Managing for Quality: How to Implement and Manage a Business Strategy of Continuous Improvement - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0963072439 ISBN 13: 9780963072436

Inhaltsangabe

For over twenty years, organizations have been trying to successfully implement Quality or Continuous Improvement initiatives. According to research by the Atlanta Group, only 14% actually get it right. That leaves the other 86% trying and not succeeding in their Quality goals.

Why? What is it that makes Quality so hard to achieve? In most cases, it is not bad implementation, per se, it is bad planning. Organizations know the outcomes they are looking for. However, they spend far too little time strategizing and planning what it will take to achieve those goals.

Managing for Quality, answers the readers question: "How do we create and maintain a successful Quality initiative?" Now in its third edition, the book has been hailed as "the how-to book for business survival and success into the 21st century." Managing for Quality provides readers with the strategy, tactics, and trouble-shooting guidelines to make Quality succeed. Kossoff's straightforward writing style and honest approach clearly gives the reader direction towards what the organization needs to do and how to do it. Further, the book identifies problems before they exist and works with the reader on how to avoid or address them before they escalate to crisis level.

Managing for Quality is a popular book among executives and managers and has been widely adopted internationally by public and private sector organizations in their training efforts. The book is also used in the United States and Europe as a text in college, university, and technical institute management courses.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Leslie L. Kossoff, founder and principal of Kossoff Management Consulting, is the leading expert in quality and productivity improvement for a broad range of industries and clients in the United States and Europe. She has been designing and implementing Quality systems for more than 20 years, assisting such prominent clients as Kraft Foods, 3M, and TRW in the strategy, design, and management of their Quality initiatives. She also actively focuses her attention on the unique needs of small- and medium-sized firms in achieving their continuous improvement goals.

Kossoff enjoys an outstanding reputation as an invited speaker at professional and educational conferences throughout the United States. During her long-term alliance with Dr. W. Edwards Deming, founder of the Quality Movement and the "Japanese Industrial Miracle," she also assisted in his client consultations and his seminars speaking and consulting specifically on implementation obstacles and strategies. Deming declared Kossoff, "Quite simply, one of the best at implementation."

Kossoff has published numerous articles pertaining to managing and implementing quality and productivity improvement initiatives. She is the author of the book Managing for Quality: How to Implement and Manage a Business Strategy of Continuous Improvement. Her forthcoming books include Executive Thinking (Davies-Black 1999) and the Managing for Quality Field Guide.

Kossoff is included in the Who's Who Registry of Global Business Leaders and has been a member of the Judges Panel for the Sterling Award of Orange County. She holds a Bachelor and a Master of Arts degree from San Francisco State University and a Master of Science from the University of Oregon.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

"Customers and consumers now discriminate based on Quality. And they can. This has created a level of performance pressure for organizations far exceeding any time in the past." Managing for Quality-from the Preface

How Quality Will Help You Get to the Top . . . And Stay There

Quality is no longer a luxury. It is the business strategy that will immediately move you and your organization ahead of all the rest. Why? Because in today's quickly expanding and competitive markets, customers, suppliers and employees alike expect more than ever before. To stay on top, you must find ways to not only match, but continually exceed these expectations.

You'll learn the concepts and techniques you need to:
* Build customers who are not just satisfied, but delighted with everything you do
* Inspire buy-in from all levels of your organization
* Recognize and avoid common roadblocks to implementation
* Get to the top by learning from the best practices of your competitors
* Remove limiting definitions of your organization to get bigger pieces of the market pie

"The how-to book for business survival and success into the 21st century. It clearly guides the way, step-by-step, through a continuous improvement process that works." Don Antenore, Plant Manager, Kraft Foods

"Managing for Quality is inspiring, practical and highly useful-exactly what it takes to identify those crucial success factors and put them to work in any organization." Leon D. Rizio, Vice President, Jenny Craig International

"An outstanding achievement as the clearest, most straightforward, yet complete look at what Quality and customer orientation are all about and how you can implement them now." Ken Romans, Vice President, TRW

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

A lovely aspect of the passage of time is that one gets to find out how things turn out.

When the first edition of this book was published in 1992, Quality was the most popular buzz of its day. Total Quality was the bandwagon onto which organizations were hopping, and everyone was trying to establish themselves as an active part of the Quality Movement. Gurus abounded and theories collided.

It was both an active and a trying time for industry.

At that time the purpose of the book was to provide a calm in the storm of activity. Closing the Gap between theory and application (the basis for its original title) was its purpose. The book was, and is, designed to provide Managers with the knowledge and structure to be able to move Quality away from being a "want to have" and into being "the way we do business."

Over the course of time Quality has become an expectation in and for organizations. Products and services are differentiated and purchases decided upon based on the levels of Quality which are provided. While Quality has not yet become a standardized way of doing business, it has become an integrated part of the customers' expectations and, as such, of the Manager's responsibilities.

Customers and consumers now discriminate based on Quality. And they can. Enough organizations have shown that levels of Quality which meet and exceed that which has been done before can be and are the norms. This has created a level of performance pressure for organizations far exceeding any time in the past.

It is no longer acceptable or viable to simply turn out a product or service. Whether internal or external to the organization, discriminating consumers will find alternatives if the product or service being provided does not meet their needs.

What does this mean for the Manager?

It's simple. Find out what constitutes Quality for your part of and for the whole of the organization, find out what is keeping you from getting there--and staying there--and do something about it.

Find out who your customers are both internal and external to the organization. You may be surprised at the extent and diversity of that definition. Find out how they use whatever it is you supply. And find out who else they are using as suppliers both in direct competition with you and for other goods and services altogether. That will provide a base level needs and expectations assessment.

Make sure you understand why you and your people do what you do within the organization. And make sure your people understand the impact of their actions on the larger organization and its purpose.

No matter at what level, use Quality as your Business Strategy.

Quality is not an intangible or amorphous commodity. In fact, it is the strategic and tactical basis for any decision which should or needs to be made.

How will this action or direction affect what we do? What is the impact internally? Externally? For our customers? On our competitors? What can and must we learn from our customers and competitors in order to stay in and, preferably, grow our market?

Strategic Quality is highly defined and tactically manifest. It is an active thinking and doing process involving all people associated with the organization. Everyone is involved. No one is exempt.

While many years have passed and the buzz of Quality has lifted, the need for Quality is greater than ever before. Joseph Juran said that while the Twentieth Century was the Century of Technology, the Twenty-First Century will be the Century of Quality.

I believe that he is correct. Businesses can no longer differentiate themselves by product or service alone. Borders, within and outside of organizations as well as countries, no longer exist as we have known them. Anyone can get access to most anything in ways never dreamed before. And that puts the pressure on the organization to be the organization of choice.

To do that, every Manager at every level must actively work as an integrated whole, in concert with the direction and vision of the Executive Team, to create the Quality that ensures that everything that they and their people do works towards the organization's goals. Nothing less will succeed.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0963072439
• ISBN 13: 9780963072436
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar