Common Themes in Total Quality Management Research Paper

Introduction

Public policy, when examined from a sociological perspective, leads to very intriguing and startling revelations. Public policy evolves over time out of experiences in the social arena, and the effectiveness or otherwise of the public policy depends, in a major fashion, on the level of assimilation and empathy of the policymaker with the affected population. The motivations of the policymaker may be varied –most important among them being franchise collection. Most public services that are involved in the task of delivering public policy depend to a large extent on the efficiency and sincerity of the public servants involved in delivering public good and services of varying hues. It has been variously argued that public services and the public sector suffers maximum neglect and is characterized by a bureaucratic set-up that demonstrates typical characteristics of rule-based slow and tardy delivery of its purpose. This paper examines the application of the management concepts such as Total Quality Management(TQM) to public service and the public sector so as to bring about a change in the manner such sectors deliver the objects for which they have been set up. The common themes that run across few chosen papers from literature are identified, and arguments build upon therefrom to examine the feasibility and extent of the application of the concept of TQM to such government-owned and controlled services and organizations.

Discussion

The following arguments contained in the discussion are identified as common themes in select literature on TQM in government. One common refrain has been some kind of Business Process re-engineering (BPR). It was in the early 1990s that many US corporations, and subsequently companies all over the world, began to adopt the concept of business process reengineering (BPR) to obtain long-lost competitiveness that they had lost during the previous decade. The primary feature of BPR is the sole focus on business processes rather than functional organizational structures. Davenport (1993) defines a (business) process as

“a structured, measured set of activities designed to produce a specific output for a particular customer or market. It implies a strong emphasis on how work is done within an organization, in contrast to a product focus’s emphasis on what. A process is thus a specific ordering of work activities across time and space, with a beginning and an end, and clearly defined inputs and outputs: a structure for action…. Taking a process approach implies adopting the customer’s point of view. Processes are the structure by which an organization does what is necessary to produce value for its customers.”

1. Hammer & Champy’s (1993) definition can be considered as a subset of Davenport’s. They define a process as “a collection of activities that takes one or more kinds of input and creates an output that is of value to the customer.” At the same time, Johansson et al. (1993) define a process as “a set of linked activities that take an input and transform it to create an output. Ideally, the transformation that occurs in the process should add value to the input and create an output that is more useful and effective to the recipient either upstream or downstream.” These definitions lead us to the chief feature of a business process viz. Definability, Order, Customer, Value-adding, Embeddedness, and Cross functionality. In order to gain an understanding of the various processes involved in the organization which completes its business system, information pertaining to the above features of the business processes needs to be collected. There can be essentially two approaches to the collection of such data-one, the primary data collection and, two, the secondary data collection. Within these approaches, primary data could be collected through face-to-face interviews with key personnel responsible for such processes, and a broader-based questionnaire approach can be used for the operative employees. Secondary data sources can be rich and can range from industry publications to in-house examination of manuals, sales and marketing registers, financial accounts, accounting vouchers, to Board minutes to minutes of the various committees of the Board and other executive committees.
2. The process of business process mapping can follow two approaches. Davenport and Short (1990) have identified two basic methods for process identification, which they termed “targeted” and “comprehensive” methods. Targeted methods take their starting point in the identification of a relatively small number of processes being critical to the business, which is determined by interviews or discussions with managers of the organization. This approach can provide a fast pay-off, and results often occur relatively fast. This essentially means that the processes of a business are divided into two parts viz critical and noncritical based on initial data collected about them. Like pulling out the innermost string, it is the critical process around which the restructuring begins.
3. As against this, the comprehensive method aims for first identifying all business processes and then prioritizing them according to their reengineering-need and potential. This method is more time and effort-consuming but allows a more well-thought-out rationale for BPR in terms of project prioritization that fits into the overall strategic goals of the organization. (Grover & Kettinger, 1995)
4. This process leads to a mapping process such as the one described below:
5. Define core competencies. The identification of core competencies is a most vital measure to envision the current and possible future positioning of the company.
6. Develop a shared vision. The future vision must be shared broadly among the company’s stakeholders in order to create initial impetus and prepare for the necessary ongoing commitment in the organization.
7. Determine strategies and priorities. Based on the future vision, strategies are developed in the areas of business, organization/processes, technology, and people. Within the areas, the most important improvement areas are targeted.
8. Develop an operational vision. Based on the overall vision and strategic priorities, and operational vision is developed, describing how the new organization is supposed to work.
9. Create next-level process models. The results of the initial phase are used as input for developing new process models, supporting organizational structures, and sketches for IT solutions.
10. Benchmark current operations against the vision. The new process models need to be now benchmarked against current operations with regard to performance in terms of time, cost, quality, and service level.
11. Analyze gaps. Gaps are defined in terms of performance differences between current and future operations, as identified in the previous benchmarking process.
12. Assess barriers to change. Factors that can hamper organizational and technical change and development can be found in multiple areas.
13. Identify quick hit initiatives. In order to show results fast, a number of limited and targeted initiatives are defined that can be executed in a short-term perspective and with limited resources but still can provide significant improvements within their scope.

