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Managing for Quality: Theory and Practice
SMO
432/632
Course Outline
Course
Description
This
course introduces students to several quality improvement (QI)
approaches that are increasingly used by North American managers. The
TQM philosophy stresses a systematic, integrated, consistent,
organization-wide perspective involving everyone and every aspect of
the production process. TQM affects all functions of business (e.g.,
research & development, operations/production, finance,
sales/marketing, human resource management [HRM]) and is the
integration of these functions and related processes into the product
life cycle. The measurement of success is customer satisfaction and the
way to its achievement is through continuous improvement.
This course has two major parts. In Part I, first, we discuss the traditional managerial
paradigm and why it is being replaced by TQM. Then, we examine the ideas and
theories of TQM as developed by Deming, Juran, and Ishikawa. Part II addresses
practical issues related to QI implementation and application.
Course
Requirements and Grading
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Midterm Exam 35% |
Participation 15% |
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Term Project 50% (hard copies
only; due on December 5 before noon)
Note, the length of the project must not exceed 20 pages excluding cover page, ToC, references, notes, and appendices
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| A
student who does not take the midterm examination, or does not submit the
term project, or gets a zero in participation, will have failed the
course. |
Goals and Outcomes
This course incorporates
the Learning Goals of the BCom and MBA Program, in particular Critical
Thinking, Ethical Awareness, Oral Communications, Teamwork, Global
Awareness, and Written Communications. To these, I add my own
goal of developing a good Understanding of TQM's Origins, Philosophy,
and Tools.
Outcomes are measured by the following assessments:
Mid-Term
Examination: Assesses Critical Thinking, Written Communications, and
Understanding of TQM's origins, philosophy, and tools. 35%
Term Project: Assesses
Critical Thinking, Written Communications, and Understanding of TQM's
origins, philosophy, and tools. 50%
At this point, Global
Awareness, Ethical Awareness, and Teamwork are not assessed.
However, they are incorporated into the course material, my own
lectures, class discussion, guest lectures, and the two in-class
experiments.
The
Project
For your term project you may choose any organization, as long as it is
practicing QI, planning to launch a QI initiative, or practiced QI. You can also
choose an organization that does not have any experience with QI. Then,
you will have to develop a QI plan for the organization. In the introduction, explain your research
question/argument or the problem you will be dealing with. Next, describe the research setting and the QI initiative.
Then, analyze the situation. This analysis is guided by the research focus you have established in the
introduction. A section outlining your findings, conclusions
and recommendations should end the paper. To improve your paper, use the literature on quality improvement
to support your arguments; provide a reference list; and if appendices
are provided, integrate them with the discussion.
The length of the project must not exceed 20 pages excluding cover page, ToC, references, notes, and appendices.
Grading Scheme
Final
grades will be awarded on the basis of absolute student achievement and
relative performance in the class. Final grades will be
determined by cut-off points rather
than a particular distribution. Consideration will be given to
raw score out of 100, possible natural breaks, and any relevant factor
that relates to students' performance. The instructor has total
discretion in awarding final grades but, generally, cut-off points
should fall quite closely to the following:
85 - 100 = A category
70 - 84 = B category
55 - 69 = C category
50 - 54 = D
For the BCom students, a score of less than 50 = F. For the MBA students, a grade below a C+ = F
Ethics
Considerations
Your
project requires interviews. Therefore, you must:
§ attend an
instructional session in which ethical issues relating to this project have been
discussed;
§ read the Code of Student Behavior
§ read the UoA Human Research Ethics Policy
§ sign and
submit to me the student agreement BEFORE you conduct any interviews;
§
get each of
your interviewees to sign a letter of consent;
§
submit all
the letters of consent, which must be signed, with your final project.
I will not grade projects submitted without signed letters of
consent.
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Other documents you
may wish to consult
Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct For Research Involving Humans
To construct your
interview questions, consult the guidelines
for interviews.
Participation
It is
anticipated that students will attend every class. You cannot participate if you are not present.
