Excerpts from The Handbook for Quality Management

Preface

Thank you for your interest in McGraw Hill's Handbook for Quality Management.

The original version of the text, first released in 1996 by Quality Publishing, was written exclusively by Tom Pyzdek. I had the pleasure of editing a revision released in 2000, which included Six Sigma and Lean method chapters (written by myself), as well as Bill Dettmer's Constraint Management material which is repeated in this edition. The early editions sold several thousand copies by the end of 2000, establishing the Handbook as an essential desktop reference for the quality professional.

The earlier versions relied heavily on the American Society for Quality (ASQ) body of knowledge for quality managers, even to the extent that the chapter headings and sub-headings matched those in the body of knowledge. Although this may have helped those seeking to check off items they learned, it tended to disrupt the flow of the topics. A main objective of this edition was the reorganization of the material into more naturally flowing discussions of the concepts and methods essential to quality management and operational excellence.

The essential body of knowledge for achieving operational excellence is heavily influenced by the works of Deming and Juran, most of which date from the period of 1950 through the mid 1980's. These authors spent their careers advocating a scientific approach to quality, displacing the widely-held notion that quality assurance inspections prevalent in the post-war era were sufficient or even credible approaches to achieving quality.

Certainly over the last forty years, the quality management discipline has undergone steady evolution from internally focused command-and-control to more proactive, customer-focused functions. The market certainly encouraged that, as economies shifted from dominance of product-based manufacturers to more heavily depend on service-based solution providers. It seems reasonable that service economies will naturally tend towards customer-focus, since much of the service involves direct customer contact. Feedback can be bitterly honest, yet also quickly addressed (compared with poor manufacturing quality). Aspects of quality management are becoming integral to business operations: Quality ratings and awards