Deming's 14 Points for Management Although Deming embraced the belief that theory was important to his understanding of quality improvement, the closest he came to explaining a theory was the 14 points he gave for management. The basis of the 14 points was Deming's belief that the historical approach to quality by the American administration was wrong in one fundamental respect: Low quality was not the fault of labor; it was caused by poor management of the system for continuous improvement. While this may seem obvious now, at the time Deming was teaching it, it was a revelation to the rulers. Taken as a whole, the 14 points for management (see Table 1). Table 2-2) represents many of the basic principles that form the basis of quality management in many organizations. Create objective stability for product and service improvement to be competitive, stay in business, and provide business. Consistency of purpose means that management commits resources over the long term to see quality work completed. This is in contrast to managers who, after embarking on quality "programs", want to get quick returns and achieve final results. In recent years, more and more people have realized that the U.S. administration is too short-term in its thinking. Unfortunately, quality improvement requires time to be effective. The Japanese experience was instructive. Deming helped start the Japanese quality revolution in the early 1950s. As mentioned earlier, the Japanese have demonstrated a remarkable commitment and focus on quality improvement. Despite all this effort, the Japanese didn't really become recognized as world leaders in quality until the late 1970s. Adopt a new philosophy. We are in a new economic era. Western governance must wake up to the challenge, learn its responsibilities and take the lead in change. Planned obsolescence was the order of the day Deming first discussed the new economic era. During this time, the cars were designed to last 80,000 miles. Deming was talking about an era when Americans would no longer accept defective products. Now that so many firms have excellent quality at a reasonable cost, they are turning to service quality to make the next big leaps. More and more, specification measurements are being replaced by customer service metrics as important measures of quality. Drop the dependency on bulk moderation to improve quality. Eliminate the need for mass-based inspection by embedding quality into the product in the first place. Still in many companies, the "quality department" performs an in-process and final inspection of a product. In this scenario, the responsibility for quality lies with the quality department. However, when the quality department inspects the product, the quality is either built-in or not established. At this point, it's too late to add quality. The alternative to deming is quality at its source. This means that all employees are responsible for their own work and perform the necessary audits at every stage of the process to maintain process control. Of course, this is only possible if the management trusts its employees and trains them correctly. End the practice of rewarding work solely on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize the total cost. Based on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust, move towards a single supplier for any product. Traditionally, U.S. firms have had many suppliers. The theory behind this approach was that competition between suppliers would improve quality and reduce cost. But in reality, many suppliers Its presence has led to an overemphasis on cost and increased variability. For example, if a metal manufacturing company has multiple suppliers, the result is great variability in the structure and consistency of incoming stock. The alternative supply chain approach used by many firms is single source purchasing. This approach reduces variability by minimizing the number of suppliers used. In addition, long-term contracts are used, which results in the ability to develop and certify suppliers. Usually these certificates are based on quality standards, such as the Malcolm Baldrige award criteria or the international ISO 9000 standard for quality systems. In other cases, supplier certification is based on an internally developed standard. Continuously and forever improve the production and service system to improve quality and productivity, thereby continuously reducing costs. This point focuses on the management of the production system. The manufacturing system includes product design, process design, training, tools, machines, process flows, and numerous other variables that affect the production and service system. In the final analysis, management is responsible for most of the system design elements because it is management that has the authority and budget to implement the systems. Therefore, workers can only be held responsible for their entry into the system. The mediocre or poor performance of a system is often the result of poor management performance. Institute on-the-job training. People must have the necessary education and knowledge to do their jobs. Many companies that employ workers realized they needed to design training on the job. Note that training, although a necessary condition for improvement, is not enough to guarantee the successful implementation of quality management. The design of effective training is important for quality improvement. Develop leadership. The purpose of supervision should be to help people, machines and vehicles do a better job. Management supervision and control of production workers need to be overhauled. All quality experts agree that leadership is the key to improving quality. Assembly line workers will be able to make some small improvements in their organization if they are enthusiastic about quality management. However, this improvement can only occur in the employee's domain. For far-reaching improvements to take place, senior management needs to be involved. It is the senior management who has the monetary and organizational authority to oversee the implementation of quality improvement. Without management support and leadership, quality improvement efforts will fail. Eliminate fear so that everyone can work efficiently for the company. Deming was often referring to situations where employees are afraid to change and even acknowledge that problems exist. Many of these problems still exist. At times, employees who expose problems and try to make change are considered troublemakers or dissatisfied. It may be true that such employees