Quality Improvement

Quality Improvement involves de-emphasizing inspection and emphasizing overall improvement by using reliable methods to study processes, by removing barriers to cooperation, by taking necessary actions to improve processes, and by fostering a constructive organization wide commitment to improvement. 

Next possible question may be how does Quality Improvement relate to my job? There is a wealth of information, expertise and experience in the often untapped resources of their own employees. Each person in their organization has found ways to make their job more meaningful, more organized or beneficial to their customers. The agency’s Quality Improvement program is a systematic way of helping you share your expertise and insights and benefit from the knowledge and experience of others.

Now let’s see where did the idea for Quality Improvement come from? Quality Improvement initiatives are a product of quality management philosophies.   Total Quality Management is an example of one of the early quality management philosophies. 

The development of Total Quality Management (TQM) and Quality Improvement can be traced to the first management consultant, an engineer named Frederick W. Taylor. His application of science to complex human endeavors was built upon by Walter A. Shewhart, a statistician who developed work sampling and control charts that attracted the interest of another statistician, W. Edwards Deming. 

Joseph M. Juran, an investigator at the Hawthorne Works experiments, like Deming, drew from Shewhart's work and recognized that system problems could be addressed through three fundamental managerial processes (planning, control and Quality Improvement).   Philip B. Crosby advocated the "zero-defects" program adopted by the US federal government defining quality as "conformance to requirements". 

Work regarding Quality Improvement is continuing.  The application of these concepts of Quality Improvement to service industries is resulting in new concepts based on Philip Kotler's marketing approach and a strong customer focus.  Deming, Juran, and Crosby, who initiated the TQM process, share a common theme of participatory management. Management participation and attitude, professional quality management, employee participation, and recognition reflect a philosophy making internal and external customer satisfaction as the organization's primary goal to participate in various Quality Improvement programs.