Chapter 3 WHAT IS TOTAL QUALITY? So far we have made frequent references to Total Quality, but now it is necessary to look at the concept in some detail. It has already been stated that Total Quality represents a competitive strategy. `Quality', in terms of `Total Quality', is everything an organisation does in the eyes of its customers, which will determine whether they buy from this company or from its competitor. Total Quality therefore is as much concerned with confidence and the `overall impression' of the market as it is with specific measurable or quantifiable characteristics. Sometimes, the customer is adversely influenced by some quality deficiency which may even work in his favour. For example, if a supplier forgets to invoice his customer, this is clearly to the latter's advantages, but even so, the effect on him will almost certainly be negative. It may well occur to the customer that if his supplier is poorly organised in this respect, then he may also be weak in other areas. His confidence will be lowered and it is quite likely that he may put future business elsewhere, particularly when the service to be purchased is critical to the customer in some way. Principal objectives A Total Quality organisation must have four principal objectives which are common to any organisation. A given organisation may also have many additional specific goals. 1. Continuous improvement of the organisation, which must be equal to or greater than that of any competitor. 2. Continuous and relentless cost reduction. 3. Continuous and relentless quality improvement. 4. To create an organisation whereby everyone is working towards making their organisation the best in its business, and to capitalise on the sense of achievement and working in a world-class organisation. Let us look at each of these goals in turn. 1. Continuous improvement ... Many organisations take a natural pride in their progressive improvement activities, which is laudable and to be encouraged. It is amazing, however, to discover how few organisations have any idea as to how they are actually perceived in comparison with their competitors in the marketplace. Many people mistakenly think that if you are not achieving customer satisfaction, you are causing its opposite, i.e. customer dissatisfaction. By so doing, they forget the most important and dangerous situation of all: customer indifference! It has been said that to be successful in business it is necessary to be better than your competitor at, at least something. Nowadays, even that may not be enough. We must be better than our competitor in every possible way. Just meeting the requirements of the customer' is not sufficient. Consider a restaurant as an example. Typically, the manager or head waiter will ask his customers whether or not they enjoyed their meal. In most cases, the response will be affirmative. Only occasionally do people complain, and then only when they are quite upset. Only occasionally do we give praise, and then only when we are very pleased. So in most cases, we do not provide feedback for the services we have received. It is easy to see how the restaurateur can be deceived. We told him the service was OK, and yet we probably will not go back. The service meets the specification, but some competitor does it better. Just meeting the requirements of the customer does not provide feedback for the services we have received. It is easy to see how not meet the exacting requirements of Total Quality. On many occasions at seminars, we in DHI ask the audience, `How many of you think that your company is good at what it does?'. Usually about 60 per cent of the participants will put up their hands. Very few can answer the subsequent question, `How do you know? What information do you have to support your belief?' except to say, `We get very few complaints'. For most, this is an indication that they are probably in the 'indifferent zone'. It is amazing how many companies in the same business think that they individually have over a 50 per cent share of the market! Even when we do know our market share, and even if we find out that, yes, we are the best, and yes, we have the lion's share, there is no cast-iron guarantee that things will not change. Even as the reader is reading this book, there is some organisation out there conspiring to take away his livelihood - because that is what modern competition on a global scale is all about. The graph in Figure 3.2 shows the well-known comparison of the Japanese and Western automobile industries as devised by Dr Juran, which we can use as an example. Dr Juran claimed that the Japanese automobile industry overtook its ……………………………… |