This Month in News Digest

Managers Disagree on Quality’s Definition

A survey sponsored by the American Society for Quality reveals that the majority of U.S. executives believe quality contributes to the bottom line, but the way they define quality varies.

More than 600 executives from four industry segments--manufacturing, services (including government), health care and education--provided their perspectives on the value that quality brings to their organizations. Of those asked, 99 percent said they believe quality contributes to the bottom line, and 92 percent believe that an organizationwide effort to use quality techniques provides a positive return.

However, defining quality didn’t elicit such a uniform agreement. Sixty-four percent of respondents believe that quality is a management tool, and 36 percent believe quality is built into a product or service but isn’t necessarily a management tool. When asked to define quality, the majority of respondents equated quality to customer satisfaction.

“It’s encouraging to know that most executives, no matter in what industry, believe in the practice of quality and the value that it can bring to their business--not just in terms of economic return but also in the form of customer satisfaction,” notes ASQ President Ken Case. “However, it’s a bit disconcerting that many executives don’t view quality as a business management tool when many of the continuous improvement efforts practiced in business today grew out of the quality discipline and the work of quality professionals.”

The survey also indicates that there’s a gap between executives’ awareness of quality improvement processes and implementation. When asked about their awareness and usage of benchmarking, total quality management, quality circles, ISO 9001, Six Sigma and the Baldrige Award criteria, respondents from all four industry segments reported high awareness and usage of TQM and benchmarking.

Manufacturing executives report greater awareness of ISO 9001, quality circles, Six Sigma and the Baldrige criteria than leaders in the services, health care and education sectors.

Actual use of all six techniques across all industries was considerably lower than was reported awareness, as illustrated below.

“The sizeable gap between usage and awareness leads me to believe that businesses and organizations either don’t use quality methodologies to improve their operations or they just don’t realize that the processes they have in place are attributable directly to the quality discipline,” adds Case.

The survey was conducted by Market Probe, a global marketing research company. A full report of the findings, including industry-specific breakdowns of responses and demographics, can be found at www.asq.org/survey. The site redirects to a PowerPoint presentation.

ISO 9001 Users Go Online for Assistance

The International Organization for Standardization is providing users of its ISO 9000:2000 series of quality management system standards with two online initiatives: a user feedback survey to identify points for improvement and an interpretation service to clarify the intent of requirements.

“This support of users mirrors the evolution taking place in the industrial and business sectors that our organization serves,” says ISO Secretary-General Alan Bryden. “In today’s competitive markets, a company cannot afford to develop a product and just throw it over the wall to customers. Many successful products are part of a total package that includes support, maintenance and enhancement services.”

The online feedback survey for users of ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 9004:2000 aims to improve the standards or develop support documents to help users understand and implement the standards. Any person with knowledge of or experience with the standards may participate, and there’s no limit to the number of participants from any organization. The survey takes about 15 minutes to complete.

“Customer focus is one of the quality management principles on which the ISO 9000:2000 series is based,” continues Bryden. “Therefore, before launching the development of the standards, ISO surveyed users for their requirements and gave them the opportunity to ‘trial’ the standards during the development process. The recently launched user feedback survey and interpretations service demonstrates that ISO is continuing to put the customer focus principle into practice.”

The survey is available at http://isotc.iso.ch/webquest/tc176/.

The interpretations service is intended to prevent ambiguous and vague interpretations of the requirements of ISO 9001 and to develop a database of interpretations. It provides interpretations related to what to do and not how to do it, without changing any requirements of the standard or its original intent. Requests for interpretations must be submitted via ISO national member institutes.

The database, guidance on submitting a new request and the official request form can be accessed at www.tc176.org/Interpre.asp.

ASQ Co-Hosts China Quality Conference

The American Society for Quality’s Customer-Supplier Division and the China Association for Quality will present the Third China-America Conference on Quality Tools and Technologies Sept. 6-9 in Shanghai.

“We need to know the strengths as well as the weaknesses of our trading partners,” states Dennis Arter, an ASQ organizer. “Having been to China three times, I’m beginning to understand the culture and the work structures. Managing for quality is different in our two countries. Trade with China offers a significant opportunity as well as a challenge.”

The Shanghai event will be geared toward:

Learning about existing and future business relationships in the People’s Republic of China

Exchanging ideas with professional colleagues in the world’s fastest growing economy

Learning about the government-industry structure in China’s new market economy

Introducing company products and services to China’s market

Gaining better understanding of ASQ and CAQ

The fee of $3,600 for the full week includes airfare, hotel accommodations, ground transportation and most meals. Also included are cultural events in Shanghai and nearby cities.

The CAQ serves quality professionals in the People’s Republic of China. With headquarters in Beijing, CAQ offers training, publications and support in the field of quality.

ASQ’s Customer-Supplier Division is a special interest group aimed at exploring, expanding and communicating practices that lead to effective supplier performance and increased customer satisfaction. To learn more, visit www.asqcsd.org.

MetricStream Merges With Zaplet

MetricStream Inc., a developer of enterprisewide quality software, has merged with Zaplet, a provider of business process management solutions for corporate compliance.

Shellye Archambeau, past CEO of Zaplet, has been named CEO of MetricStream. Gunjan Sinha, former Chairman of MetricStream will act as MetricStream’s executive chairman.

“Serving individual organizations separate solutions for each of its compliance initiatives is a time-consuming process,” explains Anil Gupta, vice president of marketing for MetricStream. “It made sense to combine MetricStream’s solutions with Zaplet in order to bring separately organized compliance initiatives into one cohesive platform.”

For more information, visit www.metricstream.com.

