TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT, VOL. 13, NO.

1, 2002, 101 - 121

The long and winding road: The evolution of quality management

Josephine Yong1 & Adrian Wilkinson2
1

Cap Gemini Ernst and Young, Singapore & 2Loughborough University Business School, Ashby Road, Loughborough, Leicester LE11 3TU, UK

Introduction As expertise about how to do quality improvement di used among rms, we witnessed ironically the death of the quality movement. By the mid- and late 1990s, quality disappeared as a major topic in the media and was less and less a focus of top managements attention. This is a natural process manifested in the growing normalization of quality improvement as a management activity. In this process, simpli ed versions of the more formal and often complex quality methodologies gradually evolved. The absence of a formal seven-step problem-solving process or of quality function deployment, to name two quality methodologies, did not mean that managers and workers had abandoned their new found interest in problem solving or their customer focus in design. Rather, we must see this process of accommodation, adaptation, and institutionalization as the story of what happens to successful, or in this case partially successful, social movements (Cole, 1998, p. 70). `Quality is No. 1 , `Quality in products and services is a prerequisite for becoming a player in domestic and international markets , `The Customer is King , and slogans of the like seem to have been the rallying cry of management in the last decade and a half. Whether we subscribe to these messages as meaningful encouragement by management or just empty exhortations, it appears that the management of quality is here to stay. In this paper, we analyse the de nition of `quality , a concept which is as multi-faceted as total quality management (TQM), but is the backbone of any quality management initiatives, and then go on to examine how quality management has evolved over time.

Quality management: What is it? In trying to explain the meaning of quality management, one must rst have an understanding of the word `quality . Although a much used declaration, there is little agreement on what constitutes `quality despite what the dictionaries might suggest, and it appears that the more we hear it the more confusing its meaning seems to become (Price, 1990). Hence, instead of
Correspondence : A. Wilkinson, Loughborough University Business School, Ashby Road, Loughborough, Leicester LE11 3TU, UK. Tel: 01509 228273; Fax: 01509 223960; E-mail: a.j.wilkinson@lboro.ac.uk ISSN 0954-4127 print/ISSN 1360-0613 online/02/010101-21 DOI: 10.1080/09544120120098591 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd

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trying to impose a global interpretation on the word, di erent de nitions of quality have been used depending on the circumstances (Garvin, 1988; Reeves & Bednar, 1994). Multiple dimensions of quality Quality is excellence According to the Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford University Press, 1990), quality is de ned as `excellence or `goodness . The origins of this de nition come from the Greek word `arete , which is taken for superiority or being the best. Garvin (1988), in his transcendent approach saw quality as being: both absolute and universally recognizable, a mark of uncompromising standards and high achievement . . . often quality cannot be de ned precisely, that it is simple, unanalyzable property we learn to recognize only through experience (Garvin, 1988, p. 41). In his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Pirsig (1974) de nes quality as `innate excellence . His view implies that high quality is timeless and enduring, an essence that rises above individual tastes or styles. Others, like Tuchman (1980), see quality to mean: investment of the best skill and e ort possible to produce the nest and most admirable results possible . . . Quality is achieving or reaching for the highest standard as against being satis ed with the sloppy or fraudulent . . . It does not compromise with second-rate (Tuchman, 1980, p. 39). The `quality as excellence de nition re ects a commonsensical notion of quality and it is not uncommon to talk about `Rolls Royce quality or `top quality . This abstract description may form the foundation for many advertising campaigns to lure customers, but such a view of the quality concept o ers little practical purpose for the person on the production line (Shewhart, 1931). The `you will know it when you see it outlook on quality does not inform managers of how to pursue excellence. Also, to argue that the hallmarks of quality are `intensive e ort and `honesty of purpose tells us little about how quality products di er from those that are run-of-the-mill (Tuchman, 1980). Therefore, interpretations of the word need to be more pragmatic, more objective and more tangible so as to inform managers of how to make improvements. Another downside of de ning quality as excellence is that it may not be customer-driven but supplier-driven, and this can be `commercial suicide if the supplier does not continuously monitor the customers de nition of `excellence and meet these market needs. Too often, customers may also associate an excellent product or service with being one that is expensive and beyond ones means, and this unfortunate association may lead many potential customers to opt for a more a ordable alternative or one that has greater value for money. Quality is value Value-based de nitions of quality describe quality in terms of costs and prices. According to this de nition, a quality product is one that provides performance or requirements conformance at an acceptable price or cost. This notion of value has been included in some de nitions of quality; for example, Feigenbaum (1983) gave the following: Quality does not have the popular meaning of `best in any absolute sense. It means `best for certain customer conditions . These conditions are (a) the actual use and

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(b) the selling price of the product. Product quality cannot be thought of apart from product cost (Feigenbaum, 1983, p. 1). Hence, a 700 neck tie, however well made, cannot be a quality product, for it would nd few buyers willing to purchase it. Thus, for rms to o er value in their products, they must `concentrate on both internal e ciency and external e ectiveness . . . (they) are forced to consider both the cost implications of internal conformance to speci cations and the extent to which external customer expectations are met (Reeves & Bednar, 1994, p. 429). De ning quality as value also allows comparison to be made across widely di erent objects and experiences, such as a Eurostar train journey through the Channel Tunnel to Paris versus a plane ight from London to Paris. The value de nition of quality facilitates cross-industry analyses about consumers decisions among multiple substitutes. Therefore, a value-based de nition may give a more accurate indication of how products or services are perceived by consumers and how purchase decisions are reached (Reeves & Bednar, 1994, p. 429). Despite its advantages, the shortfall of seeing `quality-as-value is that it is di cult to apply in practice. Value has the disadvantage of blending two related but distinct concepts: excellence and worth. The result is a hybrid a ordable excellence that lacks well-de ned limits and is often subjective (Garvin, 1988, p. 46).

