1. Lean Manufacturing Module STAT6008
Assignment 1 Book Review – Deming Management at Work
Chapter US Navy (Chapter 5)
Student Name Leonard Allen
Student Number R00064580
Submission Date Tuesday March 26th
2012

2. This project is solely the work of Leonard Allen unless otherwise indicated. It is submitted in
partial fulfilment of the Lean Manufacturing module at Cork Institute of Technology. I
understand that significant plagiarism, as determined by the examiner, may result in the award
of zero marks for the entire assignment, notwithstanding the merits of non-plagiarised
material.
Signed___________________________________________ Date______________________

3. INTRODUCTION
This essay is a review of “Deming Management at Work” by Mary Walton which was
published in 1991.
It is my first assignment for the Lean Manufacturing module which is part of my Higher
Certificate in Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) & Technology programme at the Cork
Institute of Technology (CIT).
For this exercise I have been assigned Chapter Five of the aforementioned book, entitled “The
US Navy”, where I will be reviewing evidence of eight quality management concepts as used
by the US Navy and I will also be reviewing evidence of where these concepts were used by
other organisations throughout the book.
I will also be reviewing the same quality management concepts from my own experience in
my former workplace, Beamish & Crawford’s Brewery in Cork.
The eight quality management concepts examined in these pages are as follows:
 Clear Authority/Responsibility for Everything
 Establish and Implement Procedures and Processes
 Training
 Check Compliance
 Check Effectiveness
 Follow up Non-conformances
 Continuous Improvement/Process Approach and
 Records of all the above.
These were taken from a list of ten quality management concepts that were included in my
book of course notes that I was supplied with at the outset of this module.

4. Clear Authority/Responsibility for Everything
The first aspect of a quality management system that I found evidence of in the US Navy was
the implementation of clear authority and/or responsibility for everything.
I found this in Sub-chapter III entitled “The Bearing Team: Roll Out the Barrel” which
described the disregard that unscrupulous mechanics had for bearings and the remedial action
that the US Navy instigated, when the Quality Management Board in the blade/vane
department installed Darleen Roberts from the bearings workshop as its new chairperson.
Ms Roberts decided that bearings should be distributed directly by the bearing workshops or
by “stores” – with the latter being storage areas manned by production control supervisors,
who had the authority to order more bearings. Prior to the implementation of this action,
workers knew how to order bearings through the computer system, because they were aware
of the fact that there was a “free store” on site where frequently used bearings were readily
available. Ms Roberts also saw that bearings were damaged by mechanics who did not use the
correct tools or techniques to remove them.
Ann Beck of the production control team informed Ms Roberts that the mechanics were not
properly trained and only used bearings that they personally liked and discarded those that
they did not like, irrespective of their quality, which resulted in a 55-gallon barrel being filled
with discarded bearings. It was also evident that the workers with the best of intentions had
hoarded the bearings for whenever the eventuality of having to use them had arisen.
The operations analysis team then decided that all bearings would be channelled through the
bearings workshop, with this process monitored by the chief of production control.
In Chapter 6, “Bridgestone (USA) Incorporated” the implementation of clear authority
and/or responsibility for everything was evident in Sub-chapter II entitled “Kokai Watch”.
This was where the workers in an American tyre factory imported a Japanese idea whereby
the majority of workers on a given shift would monitor two workers who carried out the
process of changing materials and dyes required to produce particular types of tyres.
Mark Fox, a foreman in the passenger tyre departments in Bridgestone’s US factory in La
Vergne Tennessee saw the concept in the company’s sister plant in Japan in 1989 and he
decided that the American factory should follow suit, because in Japan he saw an 80%
decrease in the rate of tread changeover.
The implementation of this concept also resulted in a decrease in accidents in the La Vergne
plant, because prior to the implementation of this concept, a worker had partially lost two
fingers in a new body ply (machine that imprints zigzag-shaped grips on tyre surfaces) that
the company initially believed was free from defects. This accident occurred because the
worker in question had not been correctly trained to use this machine. Passenger tyre section
manager Louis Amirault then thought about other hazards presented by the body ply. The
team was then divided into four groups that worked on different sectors of the body ply.
Sixty-three potential dangers were discovered, including six places where machine guards
were absent. The latter could have resulted in a worker getting trapped in the machine and
even being killed. All the workers listed priorities and measures to prevent accidents/fatalities
from occurring in the future. The “Kokai watch” did prove to be effective in the reduction of
injuries and fatalities
In my own experience, clear authority and/or responsibility for everything were delegated
in my former workplace, Beamish & Crawford’s Brewery in Cork, because it was a very
unionized workplace. In this situation as an engineering assistant I was not permitted to empty
bins from the bottling plant, because this task was the sole responsibility of the bottling
operatives.

