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Juran on Leadership For Quality - Softcover

Juran, J. M.

 
9780743255776: Juran on Leadership For Quality
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0743255771 ISBN 13: 9780743255776
Verlag: Free Press, 2003

Inhaltsangabe

The subject of management for quality has undergone rapid and drastic change as a result of competition in the marketplace and the vulnerability of industrialized societies that depend heavily on the quality of goods and services. In this companion volume to his acclaimed Juran on Planning for Quality, J.M. Juran provides top-level managers with the specific, field-tested methods they need to successfully lead their companies on the quest for superior quality.

Managers have long recognized that the most sound response to a competitive challenge is to become more competitive. Today, informed managers also realize that quality improvement is the best source of competitive advantage. They know that return on investment in quality improvement projects is among the highest available. Yet, the means by which management can supply the leadership necessary to attain quality goals remains elusive. J.M. Juran has drawn on the experiences of thousands of chief executives in companies around the world to create a clear plan of action applicable to any industry, whether service or manufacturing.

The famous "Juran Trilogy," clearly presented step-by-step, shows how to apply the familiar business concepts of planning, control, and improvement to quality leadership. For each concept, Dr. Juran provides a succinct and proven series of actions. He gives criteria for selecting project-by-project improvements and mobilizing a team to carry them out. He also describes a realistic timetable of implementation and directs the formation of an ongoing quality council whose job is to launch, coordinate, and "institutionalize" annual quality improvement. The membership of this council, as Dr. Juran insists, must come from the ranks of senior managers; the stakes are too high for upper managers not to personally become the leaders and members of this vital council. Using real-world case examples of highly profitable quality improvements in such companies as Bethlehem Steel and Florida Power & Light, Dr. Juran illustrates how to guide a company into a continuing steep rate of improvement. The key, as Dr. Juran emphasizes, is that quality must be implemented from the top down. This essential handbook makes executive leadership the key to a company's quality revolution -- and to producing the real cost benefits over both the short and long run that superior quality brings.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

J. M. Juran, author of Juran on Planning for Quality (The Free Press), is founder and Chairman Emeritus of Juran Institute, Inc. A consultant to various industrial companies, government agencies, and other institutions, Dr. Juran is also in demand as an international lecturer.

Awarded over thirty medals, fellowships, and honorary memberships by professional and honor societies in twelve countries, he is the recipient of the Second Class of the Order of the Sacred Treasure given by the Emperor of Japan -- the highest decoration awarded to a non-Japanese citizen -- for "the development of Quality Control in Japan and the facilitation of US. and Japanese friendship."

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Chapter 1

Quality: A Continuing Revolution

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a "lessons-learned" perspective on making quality happen.

The chapter shows that although human beings have always wished for high quality, they have over the centuries faced massive and changing forces requiring ever-changing strategies to reach their quality goals. It also shows that the current decades are uncommonly turbulent, requiring an unprecedented degree of managerial sophistication in choosing the needed strategies.

For supporting detail, the chapter traces out

1. How managing for quality has been undergoing continuing change over the centuries

2. Why quality has recently risen so much in importance

3. The origins of the quality crisis faced by so many companies

4. The responses of company managers

UNCHANGING DESIRES AND CHANGING FORCES

We start with the premise that all managers want their company to produce products of high quality and to do so at low cost. They want their company at the least to be competitive, and preferably to be the industry quality leader. These same managers also have personal goals that are affected by the results achieved with respect to quality: the results achieved by the company determine the image of the company managers.

These wishes of managers have not changed throughout recorded history. What has changed throughout recorded history are the strategies used to manage for quality. Such changes in strategy have been specifically designed to respond to specific political, social, and economic upheavals.

Recently such upheavals have reached convulsive levels. It is these convulsions that are causing upper managers to raise such critical questions as the following:

What role does quality play in the success of my company?

How can I evaluate my company's status with respect to quality?

How shall we, as a company, manage for quality in the face of the new challenges?

What must we, as a company, do that is different from what we have been doing?

What road shall we follow to go from where we are to where we want to be?

What should I, as a manager, do that is different from what I have been doing?

Such questions demand forthright answers. Our mission in this book is to supply those answers.

