TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN THE APPAREL INDUSTRY OF BANGLADESH
1. INTRODUCTION
The garment industry of Bangladesh has been the key export division and a main source of foreign exchange for the last 25 years. At present, the country generates about $6 billion worth of products each year by exporting garment. The industry provides employment to about 2 million workers of whom 80 % are women. Two non-market elements have performed a vital function in confirming the garment industry’s continual success; these elements are (a) quotas under Multi-Fiber Agreement (MFA) in the North American market and (b) special market entry to European markets (GSP). The whole procedure is strongly related with the trend of relocation of production. The Ready Made Garment industry in Bangladesh is made up of 3,486 manufacturers and accounts for 76% of total foreign exchange earnings. It employs about 180,000 managers and 1.5 Million workers, of whom 1.2 Million are women. In Bangladesh, the RMG industry has emerged as a major economic sector and has had its impact on the financial services sector, communications, transportation, and on other related industries.
The RMG industry has had a major social impact. It has empowered 1.2 million women with employment and economic independence, which in turn has earned for Bangladesh recognition as a modern and enlightened society. The RMG sector in Bangladesh was not etched out by a competitive and efficient industry. It came about as a result of benevolent accommodations extended to Bangladesh as a developing country. Buyers came to Bangladesh of their own volition and it was at their behest that the industry grew and thrived.
Since quality, competitiveness, and efficiency were not required to attract buyers, these aspects have remained largely ignored by the manufacturers of RMG in Bangladesh.
The output of the RMG sector in Bangladesh is typified as low cost, low value added and poor quality. The high-end market niches, which demand high value addition and high quality, are well beyond the reach of the RMG manufacturers.
When the preferential accommodations are withdrawn in 2005, other countries with preferred status will take Bangladesh’s place as low cost producers. The RMG sector in Bangladesh, with its poor quality and low productivity will be no match for the competitive producers.
The higher volume is explained by productivity. Factories in Sri Lanka operate at 80% – 90% of potential capacity whereas in Bangladesh, according to some experts, productivity is between 35% and 55% of potential capacity with very few exceptions. For the RMG sector in Bangladesh, productivity alone can make a difference between life and death.
The higher dollar value is explained by the addition of value. The consumer surplus is drastically greater in the market for high end products. Consequently, the profit margin is much higher for high end products.
1.1 AIM
Improving the total quality management system in the apparel industry of Bangladesh.
Objective
1.2.1 Collecting information about total quality management system in the apparel industry of
Bangladesh.
1.2.2 To demonstrate the modern system of improving total quality management planning and
techniques handling in apparel industry.
1.2.3 Demonstrate how leading companies win through cost reduction in total quality
management in their companies.
1.3 Methodology
1.3.1 Method research type is exploratory Research
1.3.2 Method of research is inductive
1.3.3 The factory name is Ananta Apparels Ltd & working with quality department.
1.4 The need for a new approach
The turbulence of the world in which we live, the pressures for change to which our industries are subjected; the advances in technology; demographic changes; the creation of new trading blocs such as the single European Market; the opening up of other influences are cause enough for managers of our manufacturing industries to think deeply about the need for a new approach . Wasn’t it ‘Alice through the looking glass’ who said ‘Every thing around me has change so I must change too? We have to run very hard up the ‘down’ escalator merely to stand still. Much for effort is required to get to where we want to be.
Total Quality Management is new approach. Which is essential to the survival of all organizations, not just our manufacturing companies.
Total Quality Management is some thing that everyone with an interest in our economic survival can do something about. It’s an approach which involves us all in searching for improved performance, more efficiency and greater effectiveness.
2.2 Origins and growth of the concepts of TQM
At the beginning of this chapter not only did we pose the question ‘What is TQM’ ? which we have now briefly answered, we also asked ‘Is it something new or merely the same old ideas recycled?’ Unfortunately definitions alone do not allow us to answer such questions because although they may tall as TQM is, they do not enable us to fully understand what the philosophy or methodology is behind these definitions or to see in what way, if any , if differs from previous ideas management.
