025, the majority of the
population will be over the age of 65. The result is a growing market for organizations to
consider as the aging lifestyle become more prevalent.

7. Twenty-first century Quality. Quality isn’t the same as it was 50 years ago, or even
5 years ago. Quality is moving beyond the organization’s walls to encompass a customer’s
entire experience with the organizations rather than just the quality of the product or
service. this provides more opportunities for quality professionals to apply their skills we
may soon see quality applied to social problems, proving that “quality is exerting itself in
new wave – in helpful ways.

8. Innovation. According to a study innovation is “the pursuit of something different and

exciting.” Innovation has the heart of organizational survival. As the study states. “if
innovation means the ability of a company to anticipate customer needs – expressed or
unexpressed, known or unknown – and bring products or services to the marketplace that
excite customers, then clearly innovation is the fuel of growth in today’s changing world,
and more so tomorrow.

Topic 3
Foundation of Quality Management

FOUNDATIONS OF QUALITY MANAGEMENT:

In the 1890s Caesar Ritz defined the standards for a luxury hotel, these evolved into the
quality responsibilities of the employees – the “Ladies and Gentlemen, Serving Ladies
gentlemen” of today’s Ritz Carlton Hotel Company anticipating the wishes and needs of the
guests, resolving their problems, and exhibiting genuinely caring conduct toward guests
and each other. The Ritz-Carlton management recognized that the key to ensuring that
these responsibilities are realized was to create a “Skilled and Empowered Work Force
Operating with Pride and Joy. “”The concept of Pride and joy” in work – and its impact on
quality – is one of the foundations of the philosophy of W. Edwards Deming. Deming along
with Joseph Juran and Philip Crosby, are regarded as true “management gurus” in the
quality revolution. managing and improving quality have had profound impacts on
countless managers and entire corporation around the world.

The Deming’s Philosophy:

No individual has had more influence on quality management that Dr. W. Deming (1900 –
1993. Deming received a Ph.D. in physics and was trained as an statistician, so much of
his philosophy can be traced to these roots. He worked of Western Electric during its
pioneering era of statistical quality control in the 1920s and 1930s. Deming recognized the
importance of viewing management processes statistically. During World War ii he taught
quality control courses as part of the U.S. national defense efforts, but re realized that
teaching statistics only to engineers and factory workers would never solve the
fundamental quality problems that manufacturing needed to address. Despite numerous
efforts, his attempts to convey the message of quality to upper level managers in the
United States were ignored.

The Deming chain Reaction:

• Improve quality
• Costs decrease because of less rework, fewer mistakes, fewer delays, and better use of
time
• Productivity improves
• Capture the market with better quality and lower price
• Stay in business
• Provide jobs and more jobs

Deming’s 14 points
1. Create and publish to all employees a statement of aims and purposes of the company
or other organization. The management must demonstrate constantly their commitment to
the statement.

2. Learn the new philosophy, top management and everybody.

3. Understand the purpose of inspection, for improvement of process and reduction of

cost.

4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag alone.

5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service.

6. Institute training

7. Teach and institute leadership

8. Drive out fear. Create trust. Create a climate for innovation.

9. Optimize toward the aims and purposes of the company the effort of teams, groups staff
areas

10.Eliminate exhortation for the workforce.

11. (a) Eliminate numerical quotas for production, instead, learn, and institute methods for
improvement.
(b) Eliminate MBO (Management by Objective), instead learn the capabilities of processes
and how to improve them

12.Remove barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship

13.Encourage educations and self-improvement for everyone

14. Take action to accomplish the transformation.

Profound knowledge
The 14 point caused some confusion and misunderstanding among business people
because Deming did not provide a clear rationale for them. Near the end of his life.
However, he synthesized the underlying foundation of the 14 points into four simple
elements which he called a system of profound knowledge.

1. Appreciation for a system.

2. Understanding variations
3. Theory of knowledge
4. Psychology

System. Is a set of functions or activities within an organization that work together for the
aim of the organization. A system is a composed of many smaller, interacting subsystems.

Impacts of the profound knowledge:

Peter Sholtes, a noted consultant, makes some salient observations about the failure to
understand the components of profound knowledge When people don’t understand
systems

• They see events as individual incidents rather than the net result of many interactions
and interdependent forces.

• They set the symptoms but not the deep causes of problems.

• They don’t understand how an intervention in one part of (an organization) can cause
havoc in another place or at another time.

• They blame individuals for problems even when those individuals have little or ability to
control the events around them.

• They don’t understand the ancient African saying that says “it takes a whole village to
raise a child.”

When people don’t understand variations

• They don’t see trends that are occurring.
• They see trends where there are none.
• They don’t know when expectations are realistic
• They don’t understand past performance so they can’t predict future performance
• They don’t know the difference between prediction, forecasting and guesswork
• They give others credit or blame when those people are simple either lucky or unlucky,
which usually occurs because people tend to attribute everything to human effort, heroics,
frailty, error, or deliberate sabotage, no matter what the systemic cause
• They are less likely to distinguish between fact and opinion.

When people don’t understand psychology

• They don’t understand motivation or why people do what they do
• They resort to carrots and sticks and other forms of induced motivation that offer no
positive effect and impair the relationship between the motivator and the one being
motivated.
• They don’t understand the process of change and the resistance to it.
• They revert to coercive and paternalistic approaches when dealing with people
• They create cynicism, demoralization, demotivation, guilt, resentment, burnout,
craziness and turnover

When people don’t understand the theory of knowledge

• They don’t know how to plan and accomplish learning and improvement
• They don’t understand the difference between improvement and change.
• Problem will remain unsolved despite their best efforts.