Quality is conformance to speci cations During the two World Wars, there were great demands for mass-produced, reliable armaments, and the main determinant of quality by the armed forces was to assess whether the armaments conformed to their speci cations. Industry during that period was very particular about receiving parts that conformed to speci cations because failing to meet `specs meant that parts would not be interchangeable and the whole production process would fail. The `conformance to speci cations view of quality is a manufacturing-based outlook. It implies that once a design or a speci cation has been established by the producer, any deviation from it, during production or downstream from production, means a reduction in quality. Shewhart (1931), one of the rst US statisticians to focus his attention on quality, used statistical analysis to measure whether speci cations and therefore quality had been achieved.1 Historically, quality as `conformance-to-speci cations tended to be internally focused. By using this view of quality, organizations pay little attention to the link, in customers minds, between quality and product characteristics other than conformance. Rather, quality is de ned in a manner that simpli es engineering and production control. On the design side, that has led to an emphasis on reliability engineering. On the manufacturing side, it has meant an emphasis on statistical quality control (Garvin, 1988, p. 45). Such a outlook on quality is focused on only one objective: cost reduction for the organization. The emphasis of this de nition is, however, misleading, because it focuses on the producers speci cation of quality and yet if what the producer delivers is not what the user or customer wants (not unlike the `quality as excellence de nition), it is irrelevant even if it is produced in a quality manner. Hence, many proponents (such as Crosby, Deming, Feigenbaum and Juran) of a conformance-to-speci cations de nition go further, to stress that customers needs and wants must be the driving force of the speci cations that producers establish. For example, Juran (1951) de ned quality as being:

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made up of two components: quality of design and quality of conformance. Quality of design is a measure of how well the product or service is designed to achieve the agreed requirements (of the customer) while the quality of conformance to design concerns the extent to which the product or service conforms to the design speci cations ( Juran, 1951, p. 12). While conforming to speci cations may be useful in settings where standards and speci c requirements can be easily set, leading to consistency in operations, it is not so easily applicable outside the industrial sector, where customers needs cannot be easily translated to speci cations, or in sectors where the markets (and customers needs) are continuously changing. In such environments, the customers nal evaluation of quality go beyond the expected speci cations, characteristics or features of their purchase, to the extras that can turn customer satisfaction to customer delight. For example, the helpfulness and competence of the salesperson, the packaging, the ambience of the store, the after-sales service and so on all these usually go beyond the `conformance-to-speci cations de nition of quality and lead us to the next dimension of quality, that is, meeting and/or exceeding customers expectations.

Quality is meeting and/or exceeding customers expectations The extent to which a product or service is meeting and/or exceeding the expectations of customers is currently the most widely used de nition of quality. Most of the original `gurus (such as Crosby, Feigenbaum, Juran and Deming) describe quality as meeting the requirements of the customer. In Feigenbaum s 1983 edition of his book Total Quality Control, quality was stated as: the total composite product and service characteristics of marketing, engineering, manufacture, and maintenance through which the product and service in use will meet the expectations of the customer (Feigenbaum, 1983, p. 7). As early as 1974, Juran also introduced the ` tness for use de nition for quality in his Quality Control Handbook. By this description, quality was seen as the extent to which a product successfully serves the purposes of the user, not the manufacturer, merchant or the repair shop. Similarly, Deming (1986) described quality in terms of developing uniform and dependable work practices that are congruent with delivering products or services at low cost with a quality suited to the market. The addition of `customer , `user or `market to previous de nitions of quality extends its meaning to a wider dimension. In particular, it ensures that rms are more externally focused and they pay greater attention to the changes in the market using various customer monitoring systems. Buzzell and Gale (1987, p.111) describe quality as `whatever the customers say it is, and the quality of a particular product or service is whatever the customer perceives it to be . Customers quality expectations are, however, dynamic and companies therefore need to recognize this evolution in the customers de nition of quality. For example, a product, like the Pentium III PC, considered advanced at the time of purchase, may be obsolete a few years later. This customer-focused de nition of quality is said to have grown out of the service marketing literature (Gonroos, 1983; Parasuraman et al., 1985). The popularity of this de nition has been because the `conformance-to-speci cations de nition failed to address the unique characteristics of the services industry (Reeves & Bednar, 1994). All these add to the pressure on organizations to pay attention to service attributes (which are often also

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subjective) such as courtesy, helpfulness, con dence and appearance, that are critical to customers assessment of quality. In Garvins thesis, quality was seen as being made of eight critical dimensions; besides performance, reliability, conformance and durability, other attributes included features, aesthetics, serviceability and perceived quality. Others, like Schonberger (1990), went further than Garvin in including attributes such as quick response, quick-change expertise, humanity and value. The `meeting and/or exceeding-customers expectations de nition is the most di cult de nition of quality to measure. It is also very subjective. Di erent customers place di erent weights on various attributes of a product and/or service and this makes aggregating individual preferences to give meaningful de nitions of quality at the market level di cult (Garvin, 1988). Nevertheless, with its focus on customers expectations, it is still the most widely accepted de nition and has been said to form the backbone of TQM programmes (Tuckman, 1995). The various de nitions discussed show that there is no `one best or `correct de nition for quality. As the Japanese quality expert, Kaoru Ishikawa, re ected, the meaning of quality is rather wide-ranging: Narrowly interpreted, quality means quality of product. Broadly interpreted, quality means quality of work, quality of service, quality of information, quality of process, quality of division, quality of people, including workers, engineers, managers, and executives, quality of systems, quality of company, quality of objectives, etc. (Ishikawa, 1985, p. 45). In the context of present-day quality management, however, the customer-focused de nition is probably better suited and easier to implement than the transcendent approach to quality. Evolution of quality management As a concept, quality management has a long history. In its original form, quality was reactive and inspection-oriented but today, quality-related activities in organizations have come to be seen as being more strategic in outlook (American Quality Foundation (AQF) and Ernst & Young, 1991; Feigenbaum, 1983; Powell, 1995). Once the province of the manufacturing departments, the management of quality is now being embraced by functions as diverse as purchasing, human resources and marketing, and is said to command the attention of top management and chief executives (Garvin, 1988). To understand its origins, it is useful to follow the evolution of quality management from its traditional inspection role, through quality control, quality assurance, to TQM. These phases in the history of the quality movement have been referred to as the `quality eras (Garvin, 1988). According to Tuckman (1995), TQM the phase of quality management we are witnessing today has emerged as a critique of previous forms of quality management. Inspection Activities such as measuring, examining, testing, gauging one or more characteristics of a product or service and comparing these with speci ed requirements to determine conformity (BS 4778, 1987; ISO 8402, 1986). . . . is an after-the-event screening process with no prevention content other than, perhaps, identi cation of suppliers, operations, or workers, who are producing nonconforming products or services (Dale et al., 1994, p. 5).

