QUALITY

Ihave been working in the quality

field as a line manager and as aconsultant for some 30 years and, inmy experience, it is only in the past

five years that the impact that well runquality programmes can have on a busi-ness has been fully understood in thiscountry. What this means is that the bestpractice Japanese and German com-panies, with their 20 years of top downsupport for quality initiatives, have stead-ily generated productivity gains which itwill take UK firms many years to catch upwith.

Even areas of the world that we do notnormally associate with strong competi-tion to our markets are beginning to takea strong interest in the quality field. In thepast three years, for example, we havecarried out a number of assignments inLatin America. Companies there arearound ten years behind UK standards,but they are developing fast and many oftheir quality managers are now betterqualified than their British counterparts.The message is clear, now more thanever, that a commitment to quality thatinvolves action and not just words is vitalto ensure future competitiveness.

BS 5750With out doubt the launch of BS 5750

(which lays down basic guide-lines for adisciplined approach to running a busi-ness) has been of great help in focusingsenior managers' minds around thequality issue. The third party nature ofregistration to the standard gives custo-mers confidence in the ability of firms

BRIDGEOVERTHEGAPSo you 've produced your procedures, talked yourworkforce into using them, been audited, gotBS 5750 ... and now what? Total qualitymanagement may seem to be the next step, butit looks such a long way away. Sam Kinchinhas an idea.

who have BS 5750 to deliver the goodsand DTI figures show that the disciplinethat it imposes does generate cost im-provements. Getting BS 5750 is, there-fore, the obvious first step for companieswishing to focus on improving theirquality.

Those firms who achieve BS 5750status, however, generally come to re-alise fairly early on that it is not by itselfenough. Normally only the core activitiesof the business are covered (production,transport, sales etc) and this leavesmany other departments untouched bythe programme. The advantages to ap-plying the disciplines of BS 5750 to the

whole of the business are evident: themaintenance department could use theprocesses suggested by BS 5750 towork to reduce down time; accounts toimprove cash flow by the timely and errorfree processing of invoices; personnel toimprove the quality of labour and so re-duce turnover and improve efficiency,and so on. The question is, how shouldthis be done?

Total quality managementOne answer is total quality manage-

ment (TQM). The two main componentsof TQM are the concepts of customerservice and, individual employee re-

MANUFACTURING ENGINEER JULY 1992

QUALITY

sponsibility for quality. The customer ser-vice concept views customers as anyoneto whom a service is supplied. This in-cludes internal departments as well asexternal customers, so that (say) the ac-counts department has internal custo-mers who consume their managementinformation products. Each area shouldwork to improve its understanding of itscustomers needs and to continually seekto deliver a better service. The responsi-bility issue means that clear performancetargets related to customer serviceshould be in place, on both a departmen-tal and individual basis. It follows that ifemployees are to responsible for qualityin this way they must:(a) be given the necessary training;(b) be consulted in developing the goals,and be actively encouraged to worktogether to achieve them.

A high priority is therefore placed on:training, communication, team work, andbreaking down departmental barriers.

The gapThere are, however, a number of

problems associated in moving straightfrom BS 5750 to the TQM approach.Firstly, the participation, team work, har-monised working conditions, and senseof common purpose needed for a suc-cessful TQM programme raise many is-sues of culture within firms. Generatingthe 'right' climate can take many yearsand programmes can and do flounderalong the way. In addition, because the

It is only in thepast five years that theimpact that well run

quality programmes canhave on a business has been

fully understood in thiscountry.

cultural common purpose aspect of TQMis so strong, people can have the senseof being manipulated into having to thinka certain way and this can cause resent-ment amongst employees. Furthermore,the fact that TQM programmes havemany different facets means that there isan extended implementation time tableand results can be slow to materialise.

The bridgeOne way of overcoming these prob-

lems is to adopt a half-way-house pro-gramme to bridge the gap between BS

TQM Management BriefingsTechnical Communications Publishinghas published two management brief-ing reports in the total quality manage-ment field.

Competitive Benchmarking: an Ex-ecutive Guide, written by Dr M Zairi ofBradford University, explains to con*cept of benchmarking, providing im-plementation guidelines and highlight-ing the benefits.

Topics covered include:defining the art of benchmarking;benchmarking and measurement;understanding competition;the role of customers in bench-marking;tools in benchmarking;the development of an effectivebenchmarking strategy;a practical implementation plan;

• benchmarking in innovation: anexample.

Also by Dr Zairi is TQM-Based Per-formance Measurement in which theshortcomings of existing measurementsystems are discussed, and the needfor measurement highlighted, givingexamples of TQ-based measurementsand outlining a development/implemen-tation framework. Topics covered in-clude:• limitations for existing measure-

ment techniques;• the development of TQM-based

measures;• a catalogue of TQ-based perfor-

mance measures.Both reports are part of a TQM Prac-

titioner series.For more information enter ME34

5750 and TQM. This is what BSI's latestaward, the Company Wide Registrationscheme (CWR), is designed to do.

Each individual department within acompany is regarded as a business pro-cess and the first step is to map out whatwork is being done by each departmentand where the interfaces are. The sec-ond step is to make sure that the pro-cesses are in harmony with each otherand that gaps, overlaps, and unnecess-ary work are eliminated. Once this hasbeen achieved, specific individuals aremade responsible for the processes, andservice level contracts, setting the stand-ards that each department should workto, are agreed. As a result each depart-ment knows exactly what it can expectfrom another and there is clear owner-ship of all the company's systems. Thismeans that any problems can be quicklyresolved by the manager with the appro-priate responsibility and authority.

The route to CWR is similar to that forBS 5750. There is an initial registrationwith BSI followed by a programme ofwork and then, once the company isready, a formal assessment takes place.Assuming there are no problems at theassessment stage, the company is thenawarded the certificate. Notification ofthe award appears in the BSI news andbuyers guide, and the company may putthe CWR symbol on all letter heads andpromotional material. Such companiesare then in an excellent position to imple-ment a TQM programme with a highprobability of success.

Way forwardThe UK is already behind many com-

petitors in Japan and Germany in termsof quality and many other countries areat, or fast approaching, UK standards. Inorder to keep up with such competitionachieving BS 5750 is an important firststep. It is not, however, sufficient for longterm survival.

For those firms with BS 5750, theTQM approach with its soft aspects ofculture and motivation is often too big astep to take and some intermediatemeasure is necessary. CWR, with itsdiscipline of third party registration and asystems based approach is, in my opi-nion, the ideal way forward. EQFor more information enter ME33

Sam Kinchin CEng is a lead assessorand head of ALA International's qualityarm.

MANUFACTURING ENGINEER JULY 1992