The Juran Philosophy:

Joseph Juran ((1904 – 2008) was born in Romania and came to the United States in 1912.
He joined Western Electric in the 1920s as it pioneered in the development of statistical
methods of quality. he spent much of his time as a corporate industrial engineer and, in
1951, did most of the writing, editing, and publishing of the Quality Control Handbook This
book, one of the most comprehensive quality manuals ever written, has been revised
several times and continues to be a popular reference. Like Deming Juran taught quality
principles to the Japanese in the 1950s and was a principal force in their quality
reorganization. Among the steps taken by Japanese organizations as a result of Juran’s
leadership were:
• Directing quality from the senior management level
• Training the entire management hierarchy in quality principles
• Striving the improve quality at a revolutionary rate
• Involving the workforce in quality
• Revising the reward and recognition structure to include quality
Unlike Deming however, Juran specified a detail program of quality improvement.
According to Juran. All breakthrough follow a commonsense sequence of discovery,
organization, diagnosis, corrective action, and control which he formalized as the
breakthrough sequence, and which can be summarized as follows;

• Proof of the need. Managers, especially top managers, need to be convinced that
quality improvement are simply good economics. Through data collection efforts,
information on poor quality, low productivity, or poor service can be translated into the
language of money – the universal language to top management – to justify a request for
resources to implement a quality improvement program.

• Project identification. All breakthroughs are achieved project-by-project, and in no

other way. By taking a project approach, management provides a forum for converting an
atmosphere of defensiveness or blame into one of constructive action. Participation in a
project increases the likelihood that the participant will act on the results.

• Organization for breakthrough. Organization for improvement requires a clear

responsibility for guiding the project. The responsibility for the project may be as broad at
an entire division with formal committee structures or as narrow as a small group of
workers at one productive operation. These group provide the definition and agreement as
to the specific aims of the project the authority to conduct experiments, and
implementation strategies. The path from problem to solution consists of two journeys one
from symptom to cause (the diagnostic journey) and the other from cause to remedy (the
remedial journey), which must be performed by different individuals with the appropriate
skills.

• Diagnostic journey. Diagnosticians skilled in data collection, statistics, and other

problem solving tools are needed at this stage. Some projects will require full-time
specialized experts while workforce can perform others. Management controllable and
operator-controllable problems require different methods of diagnosis and remedy.

• Remedial journey. The remedial journey consists of several phases; choosing an

alternative that optimizes total cost (similar to one of Deming’s points), implementing
remedial action, and dealing with resistance to change.

• Holding the gains. The final step involves establishing the new standards an
procedures, training the workforce and instituting controls to make sure that the
breakthrough does not die over time.

The Grosby Philosophy:

Philip B. Grosby. (1926 – 2001) was corporate vice president for quality at International
Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) for 14 years after working his way up form line inspector.
After leaving ITT, he established Philip Grosby Associates in 1979 to develop and offer
training programs, he also authored several popular books. His first book. Quality is free,
sold about one million copies and was largely responsible for bringing quality to the
attention of top corporate managers in the United States. The essence of Grosby’s quality
philosophy is embodied in what he calls the Absolutes in Quality Management and the
Basic Elements of Improvement. Grosby’s absolutes of quality management include the
following points;

• Quality means conformance to requirement, not elegance. Grosby’s definition of quality

is similar to the manufacturing perspective. Quality is judged solely on whether
requirements have been met. Nonconformance is the absence of quality. requirements are
ironclad and must be clearly stated so that they cannot be misunderstood. Requirements
acts as communication devices. Setting requirements is the responsibility of management.
Once requirements are established, then one can take measurements to determining to
those requirements.

• There is no such thing as quality problems. Problems originate in functional departments.

Thus, a may experience accounting problems manufacturing problems, design problems,
technical support problems, and so on. In Grosby’s view, these are all quality problems,
but the burden of responsibility for solving them falls on these functional departments and
not in the quality department. The role of the quality department should be to measure
conformance, report results, and proved leadership and support to provide quality
improvement. This absolute is similar to Deming’s third point.

• There is no such thing as the economics of quality, doing the job right the first time is
always cheaper.om Grosby supports the premise that “economics of quality” has no
meaning. Quality is free, what costs money are all actions that involve not doing jobs right
the first time. The Deming chain reactions sends A similar message.

• The only performance measurement is the cost of quality, which is the expense of
nonconformance. Grosby noted that most companies spend 15 percent to 20 percent of
their sales in dollars on quality costs. A company with a well-run quality management
program can achieve a cost of quality that is less than 2.5 percent of sales, primarily in the
prevention and appraisal categories. Grosby suggested that organizations measure and
publicize the cost of poor quality. this helps to call problems to management’s attention to
select opportunities for corrective action, and to track quality improvement over time.
Juran also supported this concept.

• The only performance standard is “zero Defects (ZD).” He explained it as follows; Zero
defect is performance standard. It is the standard of the craftsperson regardless of his or
her assignment…the theme of ZD is do it right the first time. That means concentrating on
preventing defects rather than just finding and fixing them. People are conditioned to
believe that error is inevitable, thus, they not only accept error, they, anticipate it. It does
not bother us to make a few errors in our work…to err is human.