Page 71 - DMGT524_TOTAL_QUALITY_MANAGEMENT

Total Quality Management

Notes Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:
11. …………………… shows us how an unsatisfied customer can be converted to a satisfied
customer by implementing quality goals.

12. In Kano model, the bottom left quadrant shows the most …………………… customer.

Case Study Hewlett-Packard Company

ave you ever sat down with other people at your company to look for a better
way to meet customers’ quality needs, only to have been disappointed with the
Hresults? The reason for your disappointment may be that one important element
was missing from the equation: your customers themselves. Listening to them is what
provides real insight into meeting their quality requirements.
While Hewlett-Packard Company’s Northwest Integrated Circuit Division (Corvallis,
OR) is in business to sell chips to other divisions inside Hewlett Packard (HP), it also
serves customers outside of HP. The problem that it faced about five years ago, however,
was that many employees either didn’t know who their customers were or actually believed
that the customers were interfering with them as they performed their work.
Fortunately, management saw the obvious need to address these problems. “We wanted
our people to become very familiar with our customers and realise that they were here to
serve those customers,” says Casey Collett, Ph.D., Total Quality Control manager. “Our
goal was to become so responsive to our customers that we would be the only supplier
with which they would want to do business.”
A Four-step Process
To meet that goal, the Division launched its Total Quality Control effort in 1983. Collett
says it involves four steps:
Step 1: On your own, identify what you feel your major business processes are.
Step 2: On your own, determine how you are being measured by your customer.

Step 3: Go out and verify these two perceptions with your major customers.
Step 4: Develop a programme to improve these processes.
To execute these four steps, division management created a small group of TQC experts,
who currently report directly to the division manager and work closely with a steering
committee of top managers. TQC members have expertise in manufacturing, teaching,
statistics, and group facilitation. Together, the division quality and TQC departments
attack customer satisfaction and internal process improvement issues, respectively.

The Division has also created a three-point TQC model, which has expanded to a seven-
point model over the years. (See Figure 1)
Process improvements occur through quality leadership and teamwork. Reducing
complexity, setting data-based (meaningful) standards, and using appropriate statistical
methods are the tools used to achieve the process improvements
Contd...

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