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Even as far back as the Middle Ages, quality played a key role in industry. The maintenance of quality then was controlled by detailed production speci cations,2 quality inspections and audits to assure that speci cations were followed, and the long periods and high standards of training required of apprentices by the medieval guilds (Bester eld, 1979; Juran, 1995b). Up until the Industrial Revolution, production continued to be very highly skilled craft activities with quality being ensured by the skills of journeymen and apprentices working for master craftsmen (Chandler, 1977), and with their guilds ensuring that no defective goods were passed on to the consumers3 (Hitchens, 1995; Khan & Hashim, 1983). This traditional approach worked well under the conditions of the time and high quality was produced. Feigenbaum (1983) termed this period as having `operator quality control as craftsmen had complete control over the whole manufacturing process and pride in their work was re ected in the quality of the nished products. Although the concepts of inspection and inspectors were found in the craft guilds of Europe during the Middle Ages, their origins are said to be even more ancient. Examples of inspection were found in the wall paintings and reliefs in Egyptian tombs: measuring instruments like the square, level and plumb bob were used for alignment control, while surface atness of stones was checked using boning rods and by threads stretched across the faces of stone blocks (Singer et al., 1954). Not unlike the Egyptians, the Chinese were also using measuring tools such as the compass, square, carpenter s square and yardstick to examine the `size, angle, soundness, and straightness of the parts and spares of manufacturing vehicles as early as the Xia Dynasty in the 21st to 17th Century BC ( Jin et al., 1995, p. 8). In more recent times in the USA, the rst examples of formal inspection were found in the Spring eld Armoury around the 1830s. Inspection allowed the armoury s administrators to have control over production and accountability for work: Each worker placed his `private mark on each piece he made. After the assistant master armourer had inspected and passed the piece, he put his mark on it next to that of the worker. The supervisor also submitted a monthly o ce report which listed pieces passed and rejected (Chandler, 1977, pp. 73- 74). The resulting traceability from these markings was a powerful aid for ensuring quality, as if the quality was poor the worker responsible could be penalized or retrained depending on the cause. The Industrial Revolution, however, changed the way products were manufactured. Prior to the 1900s, goods were mainly produced in small quantities; parts were matched to one another by hand, and after-the-fact inspections to ensure quality were usually conducted informally, if at all. Although post-production inspections by supervisors were practised, selfinspections by the craftsmen were the most common practice then. However, with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, mass production became a predominant form of work organization. Factories were faced with employing more workers to cope with the demand, and specialization of labour was hastened by ow-line working, as championed by the school of scienti c management (Taylor, 1919). The worker no longer made the entire product, only a part of it, and this led to a decline in product workmanship and a drift away from operator ownership of the whole task and of quality. Instead, responsibility for quality was assumed by the foremen in charge of specialized groups of workers. World War I also stimulated mass production of complicated products, like armaments, and created greater demands for accuracy of manufacture, precision of measurement and interchangeability of parts. This meant that quality became a pressing issue, with the forces requiring reliable products to arrive on time. Industrial inspection became indispensable, and inspectors from various departments were grouped together to form the new full-time

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inspection department, with the responsibility of keeping defective products from reaching the customers. This was achieved in various ways: raw materials and goods in process were sampled, with the results of the sampling determining the disposition of the lot. Finished products, on the other hand, were usually inspected in detail in order to separate the good from the defective ( Juran, 1995b). All this and the acquisition of highly specialized measuring instruments by organizations gave industrial inspection a greater recognition in the production process.

Quality control . . . is the operational techniques and activities that are used to ful l requirements for quality (BS 4778, 1987; ISO 8402, 1986). . . . there will have been some development from the basic inspection activity in terms of sophistication of methods and systems and the quality management tools and techniques which are employed (Dale et al., 1994, p. 6). In 1924, W. A. Shewhart, a Bell Laboratories physicist at the Western Electric Companys Hawthorne Plant in Chicago, developed a statistical chart for the control of product variables. Shewharts work marked the beginning of statistical quality control (SQC) and was published in 1931 in his book, Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product. His thesis was recognized as giving the quality discipline a scienti c footing for the rst time. Shewhart recognized that variability was a key concern in any production process. To help in distinguishing acceptable variation from uctuations that indicated problems, he introduced the concept of statistical control. Simple statistical techniques for determining variation limits of the production process and graphic methods for plotting values to assess whether they fell within an acceptable range were developed. These graphic results are now known as `process control charts . At the time that Shewhart was pursuing his work on process control, two other scientists from the Bell Laboratories were advancing the practice of sampling, another important element in the growth of statistical quality control (SQC). Dodge and Romig developed the area of acceptance sampling as a substitute for 100% inspection. Their sampling techniques started from the premise that 100% inspection was a time-consuming and ine cient way of sorting the good items from the bad. Checking a limited number of items in a production lot, then deciding on that basis whether the entire lot is acceptable, was Dodge and Romigs alternative. Important as these techniques remain today, recognition of the value of SQC and the extensive range of mathematical and statistical tools was not widespread until the start of World War II, when the need to produce ammunitions in large volumes became pressing. World War II saw the development of a new set of sampling tables based on the concept of acceptable quality levels (AQLs). The AQL is the poorest level of quality or maximum percentage defective that a supplier can maintain over time and still could be considered as satisfactory. This concept met with great success as inspections became less time-consuming because they were conducted only when defect rates constantly exceeded AQL. As quality control activities intensi ed in usage, there was also a growing demand for a new job category for the quality specialists, namely the quality control engineer. Large companies also tended to form a new department called the Quality Control Department, which presided over inspection and quality control engineering functions. Despite the increased stature of the quality specialists in the organization, the impact of statistical

