1.
What is quality?
Quality is a dynamic state associated with products, services, people,
processes, and environments that meets or exceeds expectations and helps
produce superior value. It’s not only the production, the machine, but also
sales, services and work process…etc. For example, the quality for a car, not
only the car, but also the prophase research, design, aftermarket service, sales
service…etc. Everything can create value associated to the car is a part of
quality.
Quality has been defined in a number of different ways. When viewed from a
consumer’s perspective, it means meeting or exceeding customer
expectations.
2.
What is TQM?
Total quality consists of the continual improvement of people, processes,
products (including services), and environments. With total quality anything
and everything that affects quality is a target for continual improvement. When
the total quality concept is effectively applied, the end results can include
organizational excellence, superior value, and global competitiveness.
Total Quality Management (TQM) is a comprehensive and structured approach
to organizational management that seeks to improve the quality of products
and services through ongoing refinements in response to continuous
feedback.
Total quality is an approach to doing business that attempts to maximize an
organization’s competitiveness through the continual improvement of the
quality of its products, services, people, processes, and environments.
3.
How can we achieve organizational excellence with quality?
Continually improving the quality of products, processes, services, and costs is
what total quality is all about—hence the name total quality. Organizations that
effectively apply the total quality approach to management are the ones most
likely to achieve organizational excellence.
4.
What is the Deming cycle?
1. Conduct consumer research and use it in planning the product (plan).
2. Produce the product (do).
3. Check the product to make sure it was produced in accordance with the plan
(check).
4. Market the product (act).
5. Analyze how the product is received in the marketplace in terms of quality,
cost, and other criteria (analyze).
* W. Edwards Deming is best known for his Fourteen Points, the Deming Cycle,
and his Seven Deadly Diseases.
5.
What are the most common errors when starting quality initiatives?
Common errors made when starting quality initiatives include senior
management delegation and poor leadership; team mania; the deployment
process; a narrow, dogmatic approach; and confusion about the differences
among education, awareness, inspiration, and skill building.
6.
Explain the cost of poor quality
7.
What are the quality characteristics of world-class organizations?
Customer service, quality control and assurance, innovation, team-based
approach to work, partnerships and alliances, and reengineering of processes
are all topics that figure prominently in any discussion of total quality.
In addition to these issues, the AMA survey found that respondents were
concerned about a number of human resources topics. The 10 most important
of these are as follows:
1. Worker productivity (improvement)
2. Employee training and development
3. Open communication between management and employees
4. Employee benefits and perquisites
5. Codes of workplace conduct
6. Conflict resolution
7. Employee satisfaction
8. Flextime arrangements
9. Management–employee–union relations
10. Child care
8.
Responsibility and total quality
Part of ethical behavior is accepting responsibility. This is critical in the modern
workplace because employees are drawn from a society that, as a rule, shuns
responsibility— which is why ours has become such a litigious society.
People want to blame others for their own shortcomings and failures. Students
graduate from high school unable to read and immediately file lawsuits against
the school board as if they had no part in their own failure. A burglar trips on a
skateboard after robbing a house, sues the homeowner, and wins! Inmates
upset over the quality of food take their guards hostage and burn down an
entire wing of the prison, saying their rights have been violated. Modern
society has evolved into one that focuses on rights but ignores the
responsibilities that must accompany those rights.
Passing blame has become commonplace. Employees often refer to their
employer as “they” rather than “we.” Go to a fast-food restaurant or a retail
store and complain to a salesclerk. Chances are good that the salesclerk will
pass on the blame to an unseen “they.” This is not ethical behavior. In a total
quality setting, people are responsible for their actions and accountable for
their performance. Accepting responsibility helps build trust, integrity, and all
the other elements of ethics that are so important in a total quality
environment.
9.
Discuss some models for ethical quality decisions
. Categorical imperative model. The categorical imperative model is also
known as the black-and-white model. With this model, right is right, wrong is
wrong, and there are no gray areas.
. Full-disclosure model. With this model, the functional criterion is a simple
question: Could the organization explain its actions to the satisfaction of a
broad cross-section of stakeholders? Only when this question can be
answered in the affirmative is an action ethical. This model has the advantage
of applying the values of stakeholders in deciding what is ethical.
. Doctrine of the mean model. In this model, the mean refers to the average
or middle point between two extremes. Translated for practical application, this
model suggests that in any situation, a moderate middle- ground option is
likely to be an ethical option. Said another way, this model suggests that
moderation is ethical.
. Golden Rule model. This model is based on the Golden Rule: “Do unto
others as you would have them do unto you.” It is one of the most popular
models in Western society. Like the full-disclosure model, it takes the
viewpoints of stakeholders into account in deciding what is ethical.
. Market-ethic model. This model is based on the belief that any legal action
that promotes profitability is ethical. Proponents of this model profess that the
purpose of a business is to make a profit. Consequently, what is ethical should
be decided within a framework of profit and loss. They argue that in the long
run the market will reject unethical corporate behavior, making it thereby
unprofitable.
. Organizational ethic model. This model is based on loyalty to the
organization. Its underlying premise is that the most ethical decision is the one
that best serves the organization’s interests. Unless an organization has
adopted a set of guiding principles that ensure ethical, the organizational ethic
model is difficult to defend.
. Equal freedom model. The underlying principle of this model is that
organizations have the freedom to behave as they wish unless their actions
infringe on the rights of stakeholders. This is a more confining model than it
might appear at first glance. For example, suppose an organization decides to
use a new chemical that improves product quality and costs substantially.
10.
What is the engineering manager’s role in quality ethics?
By applying the information set forth so far in this chapter, managers can make
ethical decisions. Unfortunately, deciding what is ethical is much easier than
actually doing what is ethical. In this regard, trying to practice ethics is like
trying to lose weight. It is not so much a matter of knowing you should exercise
and cut down on eating as it is a matter of following through and actually doing
it. This fact defines the manager’s and the professional’s role with regard to
ethics in an organization. Managers and professionals in organizations are
responsible for following through and actually exemplifying ethical behavior.
They are responsible for establishing high ethical standards, setting a
consistently positive example of exceeding those standards, and acting
immediately when they observe unethical behavior. Figure 4–3 shows three
approaches managers and professionals can use in carrying out these
responsibilities.
Best-Ratio Approach
The best-ratio approach is a pragmatic approach based on the belief that
people are basically good, that in the right circumstances they will behave
ethically, and that under certain conditions they can be driven to unethical
behavior.
Therefore, managers should do everything possible to create conditions that
promote ethical behavior and try to maintain the best possible ratio of good
choices to bad choices and ethical behavior to unethical behavior. When hard
decisions must be made, managers should make the choice that will do the
most good for the most people. This approach is sometimes called situational
ethics .
Black-and-White Approach
With the black-and-white approach, right is right, wrong is wrong, and
conditions are irrelevant. The managers job is to make ethical decisions and
carry them out. It is also to help employees behave ethically regardless of
circumstances. When difficult decisions must be made, managers should
make fair and impartial choices regardless of the outcome and do the right
thing without concern for short-term circumstances.
Full-Potential Approach
With the full-potential approach, decisions made are based on how they will
affect the ability of those involved to achieve their full potential. The underlying
philosophy is that people are responsible for realizing their full potential within
the confines of morality. Choices that can achieve this goal without infringing
on the rights of others are considered ethical.
The values of the organization and the manager will determine which approach
is used. Which one is best is a philosophical question that could be debated at
length without being resolved and can be discussed only within the context of a
values system.