W Edwards Deming
Deming, an American consultant, is generally regarded as the father of the TQM revolution. As a statistician during the 1940s he made a significant contribution to the improvement og quality in the United States through the application of statistical process control (SPC) to work situations. For example in 1940 improved the US population census by introducing sample proofing of card punching instead of carrying out a 100% inspection process. This led to an increase in work flow by 600%.
What are the essential element of Deming’s approach? When we has once asked to summarized his philosophy he replied ‘if I have to reduce my message to management to just a few words I’d say it all had to do with reducing variation’.
All processes and systems exhibit variability
Variability may be caused by either random or special causes
Deming believed in encouraging employee participation and in enabling them to contribute to continuous improvement through their understanding of the processes and how they can be improved.
Deming’s fourteen points
The seven deadly diseases
The sixteen obstacles
First of all, let us look at Deming’s definition of quality. His view is that quality may be defined as a ‘predictable degree of uniformity and dependability ay low cost and suited to the market’. His fourteen points for managing quality are[12]:
Adopt and institute leadership.
Break down barriers between staff areas.
Philip Crosby
In many discussion about Total Quality Management one of the concepts frequently referred to is that of ‘Zero defects ‘. This is a Crosby concept introduced by him in the early 1960s when we was employed by the Martin Corporation, in change of the Perishing Missile project. Crsoby is founder of Philip Crsoby Associates which he set up in 1979 and which is now owned by proud food Inc.
The tools of quality control are not designed to cause prevention throughout the organization.
People will take quality just as seriously as management takes it, no more.
2.3 TQM and traditional management thinking
Many of day’s managerial practices, the way organization are structured, their policies, their procedures, style of managerial behaviors and other manifestations of organizational cultures are a legacy of the management theories of an age gone by.
Ingredients of success
In 1989 the develin report into ‘The Effectiveness of Quality Improvement Pro-grammes in British Business.[34] observed that the most successful companies have four outstanding element:
Careful planning and execution of the process
Middle management improvement from the outset
The more successful companies also rated all accepts of TQM as important but emphasize:
Clear mission and constancy of purpose
Clear critical success factors
2.5 Benefits from successful TQM installations
Despite the negative comments contained in the economist report to which we have previously alluded, many companies involved in the pursuit of excellence through Total Quality Processes have reported quite staggering results.
Overhead costs on products reduced from 360% to 137%
Customer satisfaction improved by 38%
Service response times cut by 2 hours(27%)
2.5.1 Reduction in customer complaints
Avery’s European Materials group gave complaint management top priority. If a customer is not happy Avery provide a free replacement or credit note. In 1984 the company paid out 1.4% of sales as the cost of complaints ; this reduced to 0.95 BY 1988- saving of million dollars.
2.5.2 Reduction in costs of quality
Caterpillar’s quality process is set to reduce their costs of non-conformance from 400 million dollars to less 7 years. Each of Caterpillar’s units has a Quality committee which operates under a six-point approach:
Assign responsibility for the project
Define the customer/supplier relationship and tasks
Evaluate process information
2.5.3 Reduced complaints and accidents
Florida power and Light were the first non-Japanese company to win the Deming Award in 1989. Their Quality Improvement process has, amongst other things, helped to reduce the average length of consumer service interruptions from 100 minutes in 1982 to 48 minutes in 1988, halved the number of complaints and reduced accidents to employees by over one-third. The price of their electricity has been held below the cost of living and is now less than it was in 1985 [39].
Reduced defects- increased customer satisfaction
From USA, who got into TQM in the US in 1979, have reduced their number of parts shipment locations from 2750 in 1984 to 2000 in 1989 with a target of around 1500 in1992. Since 1980, half of its retained suppliers have been approved for their quality systems, covering 60% of Ford’s total supplies. By 1992, 95% of all supplies should be from approved suppliers under the Q1 rating system. On warranty repairs par 100 vehicles, the number of incidents has been reduced from over 500 things wrong per 100 vehicles in1980 to 180 things wrong in 1988. Over the same period their customer satisfaction rating has risen from 66% to 68%. Ford’s goal for 1992 is to get down to 80 things wrong per 100 vehicles and 95% customer satisfaction. If achieved this would put Ford as world leader on quality in vehicle manufacture (assuming the rest don’t improve further than they expect) [40].
