This document summarizes the key topics in Chapter 2 of a book on quality management philosophy. It discusses 5 areas where quality management philosophies have changed, including that quality is now seen as a religion, there is a quality imperative for organizations, old quality control ways are no longer sufficient, customers drive quality efforts, and quality management is ongoing. It then provides more details on concepts like the quality imperative to produce defects-free products, how all employees must ensure quality, and how organizations must continuously improve and evaluate their quality efforts.

1. Chapter 2
Philosophy of Quality Management
By
Prof. Nazrul Islam, PhD
Canadian University of Bangladesh

2. Topics to be Covered
1. The Religion
2. The Imperative
3. The New Ways
4. New Customer
5. The Implementation and Evaluation
6. Conclusions

3. Philosophy of Quality Management
During the last two decades, a major change has
occurred in the basic philosophies regarding quality
management. This change basically encompasses
five areas:
a. Quality is a religion! Its advocates must live it,
sleep it, and look for continually
different avenues to spread its message.
b. There is a quality imperative. If the
organization does not have quality (the aim is
zero defects), nothing else matters. Furthermore, it
must be embraced from the top to
the bottom of the organization. (More will be said
about this in the second chapter.)

4. Philosophy of Quality Management, Contd.,
c. The old ways of ensuring quality are no longer appropriate
in the global world. The old ways included a very bureaucratic,
rules-and-procedures-oriented control system. Quality was
inspected in. The modern way depends on quality being built in
and every employee being his or her own quality inspector – and
designer of
improvements.
d. The customer's requirements drive the efforts of the
organization. Internal customers (the group that is next in line)
are just as important as external customers.
e. Quality management is not a one-time effort. Its
demands are ongoing.

5. The Religion
Managers want employees to ‘get religion,’
that is, to become committed to the
organization and to quality. Their managers, in
turn, want the same thing from them. What
does commitment mean? It means that the
employee should:
• Completely internalize quality issues and
problems. S/he should be personally involved
(and not delegate all quality decisions),
conduct audits, and lead change processes.

6. The Imperative
Cheaper, faster, better and zero-defects are today's imperative.
Organizations that use programs such as six sigma think in terms of
‘3.4 defects per one million parts’. In north America, we like to think
that our quality is superb and that of other manufacturing countries
is lacking. This was an attitude that existed about Japanese
manufactured goods – until the Japanese gained control of many of
our markets (bicycles and motorcycles, electronics, video and audio
equipment, for example) and, after considerable persuasion, agreed
to use voluntary restraints to keep from over-shipping and
overselling automobiles in Canada and the united states. Currently
countries like India are gaining considerable footholds in the
computer and data processing fields. The moral is that if domestic
companies are not willing to provide what the customer wants at a
price the customer is willing to pay, there are many
organizations in both the developed and the developing world that
will be glad to sell to those markets and customers instead.

7. The New Ways
What does it mean to say that every employee is her own
inspector? Every employee must be committed to ensuring
that a product that does not measure up to all expectations
does not leave her work area.
New terms, such as ‘collabronauts’ (Kanter, 2001) describe
employees who initiate and sell projects while at the same
time attracting others to their ventures.
The best collabronauts are good at personal networking, and
are constantly on the lookout for new ways to partner for the
benefit of the company. These employees work well in
teams.

8. The Customer
The customer may be king but there is a wants/costs trade
off. Obviously, an organization cannot produce products that
last forever, or for which the costs of production are far more
than what the product can be sold for.

9. The Implementation and
Evaluation
The current opportunities for continuous quality improvement are
mind boggling. First, there is the daily improvement of very small
procedures and processes that every employee, through his
experience and knowledge, can develop and implement. But at a
more strategic level, there is a requirement that products using new
core and distinctive competencies in the area of quality be marketed.
This involves trying to develop a unique product (or a hybrid of
a product) that has disproportionately high customer-perceived value
(e.g., exceptionally high quality), and which has a continuously
extendible life.

10. The Implementation and
Evaluation, Contd.,
In the name of continuous improvement, organizations are
embracing flexible manufacturing systems that permit customers to
design their own products (mass customization).
Information system managers follow Sun Microsystems and use
instant translation software to communicate customer expectations.
Others (Microsoft, for example) introduce new products that
cannibalize their own very successful products before their
competitors can do so. Every employee in today's global organization
needs to become a ‘continuous
improvement guru’.

11. Thanks