5. Establish and Implement Procedures and Processes
In the US Navy the establishment and implementation of procedures and processes was
evident with the bearing team, because the first remedial action instigated to counteract
unscrupulous practices in the bearing workshop was to scrap used bearings that cost $50 or
less. It was also more economical to use new bearings, as opposed to reconditioning old
bearings, because this process cost $140 per bearing. As was frequently the case, the
reconditioning process had to be carried out because replacements were seldom available for
used bearings costing $50 or less.
When Darleen Roberts was appointed as chairperson of the blade/vane department of the
Quality Management Board she initiated processes and procedures whereby bearings were
held in storage areas manned by production control supervisors and also decided that these
were also the only individuals with the authority to order bearings via the computer system.
Too many people knew how to order bearings through computer system and this process was
changed when Ms Roberts decided to channel all bearings through a bearing pool and to issue
a secret password to specific individuals with the authority to order bearings.
The establishment and implementation of procedures and processes was also evident in
Chapter 3 “Hospital Corporation of America” (HCA) where a nine-step process called
FOCUS-PDCA was introduced as a training mechanism with the objective of improving
processes as opposed to undertaking improvements projects with problem solving methods.
FOCUS-PDCA is an acronym with the following meaning:
 Find a process to improve
 Organize a team that knows the process
 Clarify current knowledge of the process
 Understand causes of process variation
 Select the process improvement
 Plan the improvement and continue data collection
 Do the improvement, data collection and analysis
 Check the results and lessons learned from the team effort
 Act to hold the gain and to continue to improve the process
Each process in the above sequence was delegated to particular individuals in the HCA with
each having sole authority to improve and update their allocated process. This was evident at
West Paces Ferry Hospital where the management applied four mandatory criteria before
giving a team the go ahead to improve a process.
In my experience in Beamish & Crawford’s Brewery the establishment and implementation of
procedures and processes was evident throughout the plant as the bottling and kegging
plants all had standard operating procedures (SOP’s) and there was also an SOP in place as
regards their preparation of effluent samples for the brewery’s laboratory, the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) and Cork City Council. The procedures in place were to wash out
the plastic bottles that contained the effluent samples and then fill them with hot water. Once
the latter had been done I had to leave the bottles for an hour to sterilize them and then return
to the effluent hut (located in a corner of the brewery car park) and prepare the samples. I also
had to put stickers on the bottles and these stated whether the sample was for the company’s
Laboratory, the City Council or the EPA. I also had to write may name and the date on each of
these stickers and fill in particulars regarding flow rate of the effluent and its pH in a book in
the hut.