Customer Satisfaction Can Equal Failure

Philip Crosby Associates, a consultancy touting the late quality guru Philip B. Crosby’s Absolutes of Quality Management, has added another absolute to the four originally coined by Crosby in his book Quality Is Free (Mentor Books, 1992).

The new mantra comes two years after Crosby’s death. It states, “The purpose of quality is to ensure customer success, not customer satisfaction.”

“We are having a quality crisis in this country because companies are narrowly focused on customer satisfaction,” says Wayne Kost, president of PCA. “It has become imminently clear that pursuing customer satisfaction can be a surefire, direct route to corporate failure.”

The fifth absolute is designed to drive a stake through the “customer satisfaction myth,” according to PCA. “People can be satisfied with almost anything--happy customers are not necessarily successful customers,” explains Kost. “If you focus on satisfaction, you will have short-term gains, but there’s a loss to the customer. Fanatically focusing on customer success is the only way to ensure corporate success. Building an organization that knows how to focus on customer success and make it a repeatable, continuous process is the next decade’s primary challenge.”

A new book based on Crosby’s Quality Is Free will cover this new absolute.

“No one is against quality, yet very few achieve it,” adds Kost. “We took a hard look at the original absolutes because we realized that a company could live by them and still fail.”

Crosby defined the four absolutes as:

Quality has to be defined as conformance to requirements, not as “goodness.”

The system for causing quality is prevention, not appraisal.

The performance standard must be zero defects, not “that’s close enough.”

The measurement of quality is the price of nonconformance, not indices.

Learn more about Philip Crosby Associates at www.philipcrosby.com.

Best-Practice Lean Manufacturers Recognized

The largest missile manufacturing facility in the world, an appliance manufacturer and 10 automotive suppliers are recipients of the 2004 Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing. Dubbed the “Nobel Prize of manufacturing” by Business Week, the Shingo Prize is the premier manufacturing award and recognition program in North America.

Notable achievements of the 2004 recipients include:

Seven of the 12 winners achieved product quality of fewer than 10 returned parts per million opportunities.

Seven of the 12 recipients have inventory turnover rates greater than 25 per year, compared to a U.S. average of eight.

Premium freight as a percent of production costs averaged 0.12 percent.

“Once again, the recipients of the Shingo Prize demonstrate that they are prepared to weather economic uncertainty by not wasting precious manufacturing and business resources,” notes Ross Robson, Shingo Prize executive director. “Shingo Prize recipients and lean manufacturers clearly stand out among North American manufacturers in terms of quality, cost, delivery and business results.”

This year’s recipients are:

ArvinMeritor Light Vehicle Systems-- Gladstone plant, of Columbus, Indiana

Delphi Corp.--Delphi Electronics and Safety, Delnosa 5 and 6 Operations, of Reynosa, Mexico

Delphi Electronics and Safety--Kokomo Operations, Plants 7 and 9, of Kokomo, Indiana

Delphi Corp.--Energy and Chassis Systems, of Empresas Ca-Le de Tlaxcala, Mexico

Delphi Corp.--Packard Electric Systems, Plant 50, of Del Parral, Chihuahua Mexico

Delphi Sistemas de Energia S.A. de C.V., Plant 57, of Chihuahua, Mexico

Delphi Corp.--Packard Electric Systems, Plant 58, of Meoqui, Chihuahua, Mexico

Delphi Packard--Centro Tecnico Herramental S.A. de C.V., Plant 98, of Ramos Arizpe, Coahuila

Delphi Packard, Plant 51, of Nuevo Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico

Maytag Jackson Dishwashing Products of Jackson, Tennessee

Raytheon Missile Systems--Tucson Operations, of Tucson, Arizona

TI Automotive of Cartersville, Georgia

The Shingo Prize is administered by the Utah State University College of Business. Awards will be presented at the 16th annual Shingo Prize Conference and Awards Ceremony, May 20 in Lexington, Kentucky. To learn more, visit www.shingoprize.org.

Overseeing Unfamiliar Projects Common Among Managers

Learning by leading is a popular concept in many offices, a new survey suggests. About 40 percent of executives polled in the recent survey said it’s common for managers to oversee projects for which they have limited experience.

Executives were asked, “How common or rare is it for managers at your firm to oversee projects for which they have limited experience?” Forty-seven percent said it’s somewhat rare; 33 percent said it is somewhat common.

The poll includes responses from 150 senior executives--including those from human resources, finance and marketing departments--with the nation’s 1,000 largest companies. It was conducted by an independent research firm and developed by Accountemps, a specialized staffing service for temporary accounting, finance and bookkeeping professionals.

“Many leadership skills--such as the ability to motivate people and inspire motivation--are transferable, and companies frequently ask experienced managers to oversee a range of initiatives, including those outside their immediate expertise,” explains Max Messmer, chairman of Accountemps. “This is especially common as firms strive to maintain productivity despite leaner staffing levels.”

Messmer notes that managers who take on assignments outside of their scope often work harder to win employee trust. “Staff members may initially be skeptical of leaders who come from outside the ranks,” he says. “Managers in this situation must show that they value their team’s expertise and encourage everyone working on the project to share ideas and information.”

Messmer offers four tips for reducing the learning curve on new projects:

Let the experts be the experts. Rely on your team for its knowledge and tactical skills, and focus your efforts on motivating employees and keeping projects on track.

Don’t rush to judgment. Avoid making quick decisions. Instead, consider the situation from several different angles and gather feedback before establishing a plan.

Take all perspectives into account. Solicit various viewpoints but don’t be unduly influenced by one or two team members.

Give credit where it’s due. Thank employees and co-workers who share insights and give them credit for their ideas.