2.5.5 Increased efficiency
Girobank moved into TQM in 1988. In the first year 28 registered improvement projects were started . By 1990, 1500 had been registered and over 300 completed, yielding total savings of $4m. In 3.5 years the company has seen the following benefits:
40% reduction in inventory
80% reduction in errors in operations directorate
94% of customer transactions processed on day of receipt, up from 57%
66% fewer customer complaints over errors
12% fewer operations staff
BS5750 accreditation from March 1990
Through a supplier quality improvement partnership with post Office counters, errors at Post Office have reduced by 75% [4]
2.5.6 Increased profit, productivity and market share
Hewlett Packard report increased profit by 244%, productivity by 120% and market share by 193%. at the same time they reduced stock by 36%, manufacturing costs by 42% and failure rate by 79% [42].
2.5.7 Multiple benefits
IBM’s corporate headquarters at Rochester, USA, is the hub of its Total Quality process. Among many exceptional aspects of its performance and commitment to quality are [43]:
30% improvement in productivity since 1986
manufacturing cycle time reduced by 60%
three fold increase in product reliability
capital spending required for defect detection reduced by 75%
write-offs as a proportion of output down by 55%
5% of payroll spent on training
$3.6 million paid out in quality awards to 40% of its staff in 1989
over 350 teams working on benchmarking its quality standard
over 1000 supplier employees trained in Quality Improvement tech-inquest such as SPC, design of experiments and JIT by its own staff in 5 years
six senior managers having ownership of improvement in one of its six critical success factors which are:
-improved product and service requirements definition
-enhanced product strategy
-six sigma reliability
-further cycle time reduction
-improved education
-employee involvement and ownership
Increased sales, reduced costs, reduction in cycle times
In 1986 when ICL commenced its TQM process, 65% of its customers said they would recommend then to others. By 1987 that figure had risen to 89% more than any of its main competitors. It has achieved a 30% reduction in manufacturing costs and a reduction of $100 million in inventory on sales revenue of $1.3 billion. Inventory turn has risen from 3 in 1985 to 7 in 1988. Cost of quality has been reduced by 10% at Kidsgrove, saving them $9 million in 2 years. Design to manufacture cycle time has been reduced from 76 weeks to 56 weeks and the manufacturing cycle itself from 5 weeks to just 3 days [44]
2.5.9 Start up and production costs reduced
Toyota implemented over 7 years an integrated product design, engineer-ing and manufacturing quality process called `QFD’ (Quality Function Deployment) which reduced their overall initial production costs on new products by 61% . Costs associated with start up, which had previously been over 75% of the total costs (i.c. recalls, warranty, customer com-plaints, design changes, etc.) were virtually eliminated. costs were moved up front to the more intensive planning process using QFD[46].
2.5.10 creased return on investment
Transamerica Insurance Group calculated savings of 20 million dollars in under 2 years of two special TQM-based improvement activities. They reckon on 7 to 1 return on their investment in the process [47].
clearly these companies have produced hard evidence of the benefits that can be achieved from their TQM implementations. We believed the key to success in mainly to do with the way in which the implementation strategy is handled.
In the next chapter we will examine a variety of approaches to implementation, some of which are likely to lead to failure and some of which are more likely to lead to success.
3. APPROACH TO THE IMPLEMENTATION OF TQM
3.1 The need for revolutionary change
Tom peters’ book thriving on chaos in subtitled Handbook for a Manage-mint Revolution [1]. peters acknowledge the fact that the word revolt- ton’s unpalatable and troubles businessmen, but insists that nothing short of a revolution will enable the western world to overcome the threat to its competitiveness position.