I recognize that there are extenuating circumstances that might prevent
you from attending, and will not become too excited if you miss up to two
classes. If you miss more than two classes without a very valid reason
(e.g., illness, blizzard) you will lose five participation marks out of the
total 15 each time you miss a class. Presence in
class
means joining the class during its first 30 minutes (between 0900-0930) and
staying in class until it ends at 1150.
A student who gets zero points in participation will fail the
course.
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Section I: The Intellectual
Foundations of TQM
Week (1-2)
Week (3-4)
| How Do You Motivate Employees to Do Quality Work? |
Herzberg |
| The Essence of TQM |
Deming: 1-148
Gehani: 1993
Becker et al.: '94 |
The Red Bead Experiment:
System Improvement v. Tampering with a System |
Lecture Notes |
| Video: The Deming of America |
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Week (5)
| TQM: A Contingency Approach |
Lawler: 1988
Levitt: 1962 |
| A Critique of TQM |
Harari: 1993a,
1993b
Becker: 1993
Cole: 1998 |
| Taylorism vs. TQM |
Adler & Cole: 1993 |
| Control in the Age of Empowerment |
Simons: 1995 |
| Lincoln Electric: Video & Case |
Read the LE case |
Week (6-7) Beyond TQM
| The Learning Organization |
Senge
Garvin
Wishart et al. |
| Reengineering |
Hammer & Champy |
| ISO 9000 |
Lecture Notes |
Section II: Quality Improvement
Week (7-9) Planning for Quality
| The Congruence Model |
Nadler & Tushman |
| Planning for Quality |
Krishnan et al. |
| The Control Circle |
Ishikawa: 44-71 |
| The Juran Trilogy & Triprol Diagram |
Juran,
1988: 1-33, 274-5
Juran: 1986 |
| The Fishbone Diagram |
Ishikawa: 44-71 |
| The Hoshin Method |
Lecture Notes |
| Six
Sigma |
Lecture
Notes |
Week (10)
| Constructing a Cause & Effect Diagram |
Class exercise |
Week (11)
| Analyzing and Improving a Process |
Class exercise |
Week (12-13)
| Case
study, course summary, miscellaneous |
Sandalias Finas ... |
Course Readings
A reading package is available at the
Bookstore.
Items not included in the reading package can be downloaded from the internet.
Reading List
Paul S. Adler & Robert E. Cole. 1993. "Designed for Learning: A Tale of Two
Auto Plants." Sloan Management Review, Vol. 34, 3,
85-94.
Selwyn
W. Becker. 1993. "TQM Does Work: Ten Reasons Why Misguided Attempts Fail." Management
Review, May, 30-33
Selwyn W. Becker, William A.J. Golomski & Daniel C. Lory. 1994. TQM and
Organization of the Firm: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives, Quality
Management Journal, Vol. 1, 2, 18-24.
Robert Cole. 1998. "Learning from the Quality Movement: What did and what didn't Happen and Why?" California Management Review,
Vol. 41, 43-73.
W. Edwards Deming. 1986. Out of the Crisis. Boston: MIT.
David A. Garvin. 1993. "Building a Learning Organization." Harvard
Business Review, July-August, 78-91.
R. Ray Gehani. 1993. "Quality Value-Chain: A Meta-Synthesis of Frontiers of
Quality Movement." Academy of Management Executive, Vol. 7, 2,
29-42.
Michael Hammer & James Champy. 1993. Reengineering the Corporation.
Summary by Steve Gildersleeve.
Oren Harari. 1993a. "Ten Reasons Why TQM Doesn't Work." Management
Review, January, 33-38.
Oren Harari. 1993b. "The Eleventh Reason Why TQM Doesn't Work." Management
Review, May, 31-36.
Frederick Herzberg. 1987. "One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees." Harvard
Business Review, September-October.
Kaoru Ishikawa. 1985. What is Total Quality Control? The Japanese Way.
Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Joseph M. Juran. 1988. Juran on Planning for Quality. New York:
Free Press.
Joseph M. Juran. 1986. "The Quality Trilogy." Quality Progress,
August, 19-24.
R. Krishnan, A.B. Shani, R.M. Grant & R. Baer. 1993. "In Search of Quality
Improvement: Problems of Design and Implementation." Academy of Management
Executive, Vol. 7, 4, pp. 7-20.
