Crosby's 14 Steps provides a simple and organized method for initiating a quality improvement process. The 14 steps involve getting top management and the entire organization committed to quality. Key steps include measuring quality, understanding the costs of poor quality, training supervisors, setting goals for continuous improvement, and recognizing employees for their participation. General Motors implemented Crosby's 14 Steps to develop a common quality direction across its truck and bus division. This provided a defined roadmap and helped involve everyone in improving business processes and understanding customer requirements.

1. Crosby’s 14 Steps
Brin Tracy
Marriott School of Management

2. What Will Be Covered
1. What are Crosby’s 14 Steps?
2. Brainstorming Exercise: How Can This Tool be
Used in Your Organization?
3. Explanation of Crosby’s 14 Steps
4. How Crosby’s 14 Steps Work
5. Real World Example: GM Truck & Bus
6. An Exercise
7. Summary
8. Readings list

3. What are Crosby’s 14 Steps?
• Adapted from chapter eight of Quality Is
Free: The Art of Making Quality Certain
(1979)
• A fourteen step program for quality
improvement
– Top management involved
– Entire organization involved

4. What are Crosby’s 14 Steps?
• A “how-to” for management that provides an
organization with a simple and organized
method to initiating the quality improvement
process and beginning the journey to world-
class quality

5. What are Crosby’s 14 Steps?
• “Focuses on long-term employee
participation, not short-term motivational
tactics.”
- Crosby, Philip (1979) Crosby’s 14 Steps to Improvement

6. Brainstorming Exercise: How can this
tool be used in your organization?
• Each person in the audience identify an
area in the organization (process, product,
service, etc.) that you feel needs
improvement. (3 min)
– Cycle times
– Delivery times
– Any wasteful or non-value added activities

7. Foundation for Crosby’s 14 Steps
Crosby’s absolutes of quality management:
• Quality means conformance, not elegance.
• There is no such thing as a quality problem.
• There is no such thing as the economics of quality;
it is always cheaper to do the job right the first
time.
• The only performance measurement is the cost of
quality.
• The only performance standard is Zero Defects.

8. Nuts and Bolts
1. MANAGEMENT COMMITMENT - Top-level view
on quality shown to all employees.
2. THE QUALITY IMPROVEMENT TEAM - To pursue
the quality regime throughout the business.

9. Nuts and Bolts
3. QUALITY MEASUREMENT - Analysis of business
quality performance in a meaningful manner.
4. THE COST OF QUALITY - Make sure everyone in the
business understands the need for a quality system, and
the costs to the business if there is no quality system in
place.

10. Nuts and Bolts
5. QUALITY AWARENESS - Again make everyone in the
business aware of the impact of quality systems.
6. CORRECTIVE ACTION - Ensure a system is in place
for analyzing defects in the system and applying simple
cause and effect analysis, to prevent re-occurrence.

11. Nuts and Bolts
7. ZERO DEFECTS PLANNING - Look for business
activities to which zero defect logic should be applied.
8. SUPERVISOR TRAINING - Get your supervisors
trained in both quality logic and zero defect appreciation
which they can apply to their business activities.

12. Nuts and Bolts
9. ZERO DEFECTS DAY - A quality event by which all
members of the effected section become aware that a
change has taken place.
10. GOAL SETTING - Once a change has been
implemented in a section of the business, the next step is
to get the employees and supervisors in that section to set
goals for improvement to bring about continuous
improvement.

13. Nuts and Bolts
11. ERROR CAUSE REMOVAL - Communication process
by which management are made aware that set goals are
difficult to achieve in order for either the goals to be reset
or help given by management to achieve the goals.
12. RECOGNITION - Management must recognize the
employees who participate in the quality schemes.

14. Nuts and Bolts
13. QUALITY COUNCILS - Using both specialist
knowledge and employee experiences to bring about a
focused approach to business quality regime.
14. DO IT OVER AGAIN - Continuous improvement means
starting from the beginning again and again.

15. How It Works
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16. Real World Example: GM Truck & Bus
Background:
• Responsible for the planning, engineering, manufacturing,
and assembly of General Motors Trucks worldwide
• They needed to develop a common direction for our
quality process
• They wanted the entire workforce to be aware and
involved
- (Hartman, 2002)

17. Real World Example: GM Truck & Bus
Implementing Crosby’s 14 Steps:
• “In line with Step 2 of Crosby’s 14-step process, Truck &
Bus implemented both a group quality improvement team
and plant and staff quality improvement teams to run the
quality improvement process.”
- (Hartman, 2002)

18. Real World Example: GM Truck & Bus
Progress:
• The quality improvement teams initially managed the “soft” or
non-product areas covered in Crosby’s 14 steps, such as
awareness and communication, quality education, cost of
quality, and recognition.
• The role of [their] quality improvement teams gradually shifted
from “implementing [their] quality improvement process” to
“being the driving force in improving the quality of all of [their]
business processes.”
- (Hartman, 2002)

19. Real World Example: GM Truck & Bus
Results:
• “The 14-step process provided The Truck & Bus Group with the
most defined, simple-to-follow road map for the initial legs of
their quality journey.”
• “Helped everyone focus on the quality of their business process
and to understand their internal customer/supplier relationship.
Every individual produces a product and has customers.
Everyone must determine the requirements and satisfaction of
their personal customers.”
- (Hartman, 2002)

20. An Exercise
• Break into groups of four-six
• The group discusses the identified items from the
brainstorming session (6 min)
– Choose one area that you feel needs the most
improvement (i.e. causes the most problems, wastes
time and resources, will make biggest impact)
• Discuss as a class

21. An Exercise Cont.
• Split back into your groups and determine the
following (8 min):
– The costs to the business if there is no quality system
in place
– A corrective action that will prevent re-occurrence
– A goal for improvement that will bring about
continuous improvement
• Discuss as a class

22. Summary
• Crosby’s program is designed to transform the quality
culture of an organization
• Helps involve everyone in the organization in the quality
process
• Crosby 14 Steps to quality improvement is a continuous
process that will bring great rewards and benefits to your
organization

23. Summary
• “Either you don't accept things that don't meet the
requirements— or you find out whether the
requirement is really what you need, but the
business of ‘that's close enough’ has to go away.”
~Philip Crosby

24. Readings List
• Crosby, Philip (1979). Crosby’s 14 Steps to Improvement. New York: McGraw-
Hill
• Crosby, Philip (1979). Quality is Free: The Art of Making Quality Certain. New
York: McGraw‐Hill.
• Crosby, Philip (1984). Quality Without Tears. New York: McGraw‐Hill.
• Crosby, Philip (1988). The Eternally Successful Organization. New York:
McGraw‐Hill.
• Crosby, Philip (1989). Let’s Talk Quality. New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Crosby, Philip (1994). Completeness: Quality for the 21st Century. Plume.
• Crosby, Philip (1996). Quality is Still Free. New York: McGraw-Hill.
• R W Hoyer, Brooke B Y Hoyer, Philip B Crosby, W Edwards Deming, et al.
(2001) Quality Progress. Milwaukee: Vol. 34, Iss. 7.
• Hartman, Melissa (2002). Fundamental Concepts of Quality Improvement.
Milwaukee: ASQ Quality Press.