Is TQM (Total Quality Management) Dead?

[Marc]

From: "mary forck"
Newsgroups: misc.industry.quality
Subject: Re: TQM is too harrrrdddddd....
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 19:26:02 -0600
Organization: Posted via Supernews

Interesting.

I differ with your definition of TQM being controlling. The definition of empowerment we use is "giving the employees the authority and knowledge to make decisions that will enable them to do their jobs better".

We are a state government department, obviously not manufacturing. TQM, quality, etc. means throwing out the red tape, allowing employees to develop programs without micro-management, moving away from government and to a private sector model. It means -- the bottom line = the best results possible for citizens; controlling costs, reducing cycle time, getting rid of unnecessary work.

After 6 years, I've not heard one complaint that TQM is controlling. Just the opposite. If a manager moves away from empowerment, there are many complaints from his/her employees. We are gaining a reputation as "one of the best state departments for people to work".

-------------------------------

From: "KTORPE"
Newsgroups: misc.industry.quality
Subject: Re: TQM is too harrrrdddddd....
Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 17:16:09 +0100
Organization: UNI2 Internet Kunde

l skrev i meddelelsen ...
>Jan,
>>
>> I agree with you on your points and agree with some of the feed back you
>> have had, in that reading is important. In my research on Employee
>> Involvement for my MBA paper the TQM drive is purely a control mechanism
>> that holds Taylorist values.

What is this? Are we back to marxism and the objective goals of the working class?:-)

I think that most companies and managers misunderstand the consept of TQM as a tool to improve productivity (results). Maybe that is why you reach the conclusion that TQM is a control mechanism. For me and the people I work with, it is primarely a question of how PEOPLE develops as individuals using their creativity. Our goal is to descripe the creative organisation and then to "walk the talk". Actualy we are doing it by studying children as their minds have not yet been destroyed by to much conventional wisdom. This leads to my question to the group:

Does anyone know how to set up qoals for teamwork? How can the process be evaluated?

regards

Kasper Torpe

-------------------------------------

Reply-To: "Colin Lloyd Williams"
From: "Colin Lloyd Williams"
Subject: Re: TQM is too harrrrdddddd....
Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 07:17:26 -0000
Newsgroups: misc.industry.quality

I've been looking at the replies to my litter observation as TQM functioning as a controlling mechanism and truly I seem to be in the minority as to the effectiveness of the system.. :-) I guess the best thing is to mix one thing with another and make a hybrid version or the organisation that works. However, the HRM model at Toyota in the UK and the quality framework at the plant is typical of a fast moving production system where truly the process worker is the king.

But like all kings it's structured with ceremony and pageant to the point of chastisement. Let me give you an example, The process of JIT hinges on the Frodist principle of chroicity; where intense work pressure coerces the employee to fully conform to the processes needs with no slack. Tight, up to the second team work is essential as fluctuations in the synchronised flow process causes massive disruption downstream and ultimately threatens all the tenants of the TQM philosophy; at this point the much banded about term "autonomy" and "empowerment" appear to become cosmetic.

Claiming that employees in this process are empowered surely must be misleading to the term empowerment where genuine managers are trying to instil this culture, because to really empower Toyota's people with the true meaning of empowerment would render the system under threat from divergence and set a new non quality standard of Sigma 6M. All jokes aside, how do you empower people who operate in a herringbone process set-up where split second timing is all the creative thought you have, I am amused with organisations such as Toyota who say that they value empowerment and Kanban, but how can it be when you are recruited as a robot in place of a robot and as empowered as a robot.....?

Please give me your thoughts,

Colin...... :-))

mary forck wrote in message
news:sbm7msd8jp139@corp.supernews.com...
> Interesting.
>
> I differ with your definition of TQM being controlling. The definition of
> empowerment we use is "giving the employees the authority and knowledge to
> make decisions that will enable them to do their jobs better".
>
> We are a state government department, obviously not manufacturing. TQM,
> quality, etc. means throwing out the red tape, allowing employees to
develop
> programs without micro-management, moving away from government and to a
> private sector model. It means -- the bottom line = the best results
> possible for citizens; controlling costs, reducing cycle time, getting rid
> of unnecessary work.
>
> After 6 years, I've not heard one complaint that TQM is controlling. Just
> the opposite. If a manager moves away from empowerment, there are many
> complaints from his/her employees. We are gaining a reputation as "one of
> the best state departments for people to work".

