TQM
Fundamental Changes for us
We keep getting better but the pace is not fast enough-the Japanese pace is faster. Clearly we must accelerate our pace and should start this promptly. For us to catch up with the Japanese (and hopefully to overtake them) requires some very fundamental changes in our approach. The really fundamental changes to be considered by us have a marked resemblance to those already undergone by the Japanese:
Structured annual improvements in quality
A massive quality oriented training program
Upper management leadership of the company’s approach to product quality
Annual quality improvement for us
Of all the fundamental changes needed, the structured annual improvement program has the shortest lead time. It can be made effective this year or any year. It provides tangible results in a matter of months.
The broad objective for these improvement programs should be to develop among all managers, specialists and ultimately workmen:
1. A sense of responsibility for active participation (for making improvements)
2. The skills needed to make improvements
3. The habit of annual improvements so that each year the company’s quality is significantly better than it was a year ago.
Large scale integrated circuits – a case example
To illustrate the limitations of responsibility and skills, consider the case of silicon chips which carry the large scale integrated circuits (LSI) used in computers. Data which suggest that Japanese yields in manufacture of LSI chips are higher than those of the west by a factor of two or three. If these limited data are representative of the entire industry it would be very serious indeed.
Let us examine the practices of some western companies relative to improving the yields. Ask the upper managers:” Who is responsible for improving the yields?” The usual answer “The process engineers”. Then if you ask to process engineers, their reaction is 1) they have never been given any such responsibility and 2) in any case they would have no time to carry out such a responsibility since they are under intense pressure to plan the manufacture of a never ending procession of new designs of LSI chips.
Beyond the reaction of these upper managers and process engineers there is an added reaction. The process engineers would be unlikely to improve the yields even if they had the time. The limitation is not in the technology.-they are well trained in the pertinent technology. The limitation is mainly in the problems of data collection and analysis. The LSI manufacturing process involves numerous steps each exhibiting numerous variables. The crux of the solution is to discover which the key variables are and how they affect product quality. It is a complex exercise in design of experiments and analysis of variance, and the process engineers lack the training needed to carry out this exercise.
There is universal sequence of events for making quality improvements. This sequence is built around the project concept. A project is problem scheduled for solution. All improvement (breakthrough) is made project by project and in no other way.
In practice, the company sets up a committee of managers to guide the annual quality improvement program. The committee solicits nominations for projects, screens them, and chooses the projects to be tackled in the year ahead.
For each project a team or task force is appointed. This team mobilizes the necessary company resources to
Study the symptoms of the defects and failures.
Theorize as to the causes of these symptoms
Test the theories until the cause is known
Stimulate remedial action by the appropriate line department.
This universal sequence is now well known and is widely sued. The Japanese make extraordinary application of this sequence, annually. In the rest of the world, the application varies widely from company to company. Some companies have well structured annual quality improvement programs. Most do not. In companies which lack such structured programs any improvements must come from the initiatives of specific middle mangers. It takes a good deal of determination by such middle managers to secure results since they lack the legitimacy and support that comes from an official, structured program.
In the early 1950s the Japanese faced rim reality. No alarm signal is as inconsistent to industrial managers as inability to sell the product. Since their major limitation was quality, not price, they directed their revolution at quality. They learned how to improve quality became proficient at it and have acquired the habit. Their managers are equally at home in meeting current goals and in making improvements for the future.
During most of those same years the grim reality facing the Western countries have been price competition, not quality competition. The improvement programs of the West reflected this reality. (For example, much labor intensive manufacture was subcontracted to countries in Asia )
