| Memo: Quality at Work
Edition: Final
Now that Total Quality Management awareness
and acceptance has increased, businesses are becoming
concerned with the rate of implementation and
improvement. Indication of the widespread application
of quality-related activities can be seen globally.
Businesses around the world are viewing Total
Quality as a strategy to achieving world-class
competitiveness.
The International Standards Organization
(ISO) has moved on establishing standards
to ensure minimum common quality practices as
a prerequisite for doing business in international
markets. While the origin of ISO's standards initially
had to do with positioning for doing business
in the European Common Market, numerous non-exporting
organizations are viewing the standards as a template
for their quality activities.
Given the degree of emphasis being placed on
quality, organizations are finding that speed
at which they move could very well determine their
position in the near future.
An analogy of the trend contradicts the outcome
of the race between the fabled tortoise and the
hare. In the race for superior quality and customer
loyalty, businesses will have to move at the speed
of the hare while maintaining the consistency
and stamina of the tortoise. Companies opting
to take it slow in implementing Total Quality
will find that their markets are being dominated
by those organizations that move swiftly and unswervingly.
Accelerating the pace of acceptance and implementation
of Total Quality will require the leadership of
top management. Traditional views pertaining to
the natural evolution of quality must be replaced
with strategic quality planning. Implementing
quality in pockets of an organization will not
suffice.
There are numerous reasons why organizations
are moving slow on the quality paradigm. Some
think that it is a fad and are caught up in the
belief that this, too, shall pass. Others, in
need of a quick fix, or "instant pudding"
as quality guru W.
Edwards Deming calls it, are preoccupied with
the next quarterly report or figures that might
have little to do with quality.
Submitted by Afolabi
Imoukhuede, Managing Consultant, MCS
Consulting Limited Ikoyi, Lagos
aimoukhuede@mcsworldgrp.com
Quality International
Standards Help With Competition
[download
article]
|