EARLY STRATEGIES OF MANAGING FOR QUALITY

We can gain perspective by looking back at the road traveled to date -- at the early processes of managing for quality.

Human needs for quality have existed since the dawn of history. However, the means for meeting those needs -- the processes of managing for quality -- have undergone extensive and continuing change (Juran 1977).

Prior to the twentieth century, managing for quality was based on some ancient principles:

1. Product inspection by consumers, which is still widely used in today's village market places.

2. The craftsmanship concept, in which buyers rely on the skill and reputation of trained, experienced craftsmen. Some craftsmen develop reputations that extend far beyond their village boundaries: they are viewed as living national treasures.

As commerce expanded beyond village boundaries, and with the growth of technology, additional concepts and tools were invented to assist in managing for quality:

1. Specifications by sample

2. Quality warranties in sales contracts

In large towns the craftsmen organized themselves into monopolistic guilds. These guilds were generally strict in their enforcement of product quality. Their strategies included

1. Mandated specifications for input materials, processes, and finished goods

2. Audits of the performance of guild members

3. Export controls on finished goods

The early American approach to managing for quality followed the practice prevailing in those European countries that had colonized the North American continent. Apprentices learned a trade, qualified to become craftsmen, and in due course might become masters of independent shops.

The Industrial Revolution, which originated in Europe, created the factory system, which soon outproduced the small independent shops and made them largely obsolete. The craftsmen became factory workers, and the masters became factory foremen. Quality was managed as before, through the skills of the craftsmen, supplemented by departmental inspection or supervisory audits. The Industrial Revolution also accelerated the growth of additional strategies, including

1. Written specifications for materials, processes, finished goods, and tests

2. Measurement, and the associated measuring instruments and test laboratories

3. Standardization in many forms

When the Industrial Revolution was exported from Europe to America, the colonists again followed European practice.

THE TAYLOR SYSTEM AND ITS IMPACT

Late in the nineteenth century the United States broke sharply with European tradition by adopting the Taylor system of "scientific management" (Juran 1973). Central to the Taylor system was the concept of separating planning from execution. This separation made possible a considerable rise in productivity. It also dealt a crippling blow to the concept of craftsmanship. In addition, the new emphasis on productivity had a negative effect on quality. To restore the balance, the factory managers adopted a new strategy: a central inspection department, headed by a chief inspector. The various departmental inspectors were then transferred to the new inspection department over the bitter opposition of the production supervisors.

The extreme dimensions of this strategy of inspection can be seen from the situation prevailing in the Hawthorne Works of Western Electric Company during the late 1920s. Hawthorne was at that time virtually the only manufacturing plant in the Bell System. At the peak (about 1928) it employed forty thousand people, of whom fifty-two hundred were in the inspection department.

Note that during this progression of events the priority given to quality declined significantly. In addition, the responsibility for leading the quality function became vague and confused. In the days of the craft shops, the master (then also the chief executive) participated personally in the process of managing for quality. What emerged was a concept in which upper management became detached from the process of managing for quality.

THE GROWTH OF VOLUME AND COMPLEXITY

The twentieth century has brought an explosive growth of goods and services, both in volume and complexity. Vast industries have emerged to produce, market, and maintain such consumer goods as automobiles, household appliances, and entertainment devices. These goods are ever more complex and hence more demanding with respect to quality. Goods for industrial purposes (e.g., manufacturing facilities) are no less demanding.

Service industries have also undergone explosive growth in volume and complexity. The complexity is evident in the huge systems that provide energy, communication, transportation, and information processing. These systems likewise are ever more demanding as to quality, especially with respect to continuity of service, which is based on the reliability parameter.

Most of the strategies that have emerged to deal with these forces of volume and complexity can be grouped under two generic names for specialties:

1. Quality engineering. This specialty traces its origin to the application of statistical methods for control of quality in manufacture. Much of the pioneering theoretical work was done in the 1920s by the quality-assurance department of the Bell Telephone Laboratories.

The staff members included Shewhart, Dodge, and Edwards. Much of the pioneering application took place (also in...

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Verlag
Free Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2003
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0743255771
ISBN 13 
9780743255776
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
388
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV, GPSR Europäische Union
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
Utrecht
3584 AA
Niederlande