Managing Quality

Citation

Narasimhan, K. (2005), "Managing Quality", The TQM Magazine, Vol. 17 No. 5, pp. 488-489. https://doi.org/10.1108/09544780510615988

Dr Mihaela L. Kelemen has worked both in Romania and UK. She works as a Senior Lecturer in Quality Management and Organization Studies at Keele Yinversity. She focuses her research on critical approaches to TQM and BPR and also on cross‐cultural management.

This book is a short introductory text on Managing Quality with six real‐life case studies, which form Part 4 of the book. Though the book is aimed at undergraduates and postgraduate students, it is also useful to practitioners and consultants interested in adding a non‐managerial perspective to their repertoire.

The book comprises 12 chapters grouped to three parts. The theme of Part 1 is “Theoretical perspective on Quality” and is covered in three chapters. In Chapter 1, four each of managerial and critical perspectives are introduced and their strengths and weaknesses from the viewpoint of various stakeholders (managers, employees, customers and shareholders) are assessed. Chapter 2 provides a short review of the origins and evolution of quality management from antiquity to present day. The works that are briefly reviewed include the works of American gurus (Deming, Juran, Feigenbaum, Crosby, and Peters) and Japanese gurus (Ishikawa, Shingo, Taguchi). The notable omissions are the works of Noriaki Kano (who introduced the concept of attractive quality) and Yoshio Kondo (who emphasizes the relation between quality and people). Chapter 3 explores very briefly the linkages between quality management and other disciplines such as strategic management, human resource management, accounting, marketing and product/service design.

Practical Approaches to Quality is covered in seven chapters that make up Part 2. The differences in the management of quality in the three areas – manufacturing, services, and public sector – are first covered in Chapter 4; and then the potential synergies between the three approaches are highlighted. Chapter 5 briefly introduces the three popular quality standards: ISO 9000:2000, The European Quality Award, and The Malcolm National Quality Award. The following two chapters deal, respectively, with the classification and limitations of quality costs, and Statistical Quality Control and Acceptance Sampling. The philosophy and practice of total quality management (TQM) are briefly analysed and assessed in the next chapter. In Chapter 9, which compares and contrasts TQM at Business Process Reengineering, it is argued that “the two may be bedfellows rather than competing approaches to improving quality” (p. 126). The final chapter looks at soft aspects of quality management (the role of organizational culture, leadership and teamwork).

The two chapters comprising Part 3 focus, respectively, on the morality and ethics of quality, and how to make quality a critical aspect of an organization. Organizations are urged to question the purpose and effects on the stakeholders' experiences, and how to raise awareness of the moral and ethical consequences.

The case studies are drawn from all three sectors (two from the British National Health Service, a UK logistics company, retail banking, an insurance company).