Burchill(1996) explains the TQM application to an inventory control system in the Navy. The above process has been broken into two processes of Structural Mapping and Environmental Assessment. Burchill explains, “The two primary approaches used in structural mapping are Language Processing (LP) and system diagramming.” While the structural mapping process in this TQM-based system was entirely unique to the logistic realities of the navy, the environmental assessment could be fruitfully applied o other governmental scenarios for targeting TQM. In this respect, Burchill states, “The second phase of structural process improvement focuses on three related lines of inquiry into stakeholders, market trends and business opportunities. This assessment is conducted in an iterative fashion and usually requires three or more cycles through all three areas before coherence is achieved. The environmental assessment begins with the identification of the organization’s internal and external stakeholders. Each stakeholder is evaluated to determine the amount of influence they can exert on the organization’s policies and practices. Additionally, an evaluation is made to determine the amount of leverage the organization has on the policies and practices of each stakeholder”.

The tools to ascertain the effectiveness of mapping can be several. However, two of the most important tools are :

1. Balance sheet. An opening balance sheet is set up for the new operational processes as a starting point for ongoing evaluation. At this stage, the new processes are brought into the continuous improvement phase.
2. Scorecard. Scorecard-based models for measuring internal and external performance have proven to be powerful instruments for operating and improving processes. Scorecards are utilized at different levels within the organization, for individual processes and activities for managing individual processes, and aggregated in order to provide an overall assessment.
3. Any improvement felt necessary, as above, essentially implied working back to improve the mapping, and in some cases, it can even imply moving over from one mapping method to another. The entire tool-set would comprise of time-oriented analysis tools and modeling approaches, including some experimentation to test new situations. In general, the strategy adopted for the use of tools or methods for data collection, analysis, and documentation is entirely dependent on the type of business and its processes facing the analyst. Sometimes the toolset being practically used maybe a hybrid mix of different approaches, and at others, it may be based on recommendations of consultants based on the initial process studies. Clear and comprehensive categorization of these tools in accordance with the forecast/crisis criteria is not possible. However, it can be safely concluded that the three criteria that can be used to evaluate these tools would comprise robustness, ability to explain causality, and comprehensiveness to the extent feasible. Thus forecasting accuracy and the ability to provide decision variables readily in crisis situations can be the two criteria for judging various tools and methods involved in business process analysis. Methods are normally considered as explicit mechanisms for problem-solving (Jayaratna, 1994).

In the entire BPR process, the role of Information Technology is paramount. The most frequently used application areas of IT alongside BPR efforts are:

Shared databases. The concept of database sharing, which allows a wide distribution of critical business information, is one of the most important areas where IT can contribute to a more effective and efficient performance of business processes and has gained considerable attention since client/server technology has become a widely used solution. Shared databases allow companies to move from a sequential to a parallel performance of activities in a process.

Expert systems. This type of technology, based on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) field, can enable non-experts to perform expert work by capturing and widely distributing knowledge. As Hammer (1990) points out, however, the concept of expert systems in BPR does not refer to the earlier attempts of replacing experts with computer systems but means to provide specialized knowledge to individuals in order to elevate their skills. Laubsch & Blake(2003) state in connection with obtaining a system leading to ISO certification, “Experts in quality are crucial to ISO 9000 efforts. They help provide and assure the know-how of managing for quality. They often serve as consultants to organizations seeking this important certification, and, in this role, they can recommend, through the ISO 9000 hierarchy, that an organization be certified as operating under the tenets of total quality. The organizations that are seeking certification place their goal (ISO certification) in the hands of these experts. Thus conceived, the know-how the consultants provide, as signified through training, monitoring, and certification, is a public, global indicator of trust”.

Kent(2003) gives the requisite emphasis to setting quality standards in the following words, “Set quality standards at the level you really want for all jobs in the organization. Don’t settle for second best quality anywhere, just because a few people object to doing their jobs the correct way or to being held accountable for their performance. Everyone can do his or her job the right way if you make it clear that’s how the job has to be done! Extensive research has shown that employees in all industries perform much better when they know what’s really expected of them. So don’t be afraid of being precise and demanding”.