6. Training
Training is the essence of productivity in any organisation. This was evident in the opening
sub-chapter on the US Navy entitled “Getting Underway” when the Navy received news of
the return of Colonel Jerald B Gartman as a commanding officer at the Naval Aviation Depot
in Cherry Point North Carolina. Col Gartman was disciplinarian with a temper, who was
renowned for his ability to impose strict deadlines on managers and workers. He was a
farmer’s son from Missouri with degrees in Industrial Engineering and Systems Management.
His academic qualifications did not smooth out the rough edges of his personality.
Col Gartman attended a W Edwards Deming seminar about increasing productivity by
focussing on quality before taking up his appointment at Cherry Point, which he ran with an
iron fist. Jack Adams became Col Gartman’s right hand man when he was installed as the
total quality management (TQM) coordinator.
In 1981 Col Gartman attended a Deming seminar where one of the speakers was Laurie
Broedling who was a research psychologist and at the time was leading a team studying
organizational development. The objective of the study that Ms Broedling’s team was
conducting was to find better ways of attracting, selecting, training and deploying naval
personnel. Another item on Ms Broedling’s agenda was the use of statistical data similar to
that used by the US Census Bureau, because she frequently dealt with surveys.
By 1989 the US Navy had initiated formal process improvement efforts with an estimated
2,000 naval personnel attending four-day Deming seminars.
In Chapter 2 “Florida Power & Light” there was evidence of training in the first sub-chapter
“The Lights Go On” when the company’s chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) John
Hudiburg attended a meeting with counsellors from the Japanese Union of Scientists and
Engineers (JUSE), who would guide his company through the process of applying for Japan’s
coveted Deming Prize, which is the highest award that can be obtained in a country where
quality is king.
Mr Hudiburg who was form North Carolina started to work for Florida Power and Light as a
student engineer and had risen through the ranks to be rewarded with the company’s vice
presidency after twenty years of service.
The Japanese counsellors from JUSE then visited Mr Hudiburg in Florida and lectured on
methods of bringing US quality standards on par with those of their native land. In November
1989 Mr Hudiburg accepted the Deming Prize for FPL, thus becoming its first winner outside
Japan. This award was earned because Mr Hudiburg had rapidly transformed his company
into a data-based organisation with 1,800 employees working on a suggestion system called
“Bright Ideas” and this improved the company’s performance under its quality improvement
programme.
In Beamish & Crawford’s Brewery all new employees were given safety inductions as regards
personal protective equipment (PPE) and general work procedures. On my first day in the
brewery in September 2006 I was assigned to the kegging department and I was issued with
safety boots with steel toe caps, safety glasses, ear plugs and a high visibility vest. I was also
shown how to operate the scales on the old manual kegging plant (that had been in place from
1979 until 2007). The procedure was to put caps and stickers, with the latter stating the beer’s
best before date, on the kegs and also to monitor the weight of the kegs as displayed on a
meter attached to the scales, as they made their way down the production line to the out feed
before being loaded onto trucks. If a keg was deemed by the meter to have been empty or
underweight (e.g. a 50 litre keg with a total gross weight of 60 kilogrammes weighing 40 kg)
a red light would come on and then I had to press a button to reject such a keg.

7. Check Compliance
The checking of compliance is a very critical area of an organization’s quality management
programme. In the US Navy this was evident in “The Bearing Team: Roll Out the Barrel”
when Darleen Roberts first took up her appointment as chairperson of the Quality
Management Board.
A flow chart which showed that the rate at which bearings were moved around the workshop
was spiralling out of control led to Ms Roberts discovering a 55 gallon barrel full of discarded
bearings. Another supervisor found $27,000 worth of bearings hidden in his workshop. The
bearing team’s facilitator Ben Lopedote was not surprised, because after his fifteen years in
the bearing workshop he discovered that when they ran out of fasteners, one mechanic had
two lockers filled with $10,000 worth of fasteners.
Ms Roberts then implemented a strict remedial action whereby all bearings would be
channelled through a bearing pool and only particular individuals would be issued with
passwords and the authority to order bearings and compliance with this measure maintained
tighter controls on the movements of bearings.
The checking of compliance was also evident in the first sub-chapter of the Hospital
Corporation of America entitled “Charting the Course” when nine of the HCA’s executives
gathered in Nashville to discuss the introduction of a hospital quality improvements
programme and to show the chronological steps of the conversion to quality management,
thus ensuring compliance with same.
A small industry within the HCA had sprung up to assist with hospitals in complying with the
Joint Commission’s standards which up until then were never clearly laid out. A company
called InterQual had produced generally accepted criteria for various procedures. An example
was tonsillitis which would have led to a tonsillectomy (extraction of tonsils). This led to
doctors who could not document four cases of tonsillectomies being subject to review for
performing unwarranted surgery. Once this requirement was made known to physicians that
records that mentioned “several” incidents of tonsillitis had to provide a specific number
(four).
Dr Donald M Berwick, who was a physician and executive with the Harvard Community
Health Plan thought it was dangerous to believe “that the assessment and publication of
performance data will somehow induce otherwise indolent caregivers to improve the level of
their care and efficiency.” He believed that techniques used to improve quality in
manufacturing processes could also be used to improve the quality of healthcare services.
In Beamish & Crawford’s the checking of compliance was evident with regard to the
environment. As an engineering assistant when I was on the day shift, I had to prepare three
effluent samples for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and one for the company’s
own laboratory first thing very morning. Some days I had to prepare three samples for the
company’s laboratory and other days the brewery received prior notification that an employee
of Cork City Council was coming to take an effluent sample for analysis. When I was taking
these samples I had to record the flow rate of the effluent and record same in a chart in the
effluent hut where the samples were prepared and I also recorded the pH of the effluent tank. I
believe the brewery did comply with environmental legislation, because every time I recorded
the pH of the effluent tank the reading was around 8 (mildly alkaline above the neutral value
of 7) on average most days.