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techniques was limited to the shop- oor employees, and quality did not actively involve management until the introduction of quality assurance. Quality assurance All those planned and systematic actions necessary to provide adequate con dence that a product or service will satisfy given requirements for quality (BS 4778, 1987; ISO 8402, 1986). More emphasis is placed on advanced quality planning, improving the design of the product, process and services, improving control over the process and involving and motivating people (Dale et al., 1994, p. 8). It was only from the 1950s and 1960s that quality began to evolve from a narrow, manufacturing-based discipline to one with broader implications for management. While quality managements earlier history was centred on detection and ` re- ghting activities, the `quality assurance (QA) era shifted industry s focus to preventing defects. The QA professional s tools also expanded beyond the statistical methods of the quality control (QC) era, as the main aim of QA was seen as serving the people who were not directly responsible for the operations, but those who `need to know to be informed as to the state of a airs and hopefully, to be assured that all is well ( Juran, 1995b, p. 627). Early forms of QA appeared in the craft guilds in the form of nal product inspections and audits to assure compliance of products and process speci cations. Formal standards had also begun to be used by the turn of the 1900s, and Britain was said to have started the rst standardizing body4 in the world in 1901 (Morrison, 1990). Although standardization bodies have been around since the early 20th Century, the use of standards in industry was not fully exploited until the 1960s, when military standards (drawn based on a series of NATO standards) began to be formalized and the British government and its Ministry of Defence (MOD) required its military suppliers to adopt a system of preventive measures in their establishments. This resolve to promote prevention modes of QC, rather than detection practices, was further re ected in the government-appointed Raby Committee, which was set up in 1968 to set the direction and development of QA in both the public and private sectors in the UK: The Committee considered that the fundamental problem was how to ensure the quality of a product. They de ned a good quality product as one which meets the requirements of the service adequately, is available at the right time and will be economical and reliable through its working life. The Committee did not consider that ``inspection by an outside body can itself ensure the quality required. They said that what was needed is a comprehensive approach to quality assurance in which the customer, the designer, and the producer all play their part. The Committee emphasised that the customer must de ne his requirements in terms of performance, environment, reliability, maintainability, and similar criteria with the maximum precision. The supplier must use such systems and procedures both in overall management and design and production methods, as well as quality assurance, as give con dence that the end product will meet, in all respects, the de ned requirement of the customer (Drew, 1972, p. 16). Although the philosophy behind QA was initiated for the defence industries, its in uence gradually broadened to the private sector, and by the 1970s customers of large industrial companies were demanding of their suppliers proper QC systems, thus assuring them of the

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quality of their purchases. These systems were to be instituted and followed closely by suppliers as a condition for becoming and remaining suppliers. Audits by customers became a way of life for many of these companies, and in many cases a burdensome one as each customer had their own expectations of what constitutes a proper QC system. Multiple audits or assessments were the results as there was then no consensus among customers of common standards required of their suppliers. This subsequently led to a major rethink of how QA could be made more e cient. In Britain, there was widespread agreement on the need `to build a structure of quality assurance bodies with mutual acceptance of approvals to avoid multiple assessments (Warner, 1977, p. 7) and this eventually led to the adoption of a new British standard the BS 5750 by British industries in 1979. In adopting the BS 5750, organizations were required to establish, document and maintain an e ective quality system that would demonstrate to all customers that they were committed to quality and able to meet their quality needs. The International Organization of Standardizations ISO 9000 series of standards for quality control systems have since superseded the BS 5750 and are today widely accepted by companies world-wide as a guarantee of a companys quality practices. Through certi cation to a recognized quality standard like the ISO 9001 or ISO 9002, companies are able to assure customers of their adherence to a comprehensive quality control system, and also be rid of the plague of multiple assessments which have burdened suppliers in the past ( Juran, 1995b). Besides standards, the QA era also saw companies turning their attention to measuring quality costs. Prior to the 1950s, there was a belief that the trade-o for improving quality was increasing costs. This long-held belief was disputed in Jurans Quality Control Handbook, where he stressed the need for organizations to measure costs of quality (COQ). He described quality costs in terms of avoidable and unavoidable costs, where unavoidable costs were costs associated with prevention activities such as inspection, sampling and other quality control activities, while avoidable costs referred to the costs associated with defect and product failures such as costs linked with scrap, repair, rework and complaints handling. Juran placed great emphasis on the failure costs, terming it as `gold in the mine because he strongly believed that they could be reduced through quality improvement opportunities. Through Jurans work, managers were shown that expenditures on prevention were justi ed if they were lower than the cost of product failures. In 1956, Feigenbaum (who also made a made a major contribution to the subject of COQ) took Juran s ideas a step further by introducing the concept of `total quality control (TQC). In Feigenbaums own terminology, TQC was seen as: an e ective system for integrating the quality development, quality maintenance, and quality improvement e orts of the various groups in an organisation so as to enable production and service at the most economical levels which allow for full customer satisfaction (Feigenbaum, 1983, p. 6). By this de nition, he meant that high quality would not result if manufacturing worked in isolation from the other functional areas in the organization. Instead, he proposed that . . . to provide genuine e ectiveness, control must start in the design of products and end only when the product has been placed in the hands of a customer who remains satis ed (Feigenbaum, 1983, p. 11). The philosophy behind Feigenbaums TQC was that there must be participation and co-operation among all divisions, including marketing, design, engineering, purchasing, manufacturing, inspection and so on. But fearing that quality, which is everyones job, would become no ones responsibility, Feigenbaum suggested that TQC be buttressed and serviced

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by a quality department, whose only area of specialization is product quality and whose only area of operation is in the quality control jobs. At about the same time that quality costing and TQC were being developed, another branch of the quality movement was introduced: reliability engineering. Reliability engineering depended even more heavily on the principles of probability theory and statistics since they originated from the post-war growth of the aerospace and electronics industries in the USA. The aim of reliability engineering was to `assure acceptable product performance over time . In contrast to conventional QC, which focused on `time zero performance or performance when tested prior to shipment , reliability engineering evolved to develop tools and procedures that would contribute to reducing eld failures of durable products ( Juran, 1995a). According to Garvin (1987), its focus was to adapt the laws of probability to the challenge of predicting equipment stress. The popularity of reliability engineering was evident especially in the USA, where companies went as far as establishing reliability engineering departments within their QC functions. In the USA, another signi cant development in QA was the introduction of the principle of zero defects. The `zero defects programme was essentially quality control in its most extreme form, whereby quality was stringently de ned `as an absence of failures . It originated in the early 1960s in the Martin Company, which was building Pershing missiles for the US Army. The design of their missiles was sound, but management found that high quality could only be achieved through inspection. It decided to o er workers incentives to reduce defects, and in 1961 the company completed a Pershing missile with `zero discrepancies . Buoyed by this success, the management of the Martin Company accepted a challenge by the US Army to deliver the rst eld Pershing a month ahead of schedule, with zero defects, and with all equipment fully operational within 10 days of delivery. Two months of feverish activity followed the challenge; management asked all employees to contribute to building the missile exactly right the rst time since there would be no time for the usual inspections. The managers worked hard in motivating the shop- oor employees, and in February 1962 the Martin Company delivered on time a perfect missile that was fully operational within 24 hours. This experience appeared to show the rest of defence industry that zero defects is possible if a workforce is trained and there is top-down motivation. The Martin Companys example also appeared to show that zero defects is achievable when goals are set for workers and e ort is made to give workers constructive criticism. The basis of zero defects was therefore seen to lie in changing the attitudes of employees (Garvin, 1988), and was fundamental to the ideas of Crosby (1982). The QA era showed the importance of the prevention approach to quality and the need for the quality philosophy to transcend production functions. This prevention approach requires not just the use of a set of quality management tools and techniques, but the development of a new operating philosophy and approach, which requires a change in management style and thinking. It requires teamwork across various functions to help in nding the root cause of problems and pursue their elimination (Dale et al., 1994).