1. Laubsch & Blake(2003) narrate a laudable effort of the Us state aggressively pursuing ISO and quality standards in its dealings in the following words, ” In the United States, New Jersey is one of several governmental entities that have aggressively participated in ISO 9000 certification efforts.² Using state revenues diverted from its unemployment insurance tax, the state has a grant program through which eligible companies can receive financial support to obtain training and subsequent certification. The intent is to protect and grow businesses and jobs within the state. By allowing funds to be used for ISO training purposes, the state recognizes the value of such certification to companies, regardless of size, operating in New Jersey and the potential benefit to those companies and, therefore, the state. For small and medium-sized companies, this support is essential since they lack personnel with the knowledge of the training and process, time and resources to explore such programs, and funds to provide the necessary training. Thus, the state recognizes the need for an opportunity structure to enable motivations for know-how, certification, and trust”.
2. The forecast accuracy and crisis resolution criteria suggest that forecast initiatives should have a strategic focus on the role of IT, whereas crisis projects would focus on cost and time efficiency. For instance, the focus of the application leading to Remote Data Capture would be to cut time in transactional decision making, thus having the strategic impact of significantly reducing time-to-market. Recently IT has been combined with communication technology to capture both internal and external data on a real-time basis. These are called ICT systems integrated with BPR. These IT-enabled systems can allow the use of prototypes alternatives instead of the stand-alone process-wise analysis done through various forecasting and crisis resolving methods. This would allow scenario analysis and lead to the selection of the best methods.

Conclusion

In conclusion, one can confidently decipher that literature has ample support for the applicability of the TQM model for the government. The two main factors that seem to be lacking are the will of the government and the motivation and will of the government staff to successfully initiate and participate, respectively, in the application of such models to government organizations. TQM involves a change from current practices. Thus, an appropriate change management strategy has to be in place in such organizations as Waldersee & Griffiths(2003) explain using support from the literature,” Unilateral methods are prescriptive, control and authority based techniques, which modify objective or formal aspects of the workplace. They tend to be top-down, procedural, focusing on resource allocation, and follow formal authority lines. Because objective and formal aspects of the organization can be modified with these methods, the prior support of the workforce is not necessary. Advocates of the unilateral approach argue, “Successful change efforts focus on the work itself, not on abstractions like participation or culture” (Beer et al., 1990, p. 159). Social, relationship, attitude, and behavioral changes will be pulled along, over time, by the irreversible structural-technical changes. Beer et al. (1990) argue that attitudes and behavior are primarily a function of job roles and demands. By unilaterally changing the workplace, attitudes and behavior will adjust accordingly. In contrast, shared methods are participative, consultative techniques that directly target the values, attitudes, and skills of organizational members. These methods typically include participation, redesign teams, and consultation committees. The primary goal of these implementation methods is to build employee support for the change. Because employees are involved, they develop ownership for the change (Dunphy and Griffiths, 2002; Emery and Emery, 1993). This ownership ultimately translates into a commitment and motivation to make the change work. It has long been considered simplistic to attempt unilateral change without considering support of employees first (Coch and French, 1948)”.

Kent(2003) seems to capture the crux theme presented in the literature on TQM in governments in the following words, ” The real issue is, how do you get control over your organization so that you can ensure top quality happens all the time? And for many, this issue is a Catch 22 because if you haven’t been able to control the quality of work in your business up to now, you can’t expect things to suddenly be any different just because you launch a Total Quality Management campaign. Why should you suddenly be able to get everyone to do their jobs as you would like if you weren’t able to do that in the past?”

Work Cited

1. Davenport, Thomas (1993), Process Innovation: Reengineering work through information technology, Harvard Business School Press, Boston.
2. Hammer, Michael and Champy, James (1993), Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution, Harper Business.
3. Johansson, Henry J. et.al. (1993), Business Process Reengineering: BreakPoint Strategies for Market Dominance, John Wiley & Sons.
4. Davenport, Thomas & Short, J. (1990), The New Industrial Engineering: Information Technology and Business Process Redesign, in: Sloan Management Review, Summer 1990, pp 11-27.
5. Grover, V. & Kettinger, W. (1995), The Process Reengineering Life Cycle Methodology: A Case Study, in: Business Process Change: Concepts, Methods and Technologies, Idea Group Publishing.
6. Burchill Gary.(1996). Structural Process Improvement at the Naval Inventory Control Point. Center for Quality of Management Journal. Volume 5, Number 1.Design and Planning in Organizations, , 1996.
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8. Hammer, Michael (1990), Reengineering Work: Don’t automate, obliterate, Harvard Business Review, 1995, pp 104-112.
9. Kent Robert H.(2003). Total Quality Means Having Your Act Together. The Mansis Development Corporation
10. Laubsch Paulette & Blake Richard (2003). Globality, Quality, and Trust — A Government-Private Enterprise Partnership Model. Center for Quality of Management Journal. Volume 11, Number 2. 2003.Page Number(s) 49-54.
11. Waldersee & Griffiths(2003). Implementing change: matching implementation methods and change type. Web.
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14. Emery, F. and Emery, M. (1993), “Participative design at the organizational level”, in Emery, M. (Ed.), Participative Design for Participative Democracy, 2nd ed., Centre for Continuing Education, Australian National University.
15. Coch, L. and French, J. (1948), “Overcoming resistance to change”, Human Relations, Vol. 1 No. 4, pp. 512-33.