8. Check Effectiveness
The checking of effectiveness was evident in the US Navy’s bearing workshop after Darleen
Roberts took up her appointment as chairperson of the QMB and implemented new
procedures regarding the acquisition of bearings. Eddie Daniels from operations analysis
looked at the costs of processing used bearings worth less than $50 as an alternative to buying
in new ones. This was seen as a cost-cutting measure and a 2:1 ratio of new to old bearings
were used and the total cost of using these bearings over a two-year period exceeded $1
million, with this figure constituting an unnecessary spend on new bearings.
The proposal that all bearings be channelled through a bearing pool for which the chief of
production control was given responsibility proved to be effective as access to bearings was
restricted to a small group of individuals who were given specific authority to order bearings
through the issuing of secret passwords. This was an effective method of eliminating
unscrupulous practices, such as the 55 gallon barrel that was filled with discarded bearings
and the mechanic hoarding of $10,000 worth of fasteners in two lockers.
The checking of effectiveness was also evident in the opening sub-chapter of the Hospital
Corporation of America entitled “Charting the Course” where nine of the Corporation’s senior
executives met at their headquarters in Nashville to discuss the introduction of a hospital
quality improvement programme.
These meetings were also attended by hospital administrators, physicians and High-level
managers.
Chairman and CEO of the HCA Dr Thomas Frist Jnr was a total quality enthusiast and he
mandated that HCA headquarters formed quality management teams.
The HCA had enjoyed a reputation as a well-managed provider high quality healthcare and Dr
Frist sought to find out that this objective was maintained by the HCA and at the Corporation
was fit for purpose, thus checking the organisation’s effectiveness.
Dr Frist Junior was also an avid pilot and he flew to HCA hospitals that were based in rural
areas to spread the word about the HCA and its philosophy of hospital management.
However when the American healthcare sector was affected by crises in the 1980’s with
declining numbers entering the nursing and medical professions, the HCA were audited by an
army of regulators with a siege-like mentality. They discovered that as many as four
employees were producing the volume of paperwork that one person would be expected to
produce and Dr Berwick thought that the administrative side of the HCA was overstaffed.
In my own experience in Beamish & Crawford’s Brewery, the bottling and kegging plants had
been monitored for their effectiveness and results of same were produced at our weekly
autonomous team meetings by the packaging manager who was responsible for the bottling
and kegging plants.
This was where the whole production and engineering team gathered in the production team
leader’s office and the packaging area manager presented us with figures relating to
production and reliability of the bottling and kegging plants and thus determined their
effectiveness.
Other days the engineering team used to have similar autonomous team meetings with the
manager of the engineering department to evaluate employee participation.

9. Continuous Improvement/Process Approach
Continuous improvement/process approach was evident in the bearings workshop in the
US Navy when Darleen Roberts took up her appointment as chairperson of the QMB and
improved procedures regarding the acquisition of bearings and used a process approach to
launch a paper trail that traced the movements of all bearings before she instigated her
remedial action to counteract unscrupulous practices by issuing secret passwords to
designated personnel with the authority to order bearings.
This eliminated a situation where all production workers had little or no difficulty in ordering
bearings through workshop’s computer system and there was also a “free store” from where
bearings were very easily accessible.
A flow chart was produced to outline the movements of all bearings and Ann Beck from
production control indicated that the mechanics had engaged in unscrupulous actions for
years. This led to the discovery of a 55-gallon barrel of discarded bearings and a mechanic
who discarded bearings hoarded in two lockers and this led to Ms Roberts designating the
authority to order bearings to specific individuals.
Continuous improvement/process approach was also evident in Bridgestone (USA)
Incorporated’s opening sub-chapter entitled “Home-grown Kaizen” when Firestone’s plant La
Vergne Tennessee adopted Japanese methods after having been taken over by the Japanese
company Bridgestone and renamed Bridgestone (USA) and this resulted in increasing
productivity and profits as Professor Thomas A Mahoney form Vanderbilt University
conducted a case study entitled “From American to Japanese Management: The Conversion of
a Tire Plant”.
An excerpt from Professor Mahoney’s case study showed that form 1983-87 the plant doubled
its output with 172.4% relative productivity in 1986 compared to 144.6% for the whole
American tyre industry in 1980. This was as a result of a reduction of various measures and
60% less scrap form 1983 onwards. The injury rate had plummeted form a 14 incidence rate
to 2.2.
Prof Mahoney listed the changes that produced these results which ranged from modification
of machinery to employee participation and a conscious effort to increase informal
communication between workers and management as a means of ensuring that all standards of
improvements were maintained.
One of the employees in Bridgestone’s mould workshop Larry Coleman described his
employers as a company that had more ideas and were willing to help its employees and
sought favours in return from the employees.
In my experience in Beamish & Crawford’s Brewery continuous improvement/process
approach was evident in the engineering department with the engineering team leader
designating specific continuous maintenance improvement (CMI) tasks to particular
electricians and fitters. This was where there were pockets on a wall similar to a notice board
with the names of each fitter and electrician and each individual had a card inserted into his
slot describing a maintenance task that he was assigned. All appropriate boxes on the card
were ticked once each step of the process was carried out and this was signed by the
craftsperson (electrician/fitter) upon completion and then returned to the team leader.