are not satisfied. However, does an organization want employees who are satisfied with the status quo? Often, employees who try to create change should be rewarded the most. A little fear arises from making suggestions for improvement and ignoring them. Another type of fear should be recognized by senior managers who want to improve quality. Many employees lay off large-scale process improvement effortshe sees them as hidden excuses for malar. Often, after pursuing easy solutions such as downsizing or outsourcing, the same cultural and organizational barriers still exist that hinder development. But the company has lost the ability to truly develop the ability to be creative and add value to the customer. One solution was proposed by a major Midwestern defense contractor. He developed a written policy stating that management reserves the right to reduce staff levels as a result of economic downturns. However, the written policy also states that "No dismissals will be made from efficiency or quality improvement projects or efforts." Eliminate barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales and production need to work as a team to anticipate production and usage problems that may be encountered in the product or service. In many companies, the time it takes for design and marketing concepts to get to market is extremely long. Ingersoll-Rand produces a hand mill that once required four years to develop a new generation of the product. As one employee put it, "The fact that we are developing a next-generation product is a step forward for Allies 2. It took longer than he won World War II." In the new competitive environment, such delays in design can compromise a company's ability to compete. Honda nearly bankrupted Honda for its ability to bring new designs to market quickly. Hyundai competes by quickly designing and introducing new products. One reason for the slow design cycles was the sequential or departmental approach to design. This approach requires product designers, marketers, process designers, and production managers to work through corporate lines of authority to accomplish the work. The alternative is parallel processing in focused teams working on designs at the same time. Eliminate slogans, advice, and goals that demand zero defects and new levels of productivity for the workforce. Such incentives only create hostile relationships because a large part of the reasons for low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus are beyond the power of the workforce. In Deming's view, the advice to "do it right the first time" and "seek perfection" may be the opposite of the intended effect. Managers put pressure on employees to achieve higher levels of productivity and quality, placing the responsibility for improvement on employees. If systems or tools are not provided to achieve these higher levels of performance, employees can become exhausted and discouraged. Examples of providing systems to employees would be to provide better training, empower employees to make process decisions, and provide a strategic structure that ensures the alignment of key strategic and operational sub-objectives. Eliminate working standards on the factory floor. Eliminate goal-based management. Eliminate management based on numbers and numerical goals. Backup leadership. Deming was very opposed to standards of work measurement in the workshop. Keep in mind that operating standards are used around the world, and companies like Lincoln Electric have been very successful in skillfully using such standards. However, often labor standards are improperly enforced. Clearly, if quantity becomes the primary concern, quality suffers. More subtly, if the working standardsIf bees are present, high-performing employees may lose the urge to continually improve, as they will already have satisfactory standards. Goal-based management refers to the process of setting annual goals that are typically binding on the employee during a performance appraisal. Although goals are set for employees, systems are often not provided by management to achieve these goals. For this reason, Deming downplayed performance appraisals. Remove barriers that take away workers' right to be proud of the quality of their work. The responsibility of auditors should be changed from pure number to quality. Too often, hourly workers are hired only to perform physical tasks assigned by management. Such employees often suffer from low morale and low commitment to the organization. Unskilled managers often contribute to this problem by reinforcing the fact that employees cannot be trusted to make decisions and determine their own destiny. Once, when talking about self-managed work teams, a manager said he was afraid of "handing over the madhouse to the prisoners." Such attitudes were evident in the workshop, and the employees were not very satisfied with their working environment. On the bright side, after seeing the results of autonomous teams, that same manager has become one of the biggest allies of the employee empowerment process. Create a strong training and personal development program. Article 6 spoke of on-the-job training. Article 13 deals with more generalized education. Many quality experts have argued that firms should demonstrate the ability to enhance learning and "freeze." Learning in an organization is a function of the creativity of employees and the organization's ability to institutionalize lessons learned over time. This is difficult in companies with high employee turnover. One of the benefits of the ISO 9000 international quality standard is the requirement to certify the processes and improvements made in the processes of the companies. Procedural guides can help make learning permanent. But this is not enough. Organizational learning requires a structure that reinforces and rewards learning. Creating such an organization in a command-and-control environment is difficult because command-oriented managers will not understand what it takes to allow employees to do their best. Get everyone in the company to work to make the transformation happen. Transformation is everyone's business. Article 14 reinforces the fact that everyone in the organization is responsible for improving quality. This once again reinforces the fact that a total system that includes all the people in the organization is needed to improve quality.

Question:

1. Choose one of Deming's 14 points for management and explain how this point can result in quality improvements in a business or volunteer organization you are involved in.