Jul 18 2013
The Meaning of “Total” in Japanese Improvement Programs
As Armand Feigenbaum originally formulated Total Quality Control (TQC) in 1951, it meant quality control from product design to after-sales service. It had to do with the scope of the activity, not with who participates. In 1984, when Kaoru Ishikawa described the Japanese version of TQC, “Total” had come to mean “company-wide” (全社的, zenshateki). Sometimes, it is even explicitly stated to mean “with participation by everyone” (全員参加, zenyinsanka).
It can be argued that the Japanese side mistranslated “Total,” but it makes no difference. If we want to understand TQC or TPM, we need to go by what they mean by it and realize its implications. “Participation by everyone,” in particular, means the following:
- The CEO and the janitor both participate. Personal involvement by top management is essential because it prevents anybody else claiming they are too busy.
- Training in the activity must cascade down from top management through all the layers in all the departments.
- There must be sanctions for refusal to participate.
As a consequence, the “Total” programs are difficult and expensive to implement. Before starting one, you must be sure that:
- It is worth it.
- The workforce has the needed skills.
- Management relations are conducive to success.
Otherwise, it most often fizzles out after a flurry of initial activity. In the worst case, it leads to a mutiny. When starting improvement in a manufacturing plant, the prerequisites for any kind of “Total” program are rarely met. It is safer to start a with activities involving local, small teams of volunteers, whose success motivates others to join in. This gradually strengthens the organization to the point where it is able to pull through a program that requires participation by everyone.
Aug 9 2013
What Can We Learn from NIST’s Next Generation Manufacturing Studies?
When you hear anyone say “Studies show…”, you want to know who studied what and how, so that you can use what Kaiser Fung calls your number sense to decide what, if anything, can be learned.
Since 2008, “Next Generation Manufacturing Studies” have been conducted in the US by the following:
Results are available on line up to 2011, and the 2013 study is underway. It is intended to evaluate “awareness, best practices, and achievements” in the following six areas:
By what methods are these studies conducted? The following is p.27 from the 2011 National Executive Summary:
This study is therefore entirely based on questionnaires filled out by a small, self-selected sample of companies rating themselves on a scale of 1 to 5 on issues like “the importance of customer-focused innovation.” It involves no site visit or personal interviews. The responses were only “cleansed to ensure answers were plausible,” a statement that leaves much to the imagination.
This raises the following questions:
Share this:
Like this:
By Michel Baudin • Management 0 • Tags: Data mining, next-generation manufacturing, NGM, NIST