10. Follow up of Non-conformances
In the US Navy the follow up of non-conformances was evident in the opening sub-chapter
entitled “Getting Underway” when Jerald B Gartman returned to the Cherry Point depot as
commanding officer.
H Lawrence Garrett III was the Navy’s secretary who was committed to quality in the person
as was his assistant secretary J Daniel Howard, with the latter having attended a Deming
seminar and delivered lectures on quality.
At the beginning of the 1990’s the US Navy, just like most other organizations at the time was
experiencing a financial crisis. Mr Howard was pressing for cost cutting measures in reducing
military expenditure, because the Navy had hammers worth $436 and pliers worth $999.
Mr Howard proposed that if the Navy was to work its way out of such a crisis and maintain a
viable force through quality-focussed management. The Navy had a sense of urgency in this
regard because Mr Howard also pointed out that enterprises in a similar situation in the
private sector would be on the brink of immediate bankruptcy and that quality-focussed
management was the primary solution to prevent such an eventuality occurring with the Navy.
Steve Dockstader who was a researcher with researcher from the Navy Personnel research &
Development Centre (NPRDC) and his wife Linda M Doherty who also worked in the
NPRDC as a psychologist attended a two-day Deming seminar in Boston which had an
emphasis on Deming’s statistical contributions and introduced statistical quality control to the
US Navy as a means of determining where non-conformances occurred and to instigate the
appropriate remedial action.
The follow up of non-conformances was evident in Florida Power and Light’s opening sub-
chapter in Quality Stories entitled “West Palm Beach: Deposit-related Complaints”. This
company was a monopoly as regards the provision of electrical energy to the state of Florida
(similar to the Electricity Supply board or ESB in Ireland).
Though Florida Public Service Commission (FPSC) had received complaints regarding
Florida Power and Light’s demands for deposits from customers and the FPSC investigated
these under seven headings, namely:
 Reason for improvement
 Current Situation
 Analysis
 Countermeasures
 Results
 Standardization and
 Future Plans
Customer satisfaction committees were then established by the FPSC to investigate
complaints about Florida Power and Light and other companies operating within the state of
Florida.
In my experience in Beamish & Crawford the main non-conformances were mechanical and
electrical breakdowns in processing machinery throughout the brewery. Specially trained
personnel, namely fitters and electricians were on hand to immediately correct such
deficiencies and document that these processes had occurred and been corrected. One of the
main areas where this was a regular occurrence was the packer or box maker in the bottling
plant in which cardboard often jammed and incorrect numbers of bottles were in the boxes.
When the latter occurred, these were rejected, when sensors detected how many bottles were
in the boxes – for example 23 bottles in a 24 bottle box. The box was then disposed of and the
bottles were placed back on the bottling line and re-packed.

