TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT, VOL. 9, NOS 4&5, 1998, S6-S12

Quality and quality management at acrossroads

ASBJ0RN AUNEDepartment of Production and Quality Engineering, Norwegian University for Science andTechnology, N-7034 Trondheim, Norway

Total quality management: Main elements

ISO 8402 defines total quality management (TQM) as a "Management approach of anorganization centered on quality, based on the participation of all its members and aiming atlong term success through customer satisfaction and benefits to all members of the organiza-tion and to society". However, more importantly when one is looking into the future, TQMis "An evolving system of practices, tools, and training methods being developed primarilyby industry, for creating higher quality products and services for increased customer satisfac-tion, in a rapidly changing world" (Center for Quality of Management). TQM can be saidto be a sociological organizational experiment on the track to a new management paradigm.

The TQM concept has three main elements, and three main tasks (see Fig. 1):

(1) Four principles for leadership: customer focus; continuous improvement, basicallyprocess oriented; 'total' participation; societal learning.

(2) A quality system and system thinking as a basis for quality management.

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0954-4127/98/0400S6-07 S7.00

Figure 1. The TQM concept.

1998 Garfax Publishing Ltd

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[ ] Creative and analytic thinking

I [Colleclion of facts

f 00 Senseopportunities

I. and problems

Continous improvement & reactive probierrvsolving

Innovative improvement and proactive problem-solving

Figure 2. A model for problem-solving.

(3) A toolbox for efficient and effective quality (process and product): control, assurance,improvement (continuous) and innovation (breakthrough) processes, products andsystems.

The tools in question are: a model (a process) for problem-solving (see Fig. 2); 'the seventools for problem-solving', including statistical methods; 'the seven management tools';'idealizing'; benchmarking; process (ownership) analysis; work unit analysis; QFD; hoshinmanagement; and others developed by people working on solving all kinds of problems inbusiness and industry.

What 'customer focus' means should be self-evident: companies and institutions haveboth external and internal customers. The external customers—those bringing money intothe system—are, and will continue to be, most important.

Jointly, continuous (process-oriented) improvement' and 'total participation (teamwork)'require improvement to be a natural part of daily (routine) work. Given a requirement ofefficient use of resources, we can talk about 'the dual principle of work' (Fig. 3).

'Societal learning' is learning on several levels: the individual, because all learning hasits origin in the individual; the team, because it is the joint efforts of a number of specialistswhich create extraordinary results; the company, because TQM is a social organizationalexperiment; and the branch and national levels.

The infrastructure for learning is perhaps the most important structure for efficient useof the TQM concept. On the road to a learning organization. In The Fifth Discipline., PeterSenge described the requirements for 'the learning organization' as: personal mastery, mentalmodels, share visions, team learning and system thinking. These requirements fit the TQMconcept nicely.

Both the theoretical and practical parts of learning have to be carefully coordinated withdaily work tasks (Fig. 4). The business plan is the driver for daily work, and the organization'svision for improvement projects. We should also note that the 4V problem-solving method is

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the model science is based on, i.e. reactive problem-solving (applied research): (1) someonedescribes a problem; (2) first collection of facts; (3) formulation of a hypothesis; (4)experiments/analysis; (5) possible solutions; (6) try one solution; (7) record results; (8)evaluate solution; (9) publish solution for test by others; (10) reflect on what is learnedduring the research process (when practising, there are a number of feedback loops and/oriterations). It is also based on proactive problem-solving (basic research): add steps 00,Kensing opportunities; and 0, collect information. Reactive problem-solving correspondswith continuous problem-solving (improvement), and proactive with innovative problem-solving or breakthrough. The model also covers process control.

Both the seven tools for problem-solving and the seven management tools are scientificmethods. The model also covers teaching.

• Process control: Test questions during and at the end of each class and monthly tests.• Continuous improvement: Simple immediate feedback at the end of each class. What

was good, what should be improved? (Such questions should also be asked of eachresearcher and administrator at the end of each meeting.) Input to continuousimprovement might also come from other sources.

• Innovative improvement: Work done by faculties in connection with development ofnew courses, especially when introducing results from their own research work.

Adopting the TQM toolbox and the TQM principles should not represent any problems foruniversity teachers and researchers. They should instead promote the use of the same toolboxand the same principles in administrative functions. Such promotion will be to theiradvantage, because one of the principles of TQM is customer focus, and the main customerof the administrator is the faculty.

