I wrote this book for the purpose of explaining quality to management in terms they could understand. It talks about the misconceptions of quality management, and relates the story of how a worldwide quality process was installed into the ITT corporation. The book contains many case histories to explain just what quality is and how it can be improved on purpose. The HPA case is a blow by blow story of one executive trying to turn an organization around. This lengthy story was used as a day long event acted out by the students. It proved to be a great help to their comprehension. The Quality Maturity Grid provides a way of letting management determine where their organization stands with the quality process. QIF has sold several million copies, mostly in paperback, and is available in many languages. I check bookstores all around the world as I travel and it is usually on their shelves.

Chapter Content:

Part One:
The Understanding

Making Quality Certain
My original thoughts on why quality seemed to be such hard work -- because it was approached incorrectly. The ITT strategy I applied in installing quality management is discussed in detail. It is treated as "cultural revolution" which meant that we were trying to change minds rather than install a bunch of procedures and regulations. It worked.

Quality May Not Be What You Think It Is
Here is where we get into the concepts. It begins with "erroneous assumptions" and the definition of quality. In 1979 these ideas were considered outlandish, so don't just gloss over them; the opposites are still flourishing - to the detriment of their companies.

The Quality Management Maturity Grid
It always was difficult to present management with the status of quality in the organization, there is nothing about quality that can't be explained away. The grid provides a view of the whole operation by letting the evaluator use their own information. Usually they rate themselves a level higher than they really are but this leaves room for improvement. It is a wonderful tool for communications between senior management and those who are trying to install a cultural revolution. Very useful for teaching also; it formed our basis for the Quality College courses.

Management Understanding And Attitude
This is the first of five chapters explaining how to interpret, use, and apply the grid. This first one begins with a story about a quality professional and a manufacturing manager fighting about the traditional "what is good enough." They go to a quality society meeting where the CEO of another company explains how he came to the conclusion that the conventional wisdom of quality was wrong. Then the chapter provides comments on changing management's attitude. A case history on a hotel concludes the chapter. The manager of the property is a real disaster.

Quality Organizational Status
The second line of the grid matrix is about organization so the chapter discusses it in detail including the necessary policies. The reader should recognize that artificial systems, such as ISO 9000 or Mil Q 9858, are not substitutes for a carefully designed system that applies to a particular organization. We need to understand just what is necessary if we are to run a professionally useful operation.

Handling Problems
Beginning with a conversation in an operations review meeting, this chapter goes through several types of problem resolutions, specific lectures on problem solving, and case histories to provide an understanding of what problem handling is all about. It is very valuable for those who don't want to do the same problems over again regularly. It will also turn the reader into a problem solver of reputation.

Cost of Quality
"Quality is free but no one is ever going to know it unless there is some agreed system of measurement." This chapter provides stories to explain the cost of quality which I now refer to as the Price of Nonconformance and a list of the subjects that offer themselves in this regard. Using financial measurements about quality is the way to move it to the head table. People yelled at me every meeting until these numbers emerged, then they knew where the problems, and opportunities, were.

Quality Improvement Program
I learned to use "process" rather than "program" when teaching about it. People think a program has a planned end. This chapter lists the 14-step process for installing quality improvement. The steps are really just things that must be addressed if we are to create the culture change necessary to improve quality. There is nothing motivational about it, just relationships and management participation by example.

Management Style
Ten characteristics are listed to help the manager do a little self analysis. The things that keep people from achieving the success they deserve are not always major, and we may not know we are not doing them correctly.

Part Two:

The Doing: The HPA Corporation Quality Improvement Process

History Of The Project And The Program
Two chapters take a management team through setting up and running a quality improvement effort. It is all quite realistic although the prices of things have changed since 1979. The case was used to teach managers about the process in ITT and later in the PCA Quality College.

Instructor's Guide For HPA Case
Here is all the information necessary to teach this case as a course.

Make Certain Program
This effort was created primarily for the white collar and service areas. Its base is that people usually know the reasons things are not going correctly and need a way to get help. "Making Certain" is a good way of improving performance. Those who consider ZD to be a manufacturing term find this thought easier to work with.

Guidelines For Browsers
In all my books, except Cutting the Cost of Quality, I took phrases from the text and listed them in the back with the proper page number. This began as a way to help reviewers read the book easier and became a helper to the readers as a more pragmatic index.

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© Copyright 1999 Philip Crosby Associates. All rights reserved.