全面质量管理的好处是什么？在组织中谁应当为全面质量管理负责？在服务部门运用全面质量管理是否能与生产部门一样有效？如何将全面质量管理引入到企业中来？本书对上述问题及其他有关问题作了清楚而确切的解释。对于那些接受短期培训的管理者、MBA，以及想迅速了解这一问题核心内容的教师和学生来说，都不失为极具价值的参考书。它还可以作为管理人员的藏书，以及那些有抱负的管理人 员完善自己知识和技能的参考资料。

前 言
    The relaunch of Americas space shuttle programme in October 1988 required over 400 design changes and replacement of critical components in the shuttle fleet costing $2.4 billion. In the nearly three years it took to recover from the spectacular explosion of Challenger, NASA was completely reorganized.
    Events leading up to the major malfunction of Challenger provide the raw material of a case study on how not to manage a complex technoIogical project. The prodigious cost of poor quality engineering and poor processes in the space shuttle programme - including the loss of seven lives - argue for the need of total quality　management in NASA.
    Poor quality processes in its Bhopal pesticide plant cost the Union Carbide Corporation 420 million in compensation claims in March 1989. More than 3,400 people have died since a cloud of deadly methyl isocyanate gas leaked out of a storage tank at the Bhopal plant and floated over a city of 672,000 population in the early hours of 3 December l984. It was the worstindustrial accident in history　with over 200,000 people hurt and l5,000-20,000 suffering lastinginjuries. The pesticide factory simply did not have the quality safety processes that exist in a similar pesticide plant in Germany (owned by Bayer) and one in America (Union Carbides own) which include towers that rain down foam to neutralize escaping gases. The three men with garden hoses at Bhopal - two of whom wisely ran away -were a ludicrous substitute for a fail-safe system.
    The space shuttIe explosion, the tragedy at Bhopal, are not acddents that result from human error. They are part of seriously flawed business processes where quality is ignored. They are part of the unacceptable high cost of poor quality which companies and their customers are increasingly refusing to pay.
    Who is accountable for disregarding quality procedures? There was public outrage in Britain over the sinking of the British ferry Herald of Free Enterprise after sailing from Zeebrugge on 6 March 1987 with open bow doors. Anger over the loss of l93 lives was reflected by a court case in which former employees of P&O European Ferries were charged with manslaughter at the Old Bailey in October 1990. As a result of the case, although those charged were acquitted, corporate manslaughter is legally admissible in an English court. The fire on Occidentals Piper Alpha oil platform in the North Sea which claimed 167 lives on 6 July l988 showed a similar disregard for life when submitted to the white-hot scrutiny of public inquiry and legal action. Earlier there was the tragedy of the drug thalidomide, These events again reveal an alarming lack of proper quality procedures. But it should not take a national disaster to alert managers to bad practices and procedures. Engineers or shopfloor workers who discover flawed design should be encouraged to blow the whistle by their companys own commitment to continuous improvement and to quality processes, rather than wait to play dramatic parts as witnesses in an inquiry.
    An insistence on total quality as the fundamental business principle in organizations everywhere has the force of an unstop- pable idea whose time has come. Managers are grappling with total quality now to ensure a future for themselves and their companies. Anyone who ignores quality today does so at great jeopardy to his or her business.
    In the run up to the new millennium a manager has to focus on the right priorities. The manager should lead the company with clear vision to fulfiI its mission, unleashing the creative powers of all employees in teams. to meet competitive challenges from a global market-place. Coping with change and uncertainty the manager needs an overall framework within which to work which will provide practical norms while capturing the imagination of mana- ge

  1 Focus on the customer 1    The customer as king l    Consumer power 5    Customer care the American way 7    Disregarding the customer 9    Relationship marketing l3    Notes l9 2 Core concepts of total quality management 21    Quality for profit 22    Right first time 23    Cost of quality 28    Competitive benchmarking 29    Everyone is involved 35    Synergy in team work 37    Ownership and elements of seIf-management 44    Managers as role models 47    Recognition and rewards 50    The quality delivery process 5l    Notes 58 3 Leaming from the quality gurus 60    W. Edwards Deming 61    Joseph M. Juran 70    Karou Ishikawa 74    Philip B. Crosby 75    William E. Conway 80    Notes 82 4 Cutting the cost of quality 84    Case study of the space shuttle Challenger accident 85    Cost of quality 95    Cost of quality examples 98    Notes 110 5 Case studies of totaI quaIity management ll2    Changing the company culture 112    British Airways - new routes to customer service 117    IBM - creating a quality policy and plan 126    Xerox Corporation - using TQM as a competitive strategy l35    Paul Revere Insurance Group - TQM in a paper and ideas　business 140    Royal Mail - projects for TQM l48    Notes l59  6 TooIs and techniques of total quality management l62    Techniques for analysing a quality process l63    Statistical process control l69    Organized problem solving l71    Problem-solving tools l73    Notes 182  7 Avoiding the hype l83    Further reading l84    Conclusion 195    Notes 196    lndex 197