-------------------------------------

From: "Jacques D. Vandersleyen"
Newsgroups: misc.industry.quality
Subject: Re: TQM is too harrrrdddddd....
Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 17:50:29 GMT
Organization: Sympatico


KTORPE a Ècrit dans le message :
abSu4.187$Kw5.667@news.get2net.dk...

> What is this? Are we back to marxism and the objective goals of the working
> class?:-)

Should we said Stakhanovism? There is great similitudes between certain way of implementing TQM and "Uncle" Stalin way of management

Or you are completely involved in the TQM revolution or you are a traitor to our cause and must be punished (following Skinner's reinforcement theory). That why, may be most of the authors start talking about re-taylorism on management. Best regards

--
SincËres salutations
Jacques D. Vandersleyen
607, rue des ruisseaux
Pintendre; G6C 1N1
QuÈbec, Canada

Courriel

---------------------------------------

From: "Jacques D. Vandersleyen"
Newsgroups: misc.industry.quality
Subject: Re: TQM is too harrrrdddddd....
Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 17:50:29 GMT
Organization: Sympatico


KTORPE a Ècrit dans le message :
abSu4.187$Kw5.667@news.get2net.dk...

> What is this? Are we back to marxism and the objective goals of the working
> class?:-)

Should we said Stakhanovism? There is great similitudes between certain way of implementing TQM and "Uncle" Stalin way of management.

Or you are completely involved in the TQM revolution or you are a traitor to our cause and must be punished (following Skinner's reinforcement theory). That why, may be most of the authors start talking about re-taylorism on management. Best regards

--
SincËres salutations
Jacques D. Vandersleyen
607, rue des ruisseaux
Pintendre; G6C 1N1
QuÈbec, Canada

Courriel

---------------------------

From: "KTORPE"
Newsgroups: misc.industry.quality
Subject: Re: TQM, why, and why not
Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2000 12:35:08 +0100
Organization: UNI2 Internet Kunde

The Why's:

1. People: Do it because it will increase the well being of the people in the organisation. That should be the driving force. Let people use their creativity on the workplace and not only in the freetime.

The difficulties starts when you say how?

We have a simple yet very logical approach which we call the creative work method: See - think - plan - do - see (It is not the PDCA circle!) The important fase is the first. To be able to see things as they realy are not letting your personal opinions affect it. We call it facts. Facts should always be the starting point on any dessision making process. People begin to realize, that when they base dessisions on facts, two things happens: A. It is possible to reach consensus in the think-fase (without having someone or something to force it) and B. The result that are achieved are of much higher quality.

When you start to work this way I guarantee you that you will reach the goals whatever they may be.

The Why not:

1. Dont do it because you want to obtain a certificate or an award
2. Dont do it because you want to get more sattisfied customers
3. Dont do it because the tools (Kanban, JIT etc.) looks nifty. If the entire organisation work according to the above work method you will eventualy work out your own tools, that are much more relevant as they again, are based on facts about your organisation, your customers and your environment.

[Marc]

From: "PaulR"
Newsgroups: misc.industry.quality
Subject: Re: Does it really pay?
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2000 02:08:18 GMT

Maybe I'm a burnout case, but here goes:

First, the basic principles of TQM are, IMHO, definately sound. So are the principles of all of the alphabet soup that keeps coming down the pike. SPC, TQM, PxP, 6Sigma, CRM, QFD, BPR, and, for all I know, EIEIO. Not only are they sound, but if you don't interpret any of them too narrowly, they're all the same. They all offer the same potential benefit: higher quality, lower cost, improved customer satisfaction, lower scrap/rework rates, etc. etc.

But every one of these requires management commitment, management investment, and time. Unfortunately, financial management is focused on the next quarter. Managers are focused on keeping short-term costs down (including head-count), and they have the attention span of six year olds. In my company, we've calculated an MTBF (mean-time-between-fads) of about 30 months.

Consider what this means: Every one of these programs has the costs front-loaded, (training, consultants, meetings) with the benefits coming on the back end. A short MTBF means that companies are perpetually standing the costs of these programs and never reaping the benefits. Some managers seem to get tired of the whole thing and go back to traditional inspection quality plans (along with beating up on people when these plans don't work). Others embrace each new Acronym with a religious ferver, hoping that something, ANYTHING, will be THE ANSWER. None of them are willing to make the long term commitments needed to make any of these programs succeed.