The idea of a revolution suggest the overthrow of the status quo; of the establishment; of traditional ideas and practices. It represents a fundamental
challenge to the basic assumptions upon which our traditional organizational cultures and methods have been built. Revolution conjures up the nation of fear. Fear as heads roll; rear as the old world crumbles; fear as people become displaced and disoriented; fear arising from the their of conflict, of struggles between opposing forces and hard fought win-lose battles. No wonder businessmen don’t like the thought of it! But can we escape the need? Does all change have to me revolutionarily? Does all revolutionary change have to be unpalatable? What are the alternatives? Many of those who advocate the need for change usually think in terms of evolutionary change-a show, steady incremental and painless process. almost imperceptible to those involved. But this is precisely what has been happening already and clearly it isn’t sufficient. we have failed to retain our position on world markets, and in the league table of leading world economies. If the decline is to be brought to a halt, much less put into reverse, then the pace of change needs to be increased. Such s pace of change required can only be called revolutionary. D
Despite some widespread antipathy to the nation of revolutionary change, we have seen periods of revolutionary change in the past. We only have to think back to the eighteenth century when our society was rapidly transformed from a rural, agriculturally based economy to that of an urban, industrially based one. we refer to this period as the ‘Industrial’ Revolution’ – a period of social dislocation in which the patterns of peoples’ lives were noticeably transformed within a short space of time, but also a period of enormous wealth creation upon which our political democracies and standards of living were founded.
What managers, with the support of politicians, now need to do is to create another revolution, a revolution in which there is a raped transformation of organizational processes based on the philosophy of Total Quality Management, Continuous performance Improvement, or whatever other label people wish to use.
In creating this revolution, we can learn some lessons from the past. The trick will be to foster a revolution, we can learn some lessons from the past. The trick will be to foster a revolution in which everyone wishes to participate, one which avoids the perceived of actual negative consequences of previous revolutions and one which promotes the benefits for all. More over we need to ensure that the replacing old ways of doing things with new ways of doing things, which set on better or over worse. In other words we must avoid change for the sake of change. we must also ensure that we avoid using the old ways of ding things to try to introduce the changes that are required. The characteristic of the new culture need to infuse the processes that are employed to bring about that new culture. This point needs to be stressed. To create a Total Quality Culture within an organization needs an implementation process which itself exhibits TQM principles and precepts. Or to put it another way m managers who do not folly understand the nature of TQM and what Total Quality Organization would be like, are unlikely to be able to create the appropriate conditions and adopt the most appropriate strategies require for the implementation process to be effective. Half-baked implementation processes will lead to half-baked results. Could this then be the reason why so many attempts to install Total Quality have unsuccessful? we believe it is.
Too many attempts have been characterized by over simplistic models of the change process. Social, political, technological, economic and cultural change within an organization is a lengthy, complex and sometimes tedious process in which t he rate of advance in one part might vary from the rate of advance in another part. If this happens it will make it ever more difficult to create company wide Total Quality Culture and differential approaches tailored to overcome the barriers to change will need to be devised.
What kinds of change strategies do companies employ? From our observations and research, we have identified a number of approaches to implementation. These are: What kinds of change strategies do companies employ? From out observations and research, we have identified a number of approaches to implementation. These are:
The managerial decree approach
The managerial sales campaign approach
The spread of knowledge of education only approach
The Quality Circles or problem-solving only approach
Standard implementation or packaged approaches
The tailored implementation or planned change approach.
3.2 The managerial decree approach
It has often been stated that implementation has to start at the top of the organization The justification for this proposition is that, presumably, unless the managing director or chief executive t takes the initiative no-one eles will or that if someone else does, without the managing director’s support, it will be doomed to failure.
This is, of course, a nonsense, Not all change has to come from the top downwards. In fact a grate deal of change may come from pressure from below upwards, or from the middle outwards. In an authoritarian culture it may well be the case that managers only. act when the top person tells them to do so. Managers may always be looking over their shoulders for approval or some sign from the boss that a particular course of action is acceptable. But a managerial decree, a letter or a memo from a senior manager to junior managers or other levels of employees, announcing a new policy can equally be doomed to failure if the policy is unacceptable to those concerned. there is also a risk that if the senior manager leaves or is promoted elsewhere, the whole process may fall flat. It is true that the top manager can act as one of the biggest barriers to change and, therefore, it is desirable that his or her commitment to the policy is obtained, but so too can middle managers act as barriers to change.
If the top managers or management team have on means of enforcing the decree, it is unlikely that the policy will be implemented unless others believe in it themselves. There is also, inherent in this situation, the paradox of a senior manager unilaterally announcing that the company is going to adopt a TQM strategy, the essence of which is about involvement or participation of others in decision-making processes.