Total quality management While much has been said about the quality movement in the West, it is to the Japanese achievements that attention must be turned to understand the state of contemporary quality management. Japan s progress in building up their quality status has been remarkable; from her pre-war reputation for consumer product shoddiness, Japan rebuilt itself into a leading world economy and a quality leader for many consumer goods. As Cole (1998, p. 45) notes

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`the new quality paradigm which was developed in Japan between 1955 - 1980 emerged from the sense of crisis following the devastation of World War II . After World War II, Japan was battling to get its economy moving again. The loss of the war was perceived by the Japanese to be due to the enormous technological gap between Japan and the USA (Lillrank & Kano, 1989). Further, with the end of the war, many large Japanese corporations that had been supplying the military forces found that they had lost their chief customer. They were faced with converting to producing civilian goods, which they had little experience in; and selling their wares in a market that were accustomed to their reputation for shoddy goods (Nonaka, 1995). As part of the rehabilitation process, aided by the US occupation forces, teams of US experts were sent to help the Japanese build new industrial strategies. Notable among this was the work of the Civilian Communications Section (CCS) of the Allied Forces General Headquarters: in charge of all telegraph, telephone, radio and broadcasting services in postwar Japan, the CCS was instrumental in bringing US engineers to improve the Japanese communications network.5 As a direct outcome of the US experts recommendations, CCS began management seminars for top level executives in the Japanese communications companies. Among the topics covered by these seminars, the communication equipment makers had an early introduction to quality control. While the communication industry bene ted from training in quality control techniques, the rest of post-war Japanese industry was not formally introduced to statistical quality control until Deming s visits to Japan in 1950. Dr Deming played a key role in instilling the quality philosophy among the Japanese industrialists when he addressed top managers and engineers on the methods and philosophy of W. A. Shewhart. In his 8-day lectures to engineers (sponsored by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers ( JUSE)) in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Hakata, Deming covered the use of control charts and acceptance sampling, and participants were encouraged to practise the theory learnt using data from their own factories during the course. Reception to Demings approach to quality was extremely warm, and JUSE continued running a series of conferences and lecture programmes on management topics, including quality control. By 1974, it was claimed that some 5000 top Japanese executives were trained (Morrison, 1994); other sources cited that between 1950 and 1970 JUSE had taught statistical methods to 14 700 engineers and thousands of foremen in Japan (Deming, 1982). While the Japanese companies seemed to adopt quality control whole-heartedly, Demings advice,6 ironically, `fell on deaf ears in the USA his message failed to spread amidst the complacency of post-war America, where customers starved of goods were uncritically happy to accept abundance again. The Japanese, in contrast, recognized Demings work, and from the royalties and interest revenues contributed by Deming from the publication of his 1950 lecture texts and the Japanese translation of his books, JUSE established two prizes in recognition of advances in the eld of quality control in 1951: the Deming Prize, for individual contributions in the areas of education and service to the eld of quality control; and the Deming Application Prize, for the outstanding implementation and application of statistical quality control by companies. Since the 1950s, the range of prizes under the Deming Prize `umbrella has increased: in 1958, the Deming Application Prize for Small Enterprise was established, followed by the Deming Application Prize for a (company) division in 1966, the Japan Quality Control Medal in 1970 and the Quality Control Award for a Factory in 1973 (Nonaka, 1995). Today, the costs of the Deming Prizes are borne by JUSE, and although over four decades have passed since these prizes were rst established, the prestige of winning the Deming Prize has not waned. The Japan Quality Control Medal is also a high-status recognition in that it is only given to companies that have demonstrated

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a sustained high level of TQC practices at least 5 years after receiving a Deming Prize (Imai, 1986). Deming, who returned to Japan in subsequent years for further lectures, was followed to Japan by Joseph M. Juran, another ex-employee of Bell Systems, in the summer of 1954. While Deming concentrated his lectures on SQC, Jurans emphasis re ected his roots in management. Through his lectures, Juran changed the focus of Japanese industry from a statistical outlook to one that emphasized the responsibility of management to quality and productivity improvement. He gave the reasons for his beliefs as such: . . . there has been some over-emphasis of the importance of the statistical tools, as though they alone are su cient to solve our quality problems. Such over-emphasis is a mistake. The statistical tools are sometimes necessary, and often useful. But they are never su cient ( Juran, 1954, p. 12 (preface to the Japanese edition of Quality Control Handbook, Total Quality Control)). Furthermore, whilst the audience of Deming s lectures were mainly engineers (although his 1950 visits to Japan included sessions with top management), Jurans seminars included more intensive classes for the senior executives. Following the factory visits which he made in the Tokyo area, Juran conducted 2-day seminars for senior company executives, and 10days courses for division and section chiefs. In his classes with the senior executives, he concentrated on the managerial responsibilities in the quality function, in particular the managers responsibility for policy-making, choice of quality design, quality planning for the organization, and setting up measurement and review systems for quality ( Juran, 1954). His lectures to the lower-level managers, however, centred on more operational topics like vendor inspection, process inspection, nal inspection and quality assurance. Jurans lectures were a departure from the statistical content of Deming s teachings and, instead, emphasized the need for quality control to have the understanding and support of top and middle management. Jurans managerial approach to QC was deemed as `the beginning of a gradual transition from statistical quality control to total quality control . . . and company-wide quality control (Ishikawa, 1990, p. 10). Apart from the prominent contributions of Deming and Juran, three Japanese promotional organizations the Japan Management Association ( JMA), the Japan Standards Association ( JSA) and JUSE played a key part in providing the education and other services to Japanese industries, including training in quality control. These three organizations became the centres for setting up committees of experts to develop modern approaches to quality control. For example, JSA was dedicated to the promotion of standardization and quality control, in particular the spread of standards for industrial products. Even prior to Deming s visits, JUSE was already o ering SQC seminars based on the work of key statistical luminaries like Pearson and Shewhart, and also from the American War Standards. JUSE was also responsible for translating foreign publications on quality control to Japanese, while at the same time producing their own magazine, Statistical Quality Control. The basic statistical and QC methods were also translated into simple, easy-to-understand language what is today known as the QC Storyboard and the seven basic QC tools, and by 1957 the Japanese had extended their QC training to shop- oor and factory workers via the medium of radio (Lillrank & Kano, 1989). Through such means of mass education, it was able to ensure that the philosophy of quality control reached the very people who had ultimate control over preventing defects and ensuring quality. As Ishikawa (1985) puts it: If defective products are produced at di erent stages of the manufacturing process, even strict inspection cannot eliminate them. If instead of relying on inspection, we