Oh yes. The "enablers" are the consultants who promote each of these variants as "the next big thing." After 24 months when consultant-lead training starts to let up, the consultants go back to their trainers for six months. At the end of the 30 month MTBF period, they're back with a new "next big thing."

Ah well. Keep the faith.
Paul R


"JRT" wrote
> It may be the result of the natural evolution of quality sciences. The
> principals of TQM are sound, but now company's must begin to go after the
> meat and potatoes, and tools like six-sigma and Lean Manufacturing and QS
> are taking over.
>
> Just a thought!
>
> JRT
>
> >
> >------------------------------------------------------
> >EDITORIAL
> >
> >A sharp decline in the popularity of TQM has been confirmed by a recent
> >survey of the use of management techniques by companies in the USA and
> >Europe. Are companies being put off by the sheer volume of paperwork
> >generated by the exercise or does this result from serious doubts about the
> >potential value added of quality initiatives?
> >
> >--------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >Best regards
> >--
> >Jacques D. Vandersleyen
> >607, rue des ruisseaux
> >Pintendre; QuÈbec,
> >G6C 1N1; Canada

[Kevin Mader]

Marc,

Probably not dead, but perhaps in hibernation.

Will 6-Sigma, or any other management philosophy do any better? I think that your post has it summed up about right. Essentially, unless Senior Management is ready for fundamental Transformation, one requiring long term focus, all the consultants, software solutions, etc, etc will do not good.

Regards,

Kevin

Originally posted by Marc Smith:

> It may be the result of the natural evolution of quality sciences. The
> principals of TQM are sound, but now company's must begin to go after the
> meat and potatoes, and tools like six-sigma and Lean Manufacturing and QS
> are taking over.[/b]

While at first thought, Paul's comments seem to resonate, I ultimately have to agree more with JRT's.

If you've been in the QA world for long, you know we've made lots of changes for the better. We have gone from using telescopes to microscopes for quality improvement. A number of years ago I was a hero for reducing return rates from 7% to about 2.5%. Now just about any company would kill people for having a 2.5% return rate!

Quality continues to evolve and the "easy" improvements are long since gone.

It isn't easy, but it is a lot better!

[Roger Eastin]

I dunno. I think life has been too good in the 90's for most corporations, so TQM (being front-end loaded) goes into hibernation until the going gets tough again and managers start scrambling for ways to be competetive. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'll bet the next round of "good TQM" will happen during or at the end of the next recession.

[Marc]

Originally posted by Roger Eastin:

...I'll bet the next round of "good TQM" will happen during or at the end of the next recession.

Probably right on the mark.

The use of the phrase TQM certainly appears to be waning. I notice that much more emphasis is being given to 'six sigma' and it seems to be selling to a bottom line nerve to justify itself. Another plus point is the incentives/rewards talked about for reducing variation - greed works or is it MBO fails? Some TQM programmes had been claimed to exploit employees and not share rewards - but then TQ isn't meant to be divisive but uniting. Six sigma also avoids the word quality in its title cunningly and that could help 'total quality' strangely. (aside - can i ask does anyone own the phrase six sigma ; is it free to use by the profession?)

I hope i don't see the use of tqc/cwqc/tqm /tq die because it's such a big part of the modern development of quality. We may need to support it so it isn't flamed as old hat. For me part of its weakness - no one model - will keep the concept strong for the future.

It is a shame that fad and TQM are associated, since the first is fast,short,..style-no-substance, whereas the latter is slower,longer,deeper. Business without total quality? now that won't last!

regards
skyc

[Kevin Mader]

Originally posted by Roger Eastin:
I dunno. I think life has been too good in the 90's for most corporations, so TQM (being front-end loaded) goes into hibernation until the going gets tough again and managers start scrambling for ways to be competetive. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'll bet the next round of "good TQM" will happen during or at the end of the next recession.

I believe you are right Roger! Recessions are cyclical events, as is the rebirth and waning of quality programs. As you are well aware of, most of the 'new' Quality practices are 40 to 50 years old.

As the success of organizations in the 80's waned ahead of the Recession of the 90's, organizations began to scramble for a new 'fixer'. Enter TQM. As the organization began to emerge from the Recession, TQM began to wane, and ushered in a sad return to the old tried and true practices. Time will tell I suppose, but I believe that Quality programs (or programs in general) 'die' and emerge in a cyclical pattern.

Regards,

Kevin