Managerial leadership is a vital ingredient in getting the process started and in keeping it going afterwards, but the decree from above by itself is unlikely to be an adequate approach for a successful implementation of TQM in the long run and thus will not reap the full benefits. potential benefits may occur, but without the full commitment of managers and employees at all levels, the initiative will need to be sustained with further pronouncements, threats or exhortations to keep it going.
The experience of Gates Hydraulics Limited may be interpreted as an example of the managerial decree approach. In April 1988 the managing director of the company issued the policy pronouncement [2, pp. 129-30]
shown in Figure 3.1.
3.3 The managerial sales campaign approach
This approach is not too far removed from the managerial decree approach. Here the power to decide organizational policy still seems to rest only with senior management. They may have come together to consider the advantages and disadvantages of embarking on a TQM approach, and may have reached the conclusion that it is an appropriate direction in which to go. If they assume that it is their job to make the decisions, the next questions they might ask is ‘How are we going to sell this to the rest of the workforce? The answer frequently appears to be ;Leer’s have a campaign’ It is not unnatural for managers to adopt this approach if they work in an organization in which the tradition has been to make things and then attempt to sell then to customers. The underlying assumption of this approach is that customer behaviors is influenced by a sales of marketing campaign. people have to be persuaded to act in the way we want them to act-by buying our products or by complying with our wishes as manager to carry out a certain range of tasks or activities. Selling managerial decisions to the workforce becomes part of the everyday routine of managers-manipulating, cajoling, coercing, using incentives or threats of punishment to encourage of motivate people to comply. The cultural characteristics of organization that emanate from this set of assumptions about human behavior are in fact those vary characteristics which the TQM approach sets out to change. The campaign approach is, therefore, unlikely to produce sustained results. The means of achieving the ends need to be consistent with the ends themselves. The comparing approach usually features memos from the senior management to the next level down reminding them of their obligations to do all they can to persuade their subordinates to ‘put quality first’ or’get it fight first time’ (as if people set out to get it wrong first time deliberately!!). meetings with
exhortations to employees to take a pride in their work, or to avoid mistakes are then supplemented with poster campaigns to reinforce the message. To really divide the message home, the company training officer of quality manager may come up with the bright idea of showing groups of employees on a regular basis a series of videos about quality. Needless to say these have to be lighthearted and short because ‘we cannot tax people’s brains too much, they won’t understand! or so it is argued. This is another fallacy which the TQM approach sets out to remove.
3.4 The spread of knowledge or education only approach
Some attempts to introduce TQM into organization are based on the view that all that is necessary to cause people to change their behavior is for then to be informed of what is required of them and then they will perform accordingly. This approach assumes that people are rational and that they pursues their own rational self-interest. If the benefits of adopting a particular form of behavior are explained people will then recognize the value of the approach and consequently adopt the proposed changes Or so the argument goes.
This strategy is a very popular one. Our universities and other educational institutions are preoccupied with research and the other. There is no doubt that many situations have been changed as a result of the spread of knowledge. But for this means of change to be effective, there is a necessary
precondition. people have to be ready to receive the knowledge and deady to accept the changes which is suggests. Not all change is welcome since for some is may represent a threat to there personal positions of power status or security or if may represent a loss in some other way.
The spread of new knowledge may only serve to create resistance to change rather that a positive, enthusiastic response and a willingness to introduce improvements. Education and the spread of knowledge may take several forms. It might explain what needs to be done or it might explain how objectives might be achieved, or it could do both. Informing people of new requirements does not guarantee that changes in practices will follow. If people do not know how to do what they have been asked to do, nothing is likely to happen.
Even where staff know what staff know shat to do and how to do it as a result of some form of educational or training programme, this again may not be a sufficient set of circumstances for change to occur. There are many factors which have to be taken into consideration when explaining human behaviour. The way individual employees behave or perform at work can be represented by the equation shown in Figure 3.3
12. Recognition To ensure credit is given where due to raise motivation and commitment
To audit the quality improvement process in action (and feed back reactions and feelings from the receiving end).
14. Do It Over Again To set up a new team to repeat the process.
Apart from the above 14 points, some of Crosby’s other central beliefs are that Quality circles are ineffective because, as we have discussed earlier, they are voluntary whereas total quality improvement must involve everyone. He also maintains that both suppliers and buyers should be rated for quality since their role is paramount in achieving Total Quality and that combinations of single and multiple source supply arrangements should be used where appropriate.
