Deming referred to the old African saying "it takes the whole village to raise a child". In this paper we try to understand and interpret it through few core concepts of Quality and Total Quality Management.
IT TAKES THE WHOLE VILLAGE TO RAISE A CHILD
Executive Summary
Deming referred to the old African saying "it takes the whole village to raise a child". In this paper we try to understand and interpret it through few core concepts of Quality and Total Quality Management introduced by quality gurus like Deming, Crosby, Juran and Gravin. This paper focuses on the quality journey of Eastman Chemical and presents an analysis of quality based strategies applied in Eastman chemical. This paper also evaluates the activities that indicate Eastman chemicals as a learning organization. The analysis indicated that Eastman Chemical thus entail high degree of TQM practices and is thus considered to be the best by its customers, employees and suppliers.
Introduction.
Quality assurance has been a significant aspect throughout history. Since the Egyptian era till date quality concepts paved the way for development of quality management to Total Quality management.
Thus it is important to understand what is Quality?
Quality is a wide concept and can be viewed from different perceptive or criteria. As cited in Forker, L., Gravin, D.A., (1993) classified different viewpoints into five quality approaches. These are summarized in Table-I
Approach
Definition variables
Underlying discipline
Transcendent
Product Based
User Based
Manufacturing Based
Value Based
Innate excellence
Quantity of desired attributes
Satisfaction of consumer preference
Conformance of requirement
Affordable excellence
Philosophy
Economics
Economic, marketing and operation management
Operation management
Operation management
Table- I
Approach to defining quality
Source: Gravin, D.A cited in Forker, L.B, (1996).
There has been a revolution with respect to quality planning and quality management particularly in business and industry in the last two decades. As Evans, J & Lindsay W., (1998) state that quality issues permeate all aspect of business enterprise, design, marketing, manufacturing, human resource management, supplier relation and financial management to name a few. How could quality be assured in performance of every aspect of the business? The answer is Total Quality Management or TQM
So what is Total Quality Management or TQM?
As stated by Bhatti, M., Kumar, K. & Schofield, M., (1998) TQM refers to philosophies in quality planning and management. The world "Total" refers to the entire organization focusing its efforts to the major issues affecting its final result.
Total quality management is described (Terziovski, M., Sohal, A.S., Samson, D., 1996), "As a comprehensive set of processes which engage all people in a company on process improvements. TQM requires organizations to design their services and products with knowledge of their customer requirements".
Quality guru and expert W. Edward Deming introduced and preached his "14-points" (see Appendix-I) for Total Quality Management, which can be apprehended as the basic philosophy on which any TQM effort must rest. However, as he continued to learn he summarized the 14-Points in what he called "The System of Profound Knowledge" which consisted of four interrelated parts: as cited in Evans, J & Lindsay W., (1998).
. Appreciation for a system: involves understanding how each component of the system works to produce the end product or service, and understanding how the system may be optimized for better and smoother performance.
2. Understanding of variation: helps us to understand the common or special causes of change or variation in a system, which may be for better or worse.
3. Theory of knowledge: involves understanding cause and effect relationship that can be used for future prediction and understanding the system for current and possible variation within, suggest possible outcomes of future course of action within the system.
4. Psychology: helps us to understand people, interaction between people and circumstances, what motivates people (intrinsically and extrinsically) and helps us to understand that human resource of the organization can ...
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2. Understanding of variation: helps us to understand the common or special causes of change or variation in a system, which may be for better or worse.
3. Theory of knowledge: involves understanding cause and effect relationship that can be used for future prediction and understanding the system for current and possible variation within, suggest possible outcomes of future course of action within the system.
4. Psychology: helps us to understand people, interaction between people and circumstances, what motivates people (intrinsically and extrinsically) and helps us to understand that human resource of the organization can be the competitive advantage to a company.
