Part One Understanding the Supervisor’s Role
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quality control operation. A production supervisor describes her in- control department in these terms: “One look at our department and you can tell we are a quality outfit.”
8. Slogans about quality cannot do the job alone. Slogans about quality are often part of a quality-improvement campaign. Examples in¬clude: “Quality is Job 1,” “Do it right the first time,” and “Let’s be error free.” These slogans do attract people’s attention, but they are not a substi¬tute for careful training and coaching about quality. Frequent reminders about quality by supervisors are also more effective than quality slogans pasted on the wall.
9. Every manager must set objectives for achieving quality. Quality improvement stands a better chance of being achieved if all managers set objectives relating to quality. Following this logic, a supervisor in an in¬surance agency might establish this objective: “Less than 1 percent of in¬surance policies sent to our customers will contain input errors, by March 31 of this year.” Executives and middle managers must also set objectives about quality.
10. Quality must be rewarded. The most effective way of sustaining quality has been saved for last. Managers and employees at all levels who achieve high quality should be rewarded. Rewards can include public rec¬ognition, cash bonuses, company-paid vacations, high performance- appraisal ratings, promotions, or compliments. Some companies recog¬nize high-quality performers by such designations as “Quality Person of the Month.”
IMPROVING QUALITY THROUGH QUALITY CIRCLES
Quality circles are a widely used method of helping improve the quality of goods and services. A quality circle (QC) is a small group of employees who voluntarily meet regularly to identify quality and production related problems, analyze causes, recommend solutions, and monitor the results. The problems tackled by QC members are related to their regular work: thus QCs are another method of employee involvement. One reason QCs have become popular is that much of Japan’s manufacturing success has been attributed to quality circles. Here we will describe how a QC oper¬ates and conditions favoring its success.
The Mechanics of a Quality Circle
Quality circle meetings are well-organized group problem-solving ses¬sions. They include some freewheeling generation of ideas called brain¬storming. However, they- tend to be well-disciplined and use statistical
