Making Quality Work [antikvár]

Introduction What Is Total Quality Management? Total quality management (TQM) is a relatively new approach to the art of management. It seeks to improve product and service quality and increase customer satisfaction by restructuring traditional management practices. The application of TQM is unique to each organization that adopts such an approach. —Report of the U.S. General Accounting Office, May 1991 It seems that what you're telling us hoik down to five basic principles: 1) Ask customers what they want. 2) Set zero defects as your standard. 3) Complete work in the shortest possible time. 4) Measure the system, not personal behavior. 5) Make sure everyone feels like a stakeholder. —U.S. Congressman Newt Gingrich, responding to testimony about total quality management In the summer of 1990, we experienced one of those moments when an elusive truth at last comes clear. "We had just led a group of U.S. executives through Japan's Kansai Electric Company—^winner of the prestigious Deming Prize for quality strategy, management, and execution—and were exchanging pleasantries with our hosts. "Some IBM executives were here on a study visit just yesterday," one Kansai executive noted. "They told us that, at IBM, total qual-