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produce no defective products from the beginning in other words, if we control the factors in a particular process which cause defective products we can spare a lot of money that is expended for inspections (Ishikawa, 1985, p. 20). In 1958, a study mission was also organized by the Japan Productivity Centre ( JPC) to the USA. Among the ndings of this mission, it was recommended that a counterpart to the American Society of Quality Control (ASQC) be established in Japan and this, in due course, led to the formation of the Japan Society for Quality Control in 1971. Another recommendation to have come from the JPC study mission was the adoption of quality control in the service industries. By the 1960s, the progress of Japans quality movement was signi cant, and the image of Japanese products as being cheap and shoddy was no longer a problem in many industries (Kawabe, 1979). The liberalization policies announced by the Japanese government around this time and the fear of greater foreign competition may have created some of the impetus for the quality-related activities adopted in the early 1960s. In November 1960, the rst national quality month was launched in Japan; the Q-marks and Q- ags were also formally adopted in the same year. In 1962, JUSE launched the magazine Quality Control for Foreman to supplement the QC techniques training provided for this group of supervisory workers. In the rst issue of this magazine, the concept of QC circles, which allowed for voluntary worker participation on shop- oor quality issues, was introduced. With their grounding in QC techniques like brainstorming and the seven QC tools,7 the introduction of QC circles in companies was seen as a natural progression for Japanese workers. Apart from seeking workers ideas for organizational improvements, the participative nature of quality circles also proved to be helpful in relieving the tedious specializations brought about by the conveyor system of production (Nonaka, 1995); the job enlargement role charged on circles was also found to keep alienation and unrest out of the factory (Lillrank & Kano, 1989). While the West seemed to attribute the success of Japanese management on QC circles, this was never further from the truth. The Japanese practised what Ishikawa termed `company-wide quality control (CWQC) (also known in Japan as TQC). In contrast to Feigenbaums concept of TQC, where quality was the exclusive domain of QC specialists, the Japanese practice of CWQC proposes that `everyone in every division in the company must study, practise, and participate in quality control ; this e ectively shifts the responsibility of quality to all employees rather than a specialized department. As emphasized earlier, education in QC techniques for everyone is seen as paramount in Japanese companies. Central to the Japanese philosophy of quality is the preference of customer orientation over production orientation, and this is re ected in Ishikawas expression: `market in rather than `product out (Ishikawa, 1985). The Japanese organizations also attempted to break down the walls of sectionalism and put into practice the ideas behind `treating the next process as your customer . The Japanese CWQC philosophy also extended beyond the participation of employees within the organizational boundaries to include customers, subcontractors, distribution systems, suppliers and a liated (`keiretsu ) companies. The mentality for continuous improvement was also a Japanese attitude, termed `kaizen (Imai, 1986). The Japanese also placed great emphasis on long-term planning and the involvement of all levels of the organization in the planning process through a policy deployment process (Witcher & Butterworth, 2001). TQM goes West Total Quality Management (TQM) is more than a fad or a buzzword. It is even more than a technique for controlling and motivating employees. TQM is a challenge

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to conventional management techniques and to the theories that underlie them. Therefore it cannot simply be grafted onto existing management structures and systems. If its bene ts are to be fully realized, then companies need to prepare themselves for organization-wide change including top managements relinquishing of power. Furthermore, TQM practices cannot be combined with strategic initiatives, such as corporate restructuring, that are based on conventional management theories. The failure of one or both programs is inevitable (Grant et al., 1994, p. 25). Western rms have had something of a `born again experience with quality management, following the realization by the 1970s that the Japanese economic miracle posed a competitive threat, and this sparked o a strong interest in Japanese management techniques. Tuckman (1994, 1995) characterizes the development of Western interest in quality management as follows: First phase: late 1970s to early 1980s some experimentation with quality circles. Mostly a ects rms in direct competition with industrial sectors in which Japan had concentrated, for example, electronics and motor industries. Second phase: during the 1980s major companies, often a ected by world recession concerned with control of suppliers and subcontractors. Third phase: from the mid 1980s a growing concern with customer service, particularly in the service sector. Fourth phase: from late 1980s penetration of concerns with `customer service into areas which previously had not recognised the existence of customers (for example, public services) (Tuckman, 1995, p. 67). First phase: `Japanization and quality circles Early reaction was characterized by denial. . . . managers denied quality as a major competitive factor and/or they denied Japanese superiority. To deny strong evidence, typically individuals require a cognitive mechanism that plausibly explains events in a di erent fashion. In this case, it involved blaming various other factors for their competitive problems with the Japanese. Cost competition based on low wages, Japanese access to cheap capital, government support, and manipulation of currency rates these all played prominent parts in this alternative and loudly voiced explanation. Singly or combined, these accounts protected existing beliefs from logical and empirical attacks that asserted the superiority of Japanese quality. These accounts allowed managers to resist what otherwise might have seemed irresistible at least for a while (Cole, 1998, p. 49). From the late 1970s, however, there was a series of visits to Japan by Western management, the famous Paci c Basin Study mission organized by the UK Department of Trade and Industry in 1984. In the USA the 1980 NBC documentary `If Japan can Why can t we? , promoted the ideas of Deming in Japan in the 1950s, representing him as siren voice of quality, ignored in his own land. Side by side we saw a `Japanization literature developed (Ouchi, 1981; Pascale & Athos, 1982; Vogel, 1979). The irony that the ideas were originally developed in the USA before being transformed after the war was not always appreciated. Quality circles were seen as a critical vehicle for success and were introduced in Lockheed in the USA in 1974. In the UK quality circles rst appeared on the scene in 1978, when

