1.5 - About University

7.7T OTAL Q UALITY L EADERSHIP O VERVIEWInspired by William Deming, Joseph Juran, Peter Scholtes, William Conway, and Amoco Progress program designers.The quality movement has had great impact on leadership and organizations. Arising out ofprograms that focused on keeping production processes within control limits (such asStatistical Quality Control or SQC), the movement has expanded. It now includes improvingsystems, as well as designing leadership processes, to support Total Quality organizations.Quality offshoots have included quality circles, the International Organization forStandardization (ISO), and benchmarking. The purpose of this tool is to provide an overviewof some key elements of leadership in these quality areas.A quality measure defines a critical measure of success. Examples are satisfied customers,shipments made within 24 hours, money saved, and calls answered within one minute. A qualitymeasure can also define problems (e.g., errors, complaints, downtime, rejects), or it candefine variables (e.g., time, cost, frequency, type, counts, response time). The creative piece ofStatistical Quality leadership is deciding which quality measures to use to analyze a process.Peter Scholtes has broadly summarized the key concepts of quality improvement.KEY QUALITY IMPROVEMENT CONCEPTS• Processes and Systems• Customers and Suppliers• Quality– of target values and features– of execution• Teams and Teamwork• Scientific Approach• Complexity1. Mistakes or defects2. Breakdowns or delays3. Inefficiencies4. Excessive variation• Variation– common causes– special causes• Statistically Designed ExperimentsReprinted with permission from Scholtes, Peter. The Team Handbook. Joiner Associates, 1988, page 2-2.The table that follows includes brief descriptions of commonly used specific quality measures.We caution against isolating use of these measures from the principles in the applicationsection of this tool, because those principles form the underpinning for the measures. Pleasekeep in mind that the principles need to come first!SECTION 7 TOOLS FOR PROBLEM SOLVING, DECISION MAKING, AND QUALITY 223