Management’s Role in Quality Tool Deployment

Management’s role is changing from one of directing to one of facilitating. Since the Industrial Revolution, management has supplied the place of work, the machinery and tools, and the work instructions. The concept has been that management knows what the job is and needs only to hire the muscle power to get it accomplished. The workers were there only because management could not get the job done without their labor. Workers were not expected to think about doing things differ­ently but simply to follow the boss’s orders. Work was typically divided into small tasks that required minimal training, with little or no understanding on the part of laborers as to how their contribution fit into the mosaic of the whole.

During much of the twentieth century, and certainly since World War II, changes have been creeping into the management-labor relationship. Some people think that the labor unions were responsible for these changes, and they did help obtain better pay, shorter hours, workplace improve­ments, and other benefits for workers. However, the relation­ship changes between management and labor have happened largely in spite of the unions. Unions have had at least as dif­ficult a time as management has had in dealing with employee involvement. Nor has management at large been responsible for the changes sweeping across the industrial world today. Certainly, there are champions representing management, but the changes are coming about for one reason and one reason only: They are necessary in order for businesses to survive in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

After World War II, when Deming went to Japan to teach industrialists about quality and the use of statistics for achieving it, Japan had just lost the war. Its industrial base was a shambles. The Japanese needed to resurrect their fac­tories and put people to work quickly. That meant they had to be able to sell their products abroad—to the same people who had defeated them. To do that, it was essential that their products be of high quality. Their survival depended on it. You know the rest of the story.

Not only did the Japanese listen to Deming and Juran, but also they embraced them and their philosophy (whereas in the United States we were abandoning their teaching amid a seemingly insatiable market for manufactured goods). Japan developed its own quality gurus (Ishikawa, Taguchi, Shingo, and others) who expanded the work of Deming and Juran. For 30 years, into the 1980s, Japanese manufactur­ers perfected their quality and production methods. The 1980s found Japan ahead of the rest of the world, not just the United States, in product quality and value. During that decade, companies in the United States began to wake up to the fact that Japan’s products were the best in the world and that they were running roughshod over U.S. companies not only in the world markets, but also right here at home. Whole markets were conceded to Japan as U.S. companies found they could not compete.

The survival mentality finally surfaced. We woke up to the fact that not only our industrial survival but perhaps even our national survival was at stake. Either we became competitive in the global marketplace, or we lost the first war fought without bullets since the invention of gunpowder.

Now that the wake-up call has been received, many peo­ple have come to realize that we have been managing poorly for a very long time—say, since 1945. We (those of us who have heard the alarm) have come to understand that manage­ment’s proper role is to facilitate, not to direct. Management provides the place of work and the machines and tools as before, but in addition, we do everything we can to help our employees do the job. That means training. It means listen­ing to their thoughts and ideas—more than that, it means seeking their thoughts and ideas. It means acting on them. It means giving them the power to do their jobs without man­agement interference. It means giving them time to think and discuss and suggest and experiment. It means commu- nicating—fully and honestly. No secrets, no smoke screens. It means accepting every employee as a valued member of the corporate team.

This approach does not mean that management abdi­cates its responsibility to set the direction for the enterprise, to establish the corporate vision, to steer the course. But with the enlistment of all the brain power that had formerly gone untapped, even this job becomes easier than it was before.

It is management’s responsibility to train employees to use not only physical tools (and that is very important) but also intellectual tools. The tools discussed in this chapter should eventually be used by most employees—eventually because it is a mistake to schedule all employees for training on the tools if they will not be using them very soon. You would not train a person on a new machine a year before the machine arrives because without putting the training to practice, its effect will be lost. So it is with the total quality tools. When a group of people is ready to put some of the tools into practice, that is when the group should be trained. As the total quality concept takes root, it will be only a matter of time until everyone has the need. Train them as required.

Management must also provide the internal experts, often called facilitators, to help the new teams get started and to de­velop their expertise. Facilitation is probably a never-ending function because the total quality envelope is constantly being expanded and there will always be the need for a few to be on the leading edge and to bring the others along.

It is management’s responsibility to ensure that the people who are solving the problems have the proper train­ing and facilitation. It is also management’s responsibility to make sure the problems being attacked are of interest to the enterprise and not trivial. Management must populate the problem-solving team with the cross-functional expertise the problem requires. The team must be given the power and support necessary to see the effort brought to its conclusion.

Management must be vigilant that data used in problem solving are valid, which is a function that usually falls to the fa­cilitator. Especially when teams are immature in total quality, they have a tendency to grab at the first set of data that comes along. Management must ensure that the data and the statistical techniques employed are appropriate for the problem at hand.

Finally, management must ensure that there are results. Too many problem-solving, process improvement, and re­lated efforts take on a life of their own and go on forever. This cannot be allowed. People are watching. Especially in the early stages, some people will hold the view that “This too shall pass.” If results do not come rather quickly, the detrac­tors will be given the ammunition they need to subvert the whole total quality effort. For this reason, it is important that the first projects attempted have a high probability of success, and management must monitor them closely, even to the point of being involved in the activity. As the process matures and successes are tallied, an occasional failure will not be an issue. In fact, people must be given the chance to fail, and fail­ure must be free of repercussions for the team or its members.

Precautions

Implementing the use of statistical tools and the whole con­cept of process improvement, problem solving by the rank and file, and empowerment—in short, the total quality cul­ture—represents a profound change from the way things have been done in the past. People generally resist change until they see that it will benefit them. For that reason, man­agement must champion change and convince everyone that the effort will benefit all. Those who would undermine the effort must rapidly be converted or removed from the opera­tion. People will be looking to management for evidence that management really believes in total quality. If for no other reason than that, it must be obvious to all that management is using the same techniques the other employees are being taught. Above all, management must support and facilitate the employees as they use the techniques of total quality to solve problems and improve processes.

Communicate. Let everyone know what is going on and what the results are. Help them understand why it is good for them, for the whole enterprise, and, yes, even for the nation.

Never assume that you know it all. The people who live with the processes day in and day out know far more about what is wrong with them and how to improve them than any manager. Never delude yourself that you have learned all you need to know about total quality. It will never happen because total quality is a dynamic and ever-expanding concept.

Start slowly. Don’t try to organize an entire factory or office complex into improvement teams and train ev­eryone in sight on day one. Take it one or two steps at a time, training as you go. Be careful to pick early projects that have high prospects for success.

But start. The worst choice a manager could make today is to decide that total quality is not for his or her business. It is for every conceivable kind of business, whether large or small, whether public, private, military, civilian, mass production, job shop, classroom, or office. It would be a tragedy to decide not to start this journey when so much is at stake.

Although results should be evident quickly, do not ex­pect the necessary cultural change to occur overnight. This is a long process, requiring several years to get to the point where total quality is considered “just the way we do things” and not some special “project.” Even so, during all that time, problems are being solved, improvements are being made, and efficiency, productivity, and competitiveness are all increased.

Source: Goetsch David L., Davis Stanley B. (2016), Quality Management for organizational excellence introduction to total Quality, Pearson; 8th edition.