Deming put the TQM as a system approach and stressed that top management has the overriding responsibility for quality improvement. He also proposed a major cultural change in the organization in order to implement TQM
Juran focused on three major issues, which he called it "Quality trilogy" consisting quality planning, quality control and quality improvement and he also advocated that TQM must start at the top. Like Juran and Deming Crosby also stated that TQM must start at the top. He defined TQM as "Conformance of requirement, not elegance" and introduced some concepts like Zero defects, cost of poor quality, doing the job right for the first time etc. All three of them had significantly different philosophies but were more alike than different and are synthesized by Evans, J & Lindsay W., (1998) under as the fundamental principal of TQM:
. Focus on customers and stakeholders
2. Participation and teamwork by everyone in the organization
3. A Process focus supported by continuous improvement and learning.
P.T.O
The establishment of national quality awards in many countries has increased management's quality awareness. The seven categories as illustrated in the Baldrige Award Criteria Framework forms an integrated management system. (See Figure-I)
Figure-I
The BALDRIGE FRAMEWORK -
A SYSTEM PERCPECTIVE
THE MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL OF QUALITY, 5ed, (c) 2002 South-Western / Thomson Learning(tm)
TQM and learning organization.
There appears no doubt about the importance of Total quality management. More recently TQM is primarily associated with learning organization. Terziovski, M., Howell, A., Sohal, A. and Morrison, M., (2000)., have clearly shown in their research that TQM and the Learning Organization are mutually dependent. Both TQM and learning organization initiatives provide teamwork, a systematic approach, adapting to one's environment and ability to learn as an organization.
Gravin as cited in Sohal, A. and Morrison, M., (1995) sees a clear philosophical link between systematic problem solving of a learning organization and the quality movement. He also suggests that, to become a learning organization, companies need to be skilled at the following five activities:
Systematic problem solving: Relates to the philosophy and methods of the quality movement, relying on scientific method rather than guesswork; uses actual data rather than assumptions and simple statistical tools.
2 Experimentation with new approaches: Systematic searching for and testing new knowledge; motivated by opportunity and new perspectives and not by current difficulties.
3 Learning from their experiences and past history: A review of successes and failures; reflecting and self-analysis.
4 Learning from experiences and best practices of others: Benchmarking; looking outside the immediate environment; openness to the outside world; environmental scanning.
5 Transferring knowledge quickly and efficiently throughout the organization: Knowledge transferred quickly and efficiently throughout the organization; mechanisms in place to facilitate the process; written and oral reports; site visits; tours; rotation programmes; education and training programmes.
Thus a learning organization is one, which continuously learns and develops the potential in all the people/allies/trading partners who work with the company along with self-development of the as a whole organization, including the integration of each individual's learning with that of the company as a whole. As according to Senge (1990) Learning organization is one, which "facilitates the learning of all its members and continuously transforms itself" as cited in Mile Terziovski, et.el (2000)
Eastman Chemical Company: A Total Quality and a Learning organization
Founded in 1920, Eastman Chemical Company employs 18,000 people. Manufactures and markets over 400 chemicals, fibers and plastics for its 7000 customers around the world.
The company's formal quality journey began in the late 1970s when it lost the market share of a major product and began searching for a new way of doing business. Starting in 1982 with a renewed focus on customers, Eastman steadily developed its quality management values and processes. Along the way, it used the Baldrige Award criteria for self-assessment and sought advice from quality management experts and Baldrige Award winners.
As shown in the dynamic relationship among the Baldrige Award Criteria framework in figure-I, (page-4) the primary focus of the awards on customer focus and quality and operational results. It is given to those companies that have world-class system for managing their people and processes. Each system must ensure continuous improvement in its product or service and provide a way of satisfying and responding to its customers. As cited in Taylor, C., (1994)
Meeting customers' needs with high-quality products and services has always been a top priority for Eastman. Today, quality management principles and techniques are natural fiber throughout the company's business activities. A strong focus on customers is clearly reflected in its vision: "To Be the World's Preferred Chemical Company" by exceeding customers' expectations, and in its quality goal: "To Be the Leader in Quality and Value of Products and Services".
