Incredible Journey
In response to personnel’s safety concerns and rising workers’ compensation costs, a team at Boeing’s C-17 site developed a solution to thwart injury and save money....
Building Task Cohesion to Bring Teams Together
Traditional, homogeneous teams made up of members of the same gender, race, and age tend to be more cohesive and more successful and effective in problem solving, but such sameness can produce bland and predictable solutions. On the other hand, a team...
Create a Lean, Mean Machine
"Lean" has been defined as a systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste through continuous improvement. Lean focuses on value added flow of resources from the customer’s point of view. To compete in today’s economy a company must...
Aftermath of Battle
The removal of unexploded ordnance (UXO) is a critical problem deserving of quality assurance. UXO causes some 20,000 civilian casualties annually, while UXO sites in the United States are found on over 11 millions acres. However, there is no one...
Team Empowerment: A Simple and Easy Solution
QUEST (Quality Empowerment Survey for Teams) is a tool that helps teams make the most of their strengths while remediating their weaknesses. Team members use the QUEST survey to rate team factors such as respect, recognition, communications, problem...
More Voices Speak Out on the Future of the Quality Profession
Readers have reacted to the Quality Progress July 1996 special issue on the future of quality. Direct responses from about 24 readers to questions raised in the issue suggest that quality activities will become more integrated within organizations,...
Self-Directed Work Teams: A Guide to Implementation
Highly trained members, more resources and cross-functional skills, greater decision-making power, and improved information access can raise the level of teamwork. Self-directed work teams (SDWTs) have these characteristics. Implementations of SDWTs...
How TQM Can Work in Education
A new strategic plan introduced total quality management (TQM) to the Conroe Independent School District. The plan was linked to a vision of quality and ten goals, one of which was to implement TQM. The first stage of implementation was commitment...
Teamwork Brings Breakthrough Improvements in Quality and Climate
Scrap reduction at one U.K. company depended on cultural change, a problem-solving approach to process improvement, and teamwork. Prior to this initiative, the company's culture was traditionally hierarchical and based on fear. As a first step in...
The Zealots and the Old Guard
Fundamental changes to the content and process of undergraduate engineering education are occurring at Arizona State University and a consortium of six other institutions. The changes come about because traditional graduates enter the workplace with...
The Gentle Art of Chartering a Team
Establishing a problem solving team comprises six steps. This chartering process is overseen by a quality council. First, the quality council identifies a total quality management (TQM) executive to create the team. A team facilitator, who may be the...
But It Takes Too Long . . .
Quality improvement projects can consume too much time. The Juran Institute studied twenty projects of 10 clients in 5 industries. The average project took 68.1 weeks; 62.8% of that time could have been eliminated. Inadequate management preparation...
The Art of TQM
Senior executives should provide constancy of purpose and leadership. Inadequacies in these areas are major causes of TQM (total quality management) implementation failures. Poor pilot improvement efforts also add to TQM implementation failures. The...
Building a Leadership Foundation Through Improvement
The executive learning process can be facilitated by the leadership of quality professionals. However, barriers include executives' resistance to their own education and to being taught by their employees. Executives also can be too impatient, too...
