I think that William Edwards has the best approach to quality management that would meet the needs of CERG. A brief account of William Edwards Deming (1900-1993): He was a renowned American quality management consultant, professor, and statistician, and wrote several books on product quality and management and gave lectures on the same. He is attributed for helping to advancement in production in corporate America but his greatest achievements were in Japan. He made a major contribution to Japan’s a trade and industry development, and also the advancement of their high-quality products. Deming (1990) noted that “by adopting appropriate principles of management, organizations could increase quality and simultaneously reduce costs (by reducing waste, rework, staff attrition and litigation while increasing customer loyalty).” His philosophies are the best suited for the Central Engineering and Research Department (CERG) of Hawthorne Corporation. Arguing that the same Deming’s principles statistical methods of quality management that were used in the Japanese manufacturing companies and also in America to revive Ford Motor Company which was near collapse and considering that these firms were all engineering companies just like Hawthorne Corporation, then Deming’s management plans are appropriate for the formation of a quality program for the department.
William recommended that organizations should focus on quality which leads to reduction of costs, instead of concentrating on costs that decrease the quality gradually. He mostly advocated for proper management as he argued that it was responsible for 85% of the problems that companies face. He argued that good management of an entity should not be evaluated based on revenues but on innovative plans to ensure continued operations, it should invest more, and create employment opportunities through the production of quality products. One of his philosophies on management to achieve quality is the; System of Profound Knowledge which has four sections that can guide managers and hence Hawthorne Corporation’s Central Engineering and Research Department (CERG) should find these four items very useful.
First, appreciation of a system: managers should be well informed of all the departments of the company and stakeholders like; suppliers, producers, and customers (or recipients) of goods and services. In our case, Hawthorne has many facilities dealing with its engineering activities and also the chemical plants, which should all be harmonized into one system hence creating stability and quality production.
Second, knowledge of variation: managers in CERG should be able to recognize the cause of the problems being faced such, Product Quality and Distribution Problems at the Denver facility, quality problems at a facility near Toledo congestion at loading points and poor customer service. Managers will use statistical methods to calculate the levels of deviation of quality from the normal hence enabling elimination of these problems according to their effect on quality.
Thirdly, the Theory of knowledge and the Knowledge of psychology are the last two sections, and they go hand in hand since in management the managers ought to understand the employees their differences and capabilities since the performance of a person largely depends on the management. They can only do so if they have the knowledge and also wisdom required (Swinton 2004).
Deming developed 14 management points published in his book ‘Out of the Crisis’, which provide fundamental guidelines for CERG to use to improve quality. In relevance to Hawthorne’s case some principles can be very essential, these are: the Central Engineering and Research Department (CERG managers should be ready to lead and take their responsibilities seriously; the department should not concentrate on buying its materials from distributors with low prices because they are often of bad quality but instead form agreement and business ties with quality material supplies; continued improvement of the production and customer service departments hence ensuring continued quality improvement; the company should be committed to create a business whose benefits are long-term projected while ignoring projects that have short-term revenues which often makes an organization ineffective and unstable due to a weak foundation; and the management has the responsibility to ensure that the company will exist to the future by research and new innovations.
We these ideas from Deming, I believe that we can boost our company’s productivity and competitiveness in general.
References
Deming E. (1990). Dr. Deming’s Ideas. Skymark. Web.
Swinton, L. W. (2004). Edwards Deming – Total Quality Management & Deming’s 14 points. Mftrou.com. Web.