3.5 The tailor – made or planned change approach
It may seen trite to say it, but out experience has taught us that every organization is different. Organizations have characteristics and cultures of their own which are the product of a unique combination of different variables. In the same way that people go through stages in their development from infancy through adolescence to adulthood, so too do organizations go through stages and processes adopted. At each stage the problems faced, the structures and processes adopted the resources available the styles of managerial behavior and so on all vary, we can also confidently assert from our experience that the need for organizations to change varies alongside their individual capacities to change.
In the light of the enormous diversity of circumstance surrounding each organizational situation, It seems to us that any strategy for effectively bringing about a desired change in the way the company operates has to be tailor made to take account of these diverse circumstance what works in one organization may not work in another and what works in one part of an organization may not work in another part of the same organization.
organizational development practitioners have long since recognized this and accordingly have enveloped strategies for managing the change process suited to the needs of the organization with which they are dealing In a since, this approach to implementing TQM is nothing more than an attempt to practice what the philosophy preaches. That is, it involves identifying who the customers are finding out what their needs are and then designing an approach to suit those needs. It also fundamentally involves the customer in the design process itself. It does not set out to produce a package solution to the implementation process which is then sold to the customer Another way to putting it is say the tailor made or planned change approach is customer led not producer led.
3.5.1 The 17 assumptions underlying TQM
From our experience and observations, we have concluded that there are certain assumptions underlying the tailor made or planned change approach to TQM there are:
1.Total Quality Management is about improvement.
2. Improvement requires change.
3. Change or improvement therefore requires an alternation of these forcess or variables.
4. The status quo in maintained by a balance of forces or variables
5.Change or improvement therefore requires an alternative of these forces or variables.
6. Effective change requires mangers acting as change agentts to alter these forces or variables in such a way that people affected own the changes and are committed to them.
7. The change process thus requires consensus between all concerned
8. Consensus is achieved through involvement and participation of employs at all levels in the identification of the variables that need to be changed and in the formulation of an approach to change these forces or variables.
9. Any change programm involves a set of core valuse.
The core values of effective TQM strategies are those made explicit in what Mcgregor calls theory Y (see below)
Total Quality Management must affect the culture of the organization as well as the behavior of individuals.
Education and training may assist the process of culture change but is not sufficient by itself. Changes in the organization’s policies
For change to occur there has to be a desire for change.
Where desire for change does not exist the agents of change will need to analyse why and create the desire .
Resistance to change is not easily overcome. Approaches to overcoming resistance will need to be devised.
Changing organizational culture and individual behavior takes time probably at least 4-5 years possibly even 20 years and more.
Most managers in the prevailing culture work on short-term time perspective. Consequently few managers are able to consider providing continuing support for a project that does not produce tangible results in the short term-say 6 months. To cope with this paradox an appropriate strategy will need to be employed.
3.5.2. McGregor’s theory X and Y assumptions
In his book The Human Side of enterprise Douglas McGregor discusses assumptions about human behavior in terms of they X and theory Y
[14] These are shown in Figure 3.4
These assumptions, as McGregor recognizes are not finally validated Nevertheless, he agrees that they are far more consistent with existing knowledge of the Social Sciences than those of theory ‘X’ and on the surface do not seem particularly difficult to accept.
As we said above the TQM approach has a set of core values of which theory ‘Y’ is a part.
3.5.3. Reconciling short-term and tong-term perspectives-a dual track approach.
To address the paradox outlined above-that is that TQM is a long-term strategy to bring about behavior and cultural change but managers need to produce tangible results in the short term we recommend a dual track approach to installing a Total Quality Process. The following section is an example of a tailor made proposal for installing a TQM process into a small company and illustrates how the conflict can be resolved.
3.5.4. Example of a tailor made proposal for installing a Total Quality Process
Overall aims and objectives of the project
Overall aim
To assist the senior management team to effectively determine a strategy for and implement a Total quality Management process within the company.
Theory ‘x’
The first set of assumptions underlying the traditional approach to managerial decision making and action is:
The average human being has an inherent dislike of work and will avoid it if he can.