Neither faculties nor administrators should have problems accepting the introduction of'the dual principle of work' or teamwork in a period when budgets are under pressure.Continuous improvement has to be the responsibility of the line organization—not of staff.Improvement of administrative processes most often needs cross-functional teams, or totalparticipation. Breakthrough in science is based on continuous improvement in differentfields, and happens most often through cross-disciplinary teamwork.

The future of TQM

Further development of the TQM concept for the benefit of business, industry and govern-ment agencies depends on the ability of the quality community to bring the subject touniversities and business schools on a much broader scale than today.

If the academic situation concerning TQM is not satisfactory, what could be the maincauses? One cause might be that the TQM concept is much too diverse/cross-disciplinary tofit easily into the university structure and culture. A TQM specialist is difficult to placebecause he/she has interests in very many different topics/disciplines along the whole valuechain and in all departments in a company. This cross-disciplinary interest is a challenge tothe conventional division of disciplines. Some people experience the TQM concept as athreat, and consider a person entering discussions on organizational development from aposition as 'quality expert' as not having an adequate background. The TQM concept hasalso been challenging conventional wisdom on how to manage, as it focuses on the customers,the employees and the team instead of the owners, the managers and the individual. In thissituation, the quality community has two main options: insisting on TQM as a discipline(science) in its own right; giving up on introducing TQM as such on an academical level.

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A new discipline (science)

The activities necessary to develop, produce and sell products and services can be groupedin six management areas, the sum of which I call general management, or total management:product/service management; personnel management; resource management; material man-agement; logistics management; financial management. If quality management is roughlyequal to product/service management, we can define the connected discipline (apphedscience) as: "covering the relations between the product/service and the users with respect tovalue and how the desired relations should be secured through development, production andmarketing".

The new discipline should develop ideas and tools helping private business and govern-mental agencies to handle problems arising from the four main bodies interacting in questionsconcerning quality: customers/users; producers/service suppliers; government/society; thejuridical system. Quality technology must therefore contain elements from technical, legal,economical, political, sociological and behavioral sciences. One possible way to organize thepractical work developing the science is shown in Fig. 5, in which the numbers stand for: (1)product/service (quality planning); (2) quality control; (3) quality assurance; (4) quality

Consumers

Govemmenl

Consultants

Search for excjsting knowledgeand need for new

Universities

Business schools

Companies

oIndividualcompanies

Research and development

1

Education and training

Basic

•Specialist

•Contionous

•Phd

Figure 5. A model for the development of quality technology as a science.

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management. The driving force in the development of quality technology as a disciplineshould be to help private business to ease the entrance to new markets and to improve itscompetitive power. For government agencies, the driving force should be the necessity toimprove productivity and quality for better public services.

Giving up the TQM concept

If the quality community does not want to contribute to a 'new discipline/science', the resultwill be contributions to the development of other more established disciplines: leadership(not a science, but an art); system engineering and system thinking (quality managementsystems for product/services management); organizational development, including changemanagement—quality improvement and breakthrough through scientific problem-solving inteams (the importance of the 'TQM toolbox' is much underestimated as a driver for positiveorganizational development); the learning organization.

Conclusions

TQM will never be developed and made full use of as a powerful management conceptbefore the subject has reached full academic status (industrial practitioners may like it ornot). The quality community has for years talked about the importance of quality, but whenpeople have asked "You say quality is so important, where do we find the professors?", thenumbers have not been very impressive, especially at business schools.

Today the number of publications covering quality and quality management is growingrapidly. Most are written by consultants and practitioners explaining their ways of doingthings and how their companies meet the quality challenge. There is nothing wrong withthat, as practitioners usually want descriptions of practical cases and not theory. But thequality community needs professors to develop a sound theoretic basis for efficient solutionsto future practical problems.

However, such development requires that people from business and industry, includingthe consulting business, put pressure on schools and demand teaching and research onquality, as has happened to some degree in the US. Business and industry get the candidatesasked for. If you do not ask for quality people from schools, you will not get them.

In many surveys of top managers, a huge percentage are of the opinion that quality isabsolutely critical. Among the reasons given are; primary buying argument of ultimatecustomer, major means for reducing costs, major means for improving flexibility/respons-iveness, major means for reducing throughput times, In view of this situation, the qualitycommunity should realize that the subject of quality and quality management should nolonger be treated as secondary. In their own interest, quality practitioners must realize thatthe future of their profession depends on people sitting in ivory towers on campuses.