Quality - A Never Ending Journey

Here are excerpts from an article by Jim Smith written toward the end of the last decade:

“As the first decade of the 21st century is about to close, the quality movement is still maturing.”….

“The one thing we have come to realize is that quality is a journey, not a destination!”

“We can expect more development and challenges in the decades to come.” 

[Source: The History of Modern Quality by Jim L. Smith, American Society for Quality, July 2009; http://www.peoriamagazines.com/ibi/2009/jul/history-modern-quality ]

The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2011-12 has emphasized the importance of “quality growth” for “sustainable competitiveness” [Source: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GCR_Report_2011-12.pdf  ] The rank of India in these competitiveness reports has been consistently quite low. This indicates an urgent need for enhancing the quality management practices of most Indian organizations - more so now than ever.

A systems-oriented approach needs to be adopted in ensuring quality performance. 

Note: As mentioned in the above paper: In a TQM-compatible approach:

“…performance management efforts focused on group-level appraisal and rewards will have a greater positive effect on TQM implementation efforts than on efforts focusing on individuals,…”

“…In addition, these effects will be further maximized when coupled with a continuous improvement approach to work systems.”

The role of management is that of a facilitator. Leadership focus, as ever, should be on the “we”, and not the “I”.

Since the quality movement is still maturing and we have the future challenges ahead of us it is important to reflect on the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. See the following blog post tilted On “tolerating” tolerance. [Tolerance, as we know, has an important place in quality. Thus, by appropriately specifying the tolerance limits we can tell whether our present-day systems are geared more towards “control” or towards “improvement”. These systems (mostly technology-dominated) invariably need to be more humanistic in their approach.]  

While adopting a systems-approach, however, organizations can reap greater benefits by simultaneously promoting design thinking. This certainly will help India Inc. to overcome the design deficit.