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Rolls Royce led the way. Quality circles took time to take root in the UK, with estimates of some 100 companies involved in 1980, increasing to 400 by 1985, largely con ned to the manufacturing sector (Collard & Dale, 1989). Quality circles were seen as a major innovation that would restore competitive advantage to ailing Western rms through increasing direct participation, providing a tool to change organizational culture, and delivering enhanced business performance (Hill, 1991). However, quality circles are now widely regarded as having failed, even though some did deliver improvements in business performance. However, as a vehicle to achieving change in employee attitudes and organizational culture, quality circles did not deliver. At best it produced a short-term improvement in attitudes, but this waned when their novelty wore o (Gri n, 1988). Lasting improvements were di cult to nd (Hill, 1991). Indeed, in practice quality circles never involved a very limited proportion of employees and had short life spans. Second phase: Company-wide quality By the mid-1980s, TQM s introduction in to the UK `began in earnest (Tuckman, 1994, p. 740). TQM was seen as o ering the solution which QC never could. A key issue was that quality circles has been implemented in the UK in relative isolation from a total quality system. Thus, a wider commitment to quality improvement was demanded from employees. A key reason for limited impact of quality circles was the restricted participation of the employees (often with less than 10% of the workforce involved). It was now argued that the voluntary nature of quality circles sent an inappropriate message about qualitys importance: employees could opt out. In the new business environment this was no longer acceptable. If employees wanted job security and good conditions, then the price to be paid was the acceptance of responsibility for continuous improvement. The restructuring of manufacturing companies and the emphasis on cost reduction and exibility led to an increase in subcontracting and outsourcing, which in turn raised concerns with the quality of suppliers work. This stimulated substantial interest in quality certi cation as large manufacturers demanded that suppliers be accredited to minimum standards, and hence quality management practices were extended into the small- medium sized enterprise (SME) sector. In addition, the adoption of `just-in-time ( JIT) inventory control by manufacturers involved the reduction of stock to the bare minimum. Suppliers to such a rm were required to deliver components as and when the production process demanded them. This period also saw both government and multinational corporations keen to develop a TQM infrastructure. In 1988 a group of 14 major companies set up the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM), whilst the UK government provided nancial support to organizations aiming to adopt quality accreditation standards. These were followed by other national awards in Australia and Hong Kong. (For a review of the various models and awards, see Dale (1999)). The European Quality Award (EQA) was set up in 1992 by the EFQM to pursue a European equivalent of the American Malcolm Baldrige Award established in 1987. It was designed to stimulate interest in the quality area as well as providing a template for self-assessment and for recognition of quality management. However, proponents of its model claimed to have learnt from the Baldrige experience, being less bureaucratic. The model sees customer satisfaction, people satisfaction and impact on society (results) as achieved through a companys leadership driving its policy and strategy, people management, resources and processes (enablers). This, according to the model, leads to excellence in business results. Each of the nine elements is a criterion which can be used for the organizations progress towards TQM and thereafter to adopt improvement strategies. The award criterion is di erent from Baldrige in that it stresses business results.

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According to Dale, the bene ts of such awards are that they: provide a de nition and description of TQM which gives a better understanding of the concept, improves awareness and generates ownership for TQM among senior managers. They enable measurement of the progress with TQM to be made, along with its bene ts and outcomes. Year-on-year improvement is encouraged and this provides the basis for assessing the rate of improvement. They force management to think about the basic elements of the organization and how it operates. The scoring criterion provides an objective fact-based measurement, gains consensus on the strengths and weaknesses of the current approach and helps to pinpoint improvement opportunities. Benchmarking and organizational learning is facilitated. Training in TQM is encouraged (Dale, 1999, p. 432).

Third phase: Catering for the customer Until the early 1980s the manufacturing sector was centre stage in the quality debate. Indeed, the rst US Baldrige award in the service category was not made until 1990. Similarly, the main professional quality quali cation membership of the Institute of Quality Assurance still has a very high engineering content, with such compulsory subjects as calibration systems, materials testing and metrology. However, from the mid-1980s we see a greater interest with issues of customer service. The nature of service organizations raised methodological and conceptual issues in relation to the transfer of quality management practices developed in manufacturing (Lewis, 1999).

Fourth phase: Into the public sector The late 1980s saw the take up of quality management ideas in the public sector (Clarke, 1992). Quality management was seen as possessing the potential to facilitate a change programme that would start to answer the principal criticisms of public services: their alleged ine ciency, wastefulness and remoteness from those whom they are supposed to serve (Walsh, 1995). Legislation that gave more choice to consumers, competitive tendering, increasing pressures to contain costs and to deliver value for money, more demanding customer requirements and the Citizens Charter all helped to create a climate conducive to a positive reception to TQM ideas. In 1995, the British Quality Foundations awards, originally restricted to `for-pro t organizations, were extended to cover the public sector. However, a number of commentators have called for distinctive systems of quality management for public services and point to the dangers to be faced in an uncritical adoption of private sector practices (Walsh, 1990). The lack of a supportive infrastructure for the development of quality management in the public sector is seen by some as a key barrier to TQMs development. For example, Brockmans (1992) comparison of TQM in the US and UK public sectors bemoans the lack of a British equivalent to the Federal Quality Institute (FQI) established in 1988 as a primary source of leadership, information and consultancy services on quality management for federal government. We have also seen very critical accounts starting to be published with regard to the practice of quality management in the public sector (Kirkpatrick & Martinez-Lucio, 1995; Walsh, 1995). The `success of such initiatives is often seen as being at the expense of declining levels of service provision, job losses, the intensi cation of work for public sector sta , the undermining of trade union in uence and employment conditions, and increases

