Page 97 - DMGT206_PRODUCTION_AND_OPERATIONS_MANAGEMENT

Production and Operations Management

Notes 3. Check
4. Act
Plan to implement a policy to improve quality and/or decrease the cost of providing services.
After the plan is developed, we do it by putting the plan into action and then check to see if our
plan has worked. Finally, we act either to stabilize the improvement that occurred or to determine
what went wrong if the gains we planned for did not materialize.

!
Caution It is to be remembered that any improvement realized by carrying out one PDCA
cycle will become the baseline for an improvement target on the next PDCA cycle.
PDCA is a continuous cycle. The process of improvement (PDCA) is never ending, although the
dramatic improvements of initial PDCA efforts may be hard to sustain.

Quality Council

Juran developed the idea of instituting a leadership group or “Quality Council”, consisting of
the organization’s senior executive staff and senior management.

Responsibilities of the Quality Council

1. The Quality Council is typically charged with the responsibility for designing the overall
strategy for quality planning, control and improvement.
2. It establishes trust and eliminates fear amongst the employees and ensures
miscommunication between the various levels of an organization is minimized.
3. It ensures that it provides people with the required resources, training and freedom to act
with responsibility and accountability.
4. Quality Improvement activities are seen as important as other management tasks (e.g.,
budgeting, human resource management, purchasing and training), and leaders can
integrate Quality Improvement into every aspect of their operations.
5. Activities are evaluated, aligned and implemented in a unified way. The involvement of
senior management advances the objective of the council by inspiring, encouraging and
recognizing people’s contributions.

Vital Few and the Useful Many

Juran also proposed the idea of the “Vital Few and the Useful Many”. The idea is to prioritize
which Quality Improvement projects should be undertaken by the organization. In any
organization, there can be a lengthy list of possible ideas for improvement. Since the resources
to actually implement new ideas are limited, leaders must choose those vital few projects that
will have the greatest impact.
The criteria for selecting the projects, according to Juran, should be based on its potential impact
on meeting customer needs, cutting waste, or marshaling the necessary resources required by
the project.

5.1.6 Involvement of People

The Japanese have a saying: “Every defect is a treasure”. The meaning of this maxim is that
errors and failures are opportunities for improvement. Errors or problems can help identify

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