11. Records of all the Above (Quality Management Systems)
In the US Navy the maintenance of records of all quality management systems was evident
in the first quality story entitled “The Bearing Team: Roll Out the Barrel” when Darleen
Roberts took up her appointment as chairperson of the quality management board a follow
chart indicating the movements of all bearings was produced. This showed that too many
people had access to bearings and the remedial action instigated was the limiting of access to
bearings by issuing passwords and the authority to order bearings to designated individuals.
All bearings were then channelled through a bearing pool which was managed by the chief of
production control. This ensured that the movements of all bearings were accounted for and it
also eliminated unscrupulous practices such as the discoveries of the 55-gallon barrel of
discarded bearings and a mechanic with two lockers full of discarded bearings.
Eddie Daniels from operations analysis looked at the costs of processing new bearings against
the cost of buying in new ones and he believed that reconditioning of used bearings was a
cost-cutting measure in this respect.
In the first quality story in Florida Power & Light entitled “West Palm Beach; Deposit-related
complaints” there was evidence of the maintenance of records of all quality management
systems when all complaints as outlined in the title of this sub-chapter were documented
when these were investigated under the seven sub-headings as stated on the page entitled
“Follow-up of Non-conformances.”
Florida Power & Light initially decided on reasons to improve their provision of electrical
power to Palm Beach by measuring via statistical means volumes of complaints from
residents and then looked at the current situation in 1988 and analysed all the data which led
to the company finding the root causes of the problem. This was followed by the
implementation of counter measures and analysis of results and the implementing of
standardization. The final paragraph of this sub-chapter summed up Florida Power & Light’s
where the company drafted future plans based on lessons learned through their analysis of
statistical data and then established customer satisfaction committees charged with the
responsibility of investigating customer complaints and keeping records of all of the
company’s quality management systems.
In Beamish & Crawford’s there was evidence of records of all quality management systems
from the receipt of raw materials through to the finished product. In the brew house, records
were kept of quantise of raw materials that were being used for particular types of beers as
well as which beer was being produced at the time and the corresponding volume of same. In
the packaging department (bottling and kegging plants) records of bottles and kegs produced
were kept as well as defects, such as bottles and kegs that were under filled and had to be
drained. The latter were classed as ullage (waste beer). Quantities of packaging waste –
broken bottles and defective cardboard boxes were also documented. The quality control
laboratories took samples of beer from various stages of the production process, such as the
brew house and the bottling and kegging plants for analysis and all of these were documented.

12. Discussion
I found that while I was in the process of compiling this essay I gained invaluable experience
in editorial skills. I initially had about two thirds of a page filled with my first quality
management concept “Clear Authority/Responsibility for Everything” in my organization
the US Navy as described in the first sub-chapter in “Quality Stories” entitled “The Bearing
Team: Roll out the Barrel”.
I initially produced a virtual adaptation of that sub-chapter and when I saw the length of it, I
began the editing process and succeeded in fitting this concept on one third of a page.
When I was assessing evidence of each of the other seven quality managements concepts
under the headings of my organization (the US Navy), elsewhere in the book (organizations
other than the US Navy in “Deming Management at Work”) and from my own experience (in
Beamish & Crawford’s Brewery), I assessed the main points of each topic thus succeeding in
fitting my analysis of my eight quality management concepts on a third of a page, thus
ensuring that my assessment of each quality management concept did not go onto a second
page.
The editorial experience that I gained as outlined above was a valuable means of ensuring that
this assignment did not exceed the maximum stipulated quota of thirteen pages, thus adhering
to the guideline which stated that “any additional (fourteenth and subsequent) pages will be
ignored and will not be awarded marks”.
I found that this latter statement served as a warning for me to be conservative with space if I
was to fit my assessment of quality management concepts under the three different headings
on one page each and ensure that marks would be awarded for the whole assignment. This
would also be of benefit to an author with editorial experience.
Another critical area with regards to the processing of the information contained in these
pages was spelling, because I was warned to have the dictionary in the spell check function on
my computer set to “English – Ireland/UK” and not “English – US”, because I was also
warned that American spellings were not acceptable.
An exception to this guideline did come into play when I used the American spelling of “tyre”
(tire) when analysing my sixth quality management concept Continuous
Improvement/Process Approach as used by the Bridgestone tyre company when Professor
Thomas A Mahoney form Vanderbilt University conducted a case study entitled “From
American to Japanese Management: The Conversion of a Tire Plant”. The word “tyre” is
spelled as “tire” in this case, because it was part of the title of an American document. The
subject matter of this document was Prof Mahoney’s analysis of Japanese methods being
introduced to Bridgestone’s facility in La Vergne Tennessee resulted in increasing productivity
and profits

13. REFERENCES
All material contained in these pages was my analysis of quality management concepts as
described in “Deming Management at Work” by Mary Walton published in 1991.
The only piece of text quoted in this essay is to be found on the page entitled “Check
Compliance” at the end of the section where I looked at this concept in the Hospital
Corporation of America (HCA) is as follows:
“that the assessment and publication of performance data will somehow induce otherwise
indolent caregivers to improve the level of their care and efficiency.”
This is in the HCA’s sub chapter entitled “Charting the Course” on page 90 in the third
paragraph. This was where Dr Donald M Berwick, who was a physician and executive with
the Harvard Community Health Plan, believed that techniques used to improve quality in
manufacturing processes could also be used to improve the quality of healthcare services.