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in the level of stress-related illness and ill-health retirements amongst public sector employees. Competitive mechanisms ostensibly designed to improve quality seem to have as much to do with driving down costs as promoting enhanced quality (Pollitt, 1993). One theme, which overlaps with the quality philosophy, is the increased emphasis on `user responsiveness , and more attention to the wishes of the individual service consumer. But this is not as straightforward as it might seem: Do consumers understand what is on o er? Are they aware of resource constraints, or will they ask for the impossible? Finally, given the comparatively intangible nature of many public sector services, there is di culty in reaching agreement over what is to count as `conformance to speci cation (Walsh, 1995). While customers may desire `better quality services , it may not always be possible to specify what this means, or to develop an agreed method for measuring improvements. One attempt to solve this problem has been the centralized setting of precise standards and associated audits that are intended to guarantee levels of provision. Walsh notes how this move has, however, enabled politicians to distance themselves from responsibility for the management and delivery of public services (Wilkinson et al, 1998, pp. 24- 32).

Conclusion Quality has become the dominant managerial theme of the 1990s. What lies beyond it? (Drummond, 1995, p. 68). Having traced the evolution of quality management, what about its future? There are a number of distinct scenarios. An optimistic perspective would suggest that while there have been setbacks for the `onward march of the quality movement, its principles and philosophy are sound, its practices are a coherent shape and there is some poor evidence of considerable improvements in quality. Failure is the result of implementation or a failure to follow through and allow TQM to ourish. As Hilmer and Donaldson note in relation to short-termism: Most managers, however, after two years of e ort without dazzling results, tend to lose con dence in the idea they began with, and start looking for another solution. Nor are investors and fund managers, at least in the West, likely to remain patient for long periods. The experience of the Japanese and the Americans with total quality management shows this. In the 1960s, the Japanese were working on quality, while the Americans were into management objectives. In the 1970s, the Americans adopted T-Groups and participation, while the Japanese continued to strive for quality. In the 1980s, the Americans shifted to strategic planning, mergers, and restructuring. Meanwhile, the Japanese stuck with managing quality. Eventually, the Americans discovered ``total quality management and wondered why the Japanese were so far ahead in managing for quality (Hilmer & Donaldson, 1996, p. 14). Increasingly, doom and gloom prophesies have been made about TQMs decline in prominence and popularity, with TQM written o as another, managerial fad that is already being replaced by the next generation of fashionable phrases and practices. As Currie observes: While TQM continues to be an important and popular management innovation and change programme in the 1990 s, it has found new competition and new rivals in the form of BPR and Process Innovation (Currie, 1999, p. 650).

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However, despite academic scepticism about the intellectual credentials of TQM, there is an increasing body of knowledge and a number of promising theoretical developments (Hackman & Wageman, 1995). There is a growing body of work on the extent of TQM and its impact on organizational e ectiveness. According to many of the studies, TQM can add value to an organizations competitive strategy. The majority of the studies respondents attribute a wide range of business performance improvements to the adoption of TQM. However, there are problems with many of the studies. First, many were carried out by consultants or quality associations and sponsored by bodies with a vested interest in positive ndings on TQM. Second, there are methodological weaknesses in many of them, such as the use of very small samples, a concentration on large organizations, ignoring evidence on the performance of non-TQM companies and not controlling for industry factors. Third, the evaluations of TQMs contribution to organizational success, although sometimes based on relatively sophisticated techniques of analysis, have generally neglected to establish the extent to which TQM was actually installed (Powell, 1995). Thus, a danger in many studies is that it is di cult to con rm that it is actually TQM that is being assessed, rather than some other managerial intervention. For example, Hackman and Wagemans (1995, p. 321) review of 99 papers on TQM found only four which assessed the degree to which TQM was actually implemented. Finally, we would do well to heed the cautionary observation of Hackman and Wageman: Although dinner may seem assured to a snake who notices a rabbit strolling nearby, there is no guarantee of nourishment. If the rabbit is extraordinarily large, it may get stuck in the snake s throat; snakes have, on occasion, died when their eyes were too large for their throat. And if the rabbit is just a baby, consumption and digestion are easy, but there is little real nourishment. Eating a baby rabbit is hardly worth the trouble it takes to catch it. Organizational change programs, including TQM, can go wrong for the same two reasons that snakes sometimes have trouble with their dinners. One, the changes may be so ambitious and involve such fundamental alterations of the social system that, for all their potential merit, the organization cannot accommodate to them. Espoused changes may appear to fail when in fact they never got implemented. Two, the changes may be more window-dressing then real, as in a program that exhorts people to alter their behaviour but that requires managers to do little other than issue the exhortation. In this case, implementation is easy, but the old organizational structures and systems remain untouched and continue to generate the same behavioural dynamics as before (Hackman & Wageman, 1993, pp. 335336).

Notes
1. According to Shewhart, the aims of making quality quanti able were twofold: (i) `To make it possible for one to see whether or not the quality of the product for a given period di ers from that for some other period taken as a basis of comparison. (ii) To make possible the comparison of qualities of product for two or more periods to determine whether or not the di erences are greater than should be left to chance (1931, p. 44). To facilitate these measurements, Shewhart devised process control charts and statistical sampling, which are still used in many production settings. 2. The detailed speci cations established by the guilds, that ourished from the 11th Century until the Industrial Revolution, included speci cations for input materials, manufacturing processes and nished products as well as for methods of inspection tests. 3. The guilds inspected the products of their members and used seals to identify products that had been

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4. 5.

6.

7.

inspected by the guild and approved for quality. These seals also served to provide added quality assurance to the buyers of the products. This was the Engineering Standards Committee, the forerunner of what is today called the British Standards Institution (BSI). The communications industry in Japan was targeted as its poor state was seen as a threat to the political stability of the country, and the Allied Forces, while depending on the Japanese system for their own communication needs, were also anxious to prevent misunderstandings and rumours leading to civil unrest and insurrection (Lillrank & Kano, 1989). Deming was also one of the architects of the 8-day courses on SQC, which were widely conducted in the USA during World War II by the American War Production Board. These lectures were the very same lectures, which were delivered to the Japanese engineers. These seven tools of QC are the Pareto chart, cause-and-e ect (or shbone) diagrams, strati cation, check sheets, histogram, scatter diagrams, and the graph and control charts.

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