Total Quality
Management: Strategies and Techniques Proven at
Today’s Most Successful Companies, Second
Edition
by Stephen
George and Arnold Weimerskirch
John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY
ISBN 0-471-19174-4
Hardcover, 243 pages
Part of “The Portable MBA Series”
***
Given today’s economy, when was the last time you
visited another company and benchmarked its processes?
Have you ever been able to justify attending one of those
conferences where the most recent Baldrige winners share
their “secrets” of world-class total quality
management? Does your budget go “tilt” at the
price of the benchmarking reports from Best Practices,
LLC? If you want to learn more about total quality
management and what it looks like in practice, but have a
limited budget, then this month’s book is for
you.
Recent books about the Malcolm Baldrige National
Quality Award seem to have focused on interpreting the
criteria and simplifying the application process, not on
sharing the strategies, tactics, and processes of the
companies judged best in class. One of the few that
benchmarks the best of the best is four years old and is
the second edition of a book originally published in
1994. I approached the book as a skeptic. Would it seem
horribly dated, or would its content hold up over the
years? The answer is that this highly readable book
remains as valid now as when it was first published.
Admittedly, some of the companies used as models of
excellence have experienced changes that have hurt their
status as world class. Yet, the lessons that can be
learned from the 51 companies discussed in this book
(including 22 Baldrige Award winners) continue to be
instructive. It is as Suzanne Beecher of Chapteraday.com
recently wrote: “In the case of business books the
rule is, ‘Don’t judge a book by when it was
published.’”
The authors of Total Quality Management (the
former chairman of the Baldrige panel of judges and a
consultant who has worked with several Baldrige winners)
use the Baldrige criteria as the backbone of what they
call the “new business management model.”
Each of the seven sections of the criteria is the focus
of at least one chapter; and each chapter has detailed
information on at least three “models of
excellence” (one manufacturing company, one service
company, and one small business).
For someone just learning about total quality or
looking for a refresher course, the book provides a
thorough grounding without getting too technical.
Although definitely targeted at senior leadership, there
is plenty of “take away” for people seeking
to initiate change from other levels of an
organization.
I
especially liked the no punches pulled approach taken by
the authors. They take care to point out methods that are
destined for failure and why such approaches are
ultimately unsuccessful. Special warnings are given to
those who would attempt to copy the good ideas described
without first changing their old management model,
“The new model requires systems thinking, which
means you must understand all the elements in your
company—and how changes in one affect the
others—to systematically improve
it.”
My
only disappointment with the book lies in its lack of a
bibliography. Readers who want to learn more about
specific aspects of total quality will need to go
elsewhere.
CHRISTINE ROBINSON has more than 25 years
of leadership experience in quality systems for the
process industries. She has a master’s degree in
quality, values, and leadership from Marian College. An
avid reader, she spends a significant amount of her time
with her nose in books and her body at the
library.
Book
Ratings:
***** =
Pick it up today
**** =
Overnight it
*** =
Snail mail it
** = At a library?
* =
Never mind
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