The vision, values, and goals that define Eastman's quality culture have a management action plan and the senior managers at Eastman are committed to this culture and in addition they encourage leadership at all levels of the management and use every opportunity to communicate quality goals through out the organization, suppliers and trading allies. As quality gurus have pointed out that TQM must start at the top. As supported by Phelps., S., (1998) "Senior management must model the behaviors and model they want their employees to mirror".
The company's quality management process is based on customer focus and maintaining processes; and a continual improvement cycle of plan, do, check, and act. A network of interlocking teams, led by managers and supervisors, involves virtually all employees in the team towards a single goal of quality improvement in processes. Each team uses the company's quality management process to understand and anticipate the needs of both internal and external customers, to define key processes and measures, and to continually improve.
Eastman uses PDSA cycle introduced by Deming to improve and innovate a standardized best practices method. It helps Eastman to reduce the difference between the voice of the consumer and the process performance.
In its supplier improvement programme, Eastman employees team with key suppliers to improve quality and value of purchased materials, equipment, and services. Purchasing Magazine recently named Eastman's supplier programme as one of the ten most copied supplier relations processes in US industry. As cited in Taylor, C. (1994).
For the past four years, over 70 per cent of its worldwide customers have ranked Eastman as there number one supplier. Of the five factors customers believe are most important - product quality, product uniformity, supplier integrity, correct delivery, and reliability - Eastman has been rated outstanding for the past seven years. Shipping reliability has consistently been near 100 per cent for the last four years. Since 1982, Eastman has received 97 quality-related awards from its customers. (Information gathered from www.eastman.com )
The company also recognizes that to be successful it must rely on the skills and dedication of Eastman people. Eastman takes pride in its employees and addresses them as its key to success. It identifies with the value that employee satisfaction leads to customer satisfaction and thus has a HR policy in place, which reduces fear of job loss. It also has performance appraisals to coach and improve its employees. Eastman recognizes training is vital at every level of organization. Eastman also empowers employees giving them authority and ability to make decision. As stated by Pietenpol, D., Gitlow, H., (1996) " A worker cannot provide service to his/her internal or external customer if he/she is not given the proper training, is not given information on the organizational goals and performance objectives, and is not given the authority to make decision which affect the organization' s performance". A study by Bhatti, M., et.al., (1998) also revealed that regarding the people as the most important asset in the company is intrinsically associated with the notion of quality and human excellence.
Eastman; A learning organization.
The five activities introduced by Gravin (see page-6) to become a learning organization have a clear and a strong management focus in the Eastman chemical company. It acquires new knowledge through feedback from its customers, suppliers and employees and being communicated through out the organization to adopt necessary changes, it used the Baldrige Award criteria for self-assessment and improvement. It developed links with its customers, employees and suppliers to lean from experience within and outside the organization. Eastman developed a company wide awareness and communication program, which ensured shared vision, innovation and teamwork. It uses a tool "Translate and link" to communicate its objectives and receive feedback to have a shared vision to achieve high level of customer satisfaction. Eastman critically views learning and improvement and implies it every activity and process to be the world's proffered chemical company.
In addition to its strong customer ties, Eastman is equally proud of its community links and has made environmental concern as a TQM priority. Eastman assures responsibility for health, safety, and environmental protection by being good stewards of their products and services.
The way TQM has no end, it a continuous process of learning and improvement, so does Eastman Chemical quality journey has no end and no conclusion. But the case study concludes that Eastman Chemical has quality practice in place for each and every aspect of their business and have a strong management focus on leadership, customer focus, human resource management information analysis, process management and business results with a strong integrated relationship between all of them. Eastman displays a clear understanding that how important is each aspect is to the contribution to Quality as a whole.
It certainly does takes the whole village to raise a child
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