posted 28 February 2000 08:04 AM               

> Thanks for the note Kim,

>the Japanese love and have succeeded with, "turning people into machines,
> making people think they are not machines" the paradox of Toyotaism.

Great! A hidden face of "just in time" production. The fact is not to point out Toyota and the venerable Shigeo Shingo as responsible. But as it happens most of the time, a concept is criticized for what it has been done to it. Nobody will logically reject the Toyota's production, simply because it's the model where new ideas as Kanban and SMED, has proven for the first a lack of a production system and the way to improve it. If I take the example into the book of Keniche Sekine: "Zero stock production" (original title as "Nikkan Kogyio Shimbun", sorry for bad Japanese). we notice that the production of Toyota improve from 980 cars in 1950 with 5500 employees to a huge 244660 cars in 1978 with 45360 workers. The ratio is 5 workers for a car in 58 for 5 cars a man in 1978, not so bad, isn't it? We do suppose it, because Nissan adopt something similar named APM (advanced production management)! The evidence for Japanese is not that to work in such factory is easier than a European, certainly not! But he accepts it quicker, mainly because no other choice is left.

Now about to "learn of our mistake" is not inclusive of a TQM approach as it said. Books on industrial psychology such as G. Morgan's Image of organisation, teach us about a continuous spiral of detecting, correcting. called Double-loop (vs. single). TQM is becoming an enormous balloon where everybody finds what he wants :-(((

"Toyotaism" is the JIT develop to the extreme limits. Replace zero stock by no stock never at all, Just in time by "tight flow" where deliveries arrive a minute before you need it, has finally transformed trucks and vans into permanent mobile warehouses. Considering the situation in the East of Canada, such a shortcut increase road crashes by 17% for the 90ties and that is only the top of it. What about road repairs, social costs, increasing security officers, and so.? No answer! What about unpredictable weather conditions as Iced Storm, hurricane, which disrupts chain of supplies within few days? No answer!

The same reduced understanding may be extending to every concept and particularly TQM. Try to imagine the reaction of a manager if you explain him there is no fix definition for the Quality management philosophy. He will go to the essential: What it will cost and how long does it will take for a complete implementation. Now he is facing the challenge of his career: to go trough it! Most of time, the only visible part (from outside) is the recognition of his success; The ISO certification! No time to do it himself, too complicated to read and understand general principles and theories, Self-assessment or Quality prices (Qualimetre, Deming award, Malcolm Balbridge awards.) does not give the organizations what they need to prove the accomplishment of their Quality process. Thus, the best way is to buy a "turnkey operation" system which fits the business needs, mostly implemented trough rigid "Project management" methods

All the great speeches about human resource involved or not in the procedure of TQM is more often than not, resume for a client (or a contractor) by: "Are you certified ISO or not?" And that is dramatically all! Try to convince your client (Hydro-Quebec, Boeing) that you have got a production award; he simply doesn't care about it. The recognition is all what they need to assume position on to the global and highly competitive market. This implicates that if your business needs it, you will have it. It's a "must" to survive whatever the way you have to do it, even if you are oblige to reduce you employee (number or salary) to be finally lower on your production cost. That's the way I'm jobless!

Best regards

posted 28 February 2000 02:09 PM               

>I am having a problem with "stifles creativity and adopts a "hard" non
>forgiving environment where management rule is supplemented by TQM rule".
>It seems to me that neither Management nor TQM "rule" but provide leadership
>and a vision. A clear plan on continuous improvement of all the processes
>that provide the customer with service and product. This leadership is
>receptive to "breakthrough" concepts that lead to new levels of performance.
>People are encouraged to find new ways to accomplish the tasks at hand.

While you are correct in what the intent of TQM is supposed to be implemented as. TQM, like so many quality programs including ISO, QS, etc. have been implemented poorly and without changing the mindset of management. I am not saying that this is true of all or even most companies. But there are enough of them that use this system as a way to monitor the employees rather than giving responsibility and accountibility into the hands of the employees.

I have even seen a couple of MB and state quality award winners go this route after they have gotten the awards. Without changing management, you cannot even begin to keep a system alive at the employee level.

And, in light of the original "panopticon" example, employee usually figure a way around the management by taking problems underground and away from the monitoring system.

In my experience, the employees live up to your outwardly expressed expectations. That is, if you put in a system that says "I don't trust you so I have to monitor you very closely" you will get exactly that... employees who can't be trusted. I know there are always those folks who have a discipline problem, but why are they in that position if they cannot perform that job to the quality level you expect?

I have seen actual TQM fundamentals applied successfully and the company didn't have to spend a large chunk of money doing it. The people held themselves accountable and responsible for the quality they produced. Goals were set with the individual's interests involved and the company's needs as well. This company also knew its plant capacity and never overbooked. Funny thing, this company is highly succesful in what they do, yet they didn't realize that they were implementing a buzz word, they thought they were doing the things that were good for their business success and survival. Slan Leat!