Because of this human characteristic of disliking work most people must be coerced controlled directed threatened with punishment to get them to put forth adequate effort toward the achievement of organizational objectives.
The average human being prefers to be directed wishes to avoid responsibility has little ambition wants security above all.
These assumptions have had a profound influence upon the development of managerial principles and hence managerial practice up to the present day As McGregor points out they would not have persisted if there wore not a considerable body of evidence to support them. Nevertheless there are many readily observable phenomena in industry and elsewhere which are not consistent with this view of human nature.
Theory ‘Y’
The second sell of assumptions derive from an accumulation of knowledge about human behavior in many specialized fields. These assumptions referred to as Theory ‘Y’ are.
The expenditure of physical and mental effort in work is as natural as play or rest. The average person does not naturally dislike work.
External control and the threat of punishment are not the only means for bringing about effort towards organizational objective. Man will exercise self direction and self control in the service of objectives to which he is committed.
Commitment to objectives is a factor of the rewards associated with their achievement. The satisfaction of needs can be seen as rewards.
The average human being learns under proper conditions not only to accept but to seek responsibility. A voidance of responsibility, lack of ambition and emphasis on security are generally consequences of experience not inherent human characteristics.
The capacity to exercise a relatively high degree of imagination ingenuity and creativity in the solution of organizational problems is widely not narrowly, distributed in the population.
Under the conditions of modern industrial life, the intellectual potentialities of the average human being are only partially utilized.
Overall objectives
These are :
Involvement of the senior management team of The XYZ Company in the preparation of total quality installation plans and their commitment to the implementation of actions required.
Creation of appropriate organization structures to manage the improvement process.
Involvement of employees at all levels in the organization in the improvement process.
Creation of appropriate organization structures to manage the improvement Process.
Involvement of employees at all levels in the organization in the process of continuous improvement.
Increased external and internal customer satisfaction.
Improved communications throughout the organization.
Continuous quality improvement and defect prevention
Reduction of waste.
Elimination of non-value-added tasks.
Education and training of all employees to ensure the process will work.
Basic approach –on overview
It is becoming increasingly recognized that the adoption of Total Quality principles can dramatically transform operational performance of almost any type of business or organization. Total Quality can lead to competitive edge, something for which all organization should be striving.
At first the Japanese because of the situation they found themselves in during the 1950s adopted and enlarged the concept and achieved remarkable results. This unfortunately led to the claim that it depended on Japan culture and because of this the technique would not work elsewhere.
An increasing number of Western organizations have successfully achieved culture change through the adoption of Total Quality concepts and practices. They include IBM ICL, Xerox, Caterpillar. Hewlett Packard and Rover. They have all achieved remarkable improvements which have led to their Winning Wdge.
A host of others attracted by the claims of endless improvements have been unsuccessful. There is one root cause which is common to most of them. They found it impossible to achieve a lasting change in the way the their employees and especially managers behave. A Total Quality Culture cannot be installed without such a change since the basic driving force of Continuous Improvement will be absent.
These organizations correctly concentrated on ‘Management Commitment’ the most important element of a Total Quality Culture. The managers concentrated on steering the implementation process, what they did not do was to apply their commitment to changing their own behavior.
The approach which the Total Quality Management Research and development Centre of the Anglia Business School takes to the installation of a Total Quality Process is directed at overcoming this problem. We direct our attention to guiding and assisting management in the crucial role that they must play. We act as agents and facilitators of the radical changes which management must bring about if their company is to be counted amongst those who have successfully installed a Total Quality Process. is to guiding and assisting management in the crucial role that they must play. We act as agents and facilitators of teh radical changes which management must bring about if their company is to be counted amongst those who have successfully installed a Total Quality process.
This approach concentrates on the identification and speedy removal of barriers to business success whilst building the bottom-up approach which is essential to getting all employees involved in continues improvement. In this way the Total Quality Process becomes management led and provides both tangible bottom-line’ benefits in the short term and lasting improvements in the long term which come from a major change in company culture.
The need for a dual-track approach.
When a Total Quality Process is successfully embedded in the culture of a business it delivers customer satisfaction in all activities both within the inner working of the organization and inits rel