Edward E. Lawler, III. 1988. "Choosing an Involvement Strategy." Academy
of Management Executive, 197-204.
Harold J. Leavitt. 1962. "Unhuman Organizations." Harvard Business
Review, July-August, 90-98.
Elton Mayo. 1945. The Social Problems of an Industrial Civilization.
Boston: Harvard.
David A. Nadler, and Michael L. Tushman. 1983. "A General Diagnostic Model for
Organizational Behavior: Applying a Congruence Perspective." In J. Richard Hackman,
Edward E. Lawler III, and Lyman W. Porter (eds.) Perspectives on Behavior in
Organizations. Toronto: McGraw-Hill: 112-124.
Warren H. Schmidt, and Jerome P. Finnigan. 1992. The Race without a Finish
Line. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Peter Senge. 1990. The Fifth Discipline. Summary by Dorothy
Marcic.
Robert Simons. 1995. "Control in the Age of Empowerment." Harvard
Business Review, March-April, 80-88.
Sim B. Sitkin et al. 1994. "Distinguishing Control from Learning in TQM: A
Contingency Perspective." Academy of Management Review,
Vol. 19, 3, 537-564.
Frederick W. Taylor. 1911. Principles of Scientific Management.
Easton, PA: Hive.
Nicole A. Wishart, Joyce J. Elam & Daniel Robey. 1996. "Redrawing the Portrait
of a Learning Organization: Inside Knight-Ridder, Inc." Academy of
Management Executive, Vol. 10, 1, 7-20.
A Few More Useful Sources
Interesting discussions of TQM:
Academy
of Management Review, 1994, Vol. 19, 3; Canadian Journal of Administrative
Sciences, 1995, Vol. 12, 2.
A good review article:
J. Richard Hackman & Ruth Wageman. 1995. "Total Quality Management: Empirical,
Conceptual, and Practical Issues." Administrative Science Quarterly,
Vol. 40: 309-342.
TQM's effects on firm competitiveness:
Thomas C. Powell. 1995. "Total Quality Management as Competitive Advantage: A
Review and Empirical Study." Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 16:
15-37.
Term Project & Ethics Guidelines
The term research project is a field study
involving
interviews. You may choose an organization that is practicing quality
improvement (QI); tried to implement a QI effort and failed; or is planning to launch a QI campaign.
You may also select an organization that does not practice any QI initiative. In this
case you use the term paper to provide the
organization with a plan/recommendations for QI.
Note, there is no rule on how many people you
have to interview. Therefore, interview enough people until you get a
reliable and broad picture of the problem at hand.
Note, the length of a typical term paper is 17
pages (not including appendices).
The paper's main parts
1. Start with an Introduction.
Here you should clearly state your research question/argument or the problem you
are dealing with. This
research statement will give your paper a focus and direction, and help you
maintain internal
consistency.
2. Next, describe the research setting
(the company) and the
QI initiative.
3. Then, analyze the situation. This is
probably the most important part of the paper. AN ANALYSIS IS
NOT A SURVEY OF QUALITY IMPROVEMENT PRACTICES. The analysis is where you use
the interview data to answer the
research question or support/reject your argument. The analysis is guided by the research focus
you have established in the introduction.
4. A section outlining your findings, conclusions
and recommendations should end the paper.
You can improve
your paper by:
1. Using the literature on quality improvement to support your
arguments
2. Providing a reference list (make sure
that all the items you use in the paper are listed, and that all the items
appearing on the list are used in the paper)
3. Using
page numbers
4. Using headlines
5. If appendices are provided, integrating them with
the discussion.
Very important
Your project requires interviews. Therefore, you must read the UoA Human Research Ethics Policy,
fill out and signed the
Student Agreement before you can begin interviewing subjects, and submit a signed
copy of the Research Consent letter.
| I will not grade projects submitted
without the signed letters of consent |
Note
Audio
or video recording of lectures, labs, seminars or any other teaching
environment by students is allowed only with the prior written consent
of the inatructor or as a part of an approved accommodation plan.
Recorded material is to be used solely for personal study, and is not
to be used or distributed for any other purpose without prior written
consent from the instructor.
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