TQM is Not Just Dead
- It’s in an Unmarked Grave
by Randall W. Rice
I don’t make this observation happily. As I reflect on the
current state of quality (or lack thereof) in many aspects of American
business, I wonder what happened to all the things that people like
Deming, Juran, Crosby and others taught back in the 80’s and
90’s. In many ways, it’s almost like the
“Quality Movement” didn’t happen at all.
So, I have to ask “Why?”
The Current
Situation
In my research of asking people what their greatest challenge is in
software testing, the most frequent response in the past 3 years has
been “Lack of management support for quality.” This
is followed closely by “Lack of adequate user
requirements.”
Both of these challenges are indicators that the quality message has
been lost in many organizations.
However, don’t just take my word for it. Look around at the
places where you eat, shop and travel, and you will likely observe that
good service and good quality are getting more rare.
What mystifies me is why more companies don’t see higher
quality as a way to distinguish themselves from their competition and
gain more profits. Instead, companies seem content to survive based on
the belief that customers will remain loyal because everyone else is
just as bad. I’m thinking about the state of the U.S. airline
industry at this point, but it also applies to computers, software,
cars, you name it. One notable exception in my experience is the hotel
industry which seems to be more customer focused as many chains are
trying to compete for the business traveler.
The Quality
Movement Revisited
For those of you who were too young to remember, in the mid
80’s, various industries (especially the automotive industry)
found themselves competing in a global marketplace with companies that
were producing better products cheaper. Their
“loyal” customers started to obey their desire to
buy better cars, electronics or whatever from whoever could make it
best and give a good value – no matter which country produced
them.
At this point, management in America started listening to a man that we
had previously ignored since the 1940’s, but that the
Japanese had embraced – Dr. W. Edwards Deming. There were
others as well, such as Joseph Juran and Phillip Crosby also making the
message of how to improve quality.
The consulting companies saw a great opportunity to market these
principles, so they became known as “Total Quality
Management”, a term that Dr. Deming never embraced. However,
it got the attention of management as the “next big
thing” and TQM was all the rage for at least a few years.
(You can find references to people using the term TQM as early as 1974,
but only sporadically in speeches and papers.)
Many of the concepts of TQM came from how quality control was being
performed in Japan and incorporated the teaching of Deming, Juran,
Crosby, Ishikawa and others.
What Went Wrong
Dr. Deming wrote “The 14 Points” of quality. If you
read Deming’s excellent book, “Out of the
Crisis”, or look on the web
(http://www.deming.org/theman/teachings02.html), you can find these
points.
Two things are obvious to me as I read the 14 Points from the context
of 2007:
- We
don’t do many of these things.
- Even when
we tried to do these things in the past, we misapplied them. For
example, Point 10 is to “Eliminate Exhortations”
which says to not to use “slogans, posters and exhortations
for
the work force, demanding Zero Defects and new levels of productivity,
without providing methods.”
I believe the one major thing that was lost in all the hoopla is that
the things that Dr. Deming taught were not about quality for the sake
of virtue (because of creating excellence), but were all about
increasing business profits.
Unfortunately, too many business leaders saw TQM as something like the
United Way drive and not as cultural change. Some saw TQM, the
associated certifications (ISO 9000, CMM, Six Sigma, etc.) and the
awards like the Baldrige Award, as “trophy hunts”
for the sake of marketing but not for the long-term business benefits.
The really bad effect is that now whenever quality is mentioned, people
tend to say “Been there, done that.” Or, they say,
“People still do business with us, so things can’t
be all that bad.”
Then, the Internet wave hit and people started working in
“web time”. Instead of optimizing processes, people
were more focused on getting something to market quickly regardless of
flaws. In the flurry of rapid innovation, the final nails were in the
coffin of TQM.
Is There Hope for
Quality?
Maybe, but only when customers demand it. That’s what
happened in the 1980’s in the automobile industry and I think
it could happen again in other industries.
However, the solution isn’t quite that simple. It takes a
company to step up and offer higher quality products and services. For
example, in the airline industry no matter which airline you fly, they
are all about the same. One interesting development is the entrance of
Virgin America, which is getting very high marks from customers.
I’m hopeful.
If I just had one wish for executive management in companies to see and
embrace, it is that everything we do can be identified as a process and
improved. We improve by measuring the right things and making the right
corrections.
Now this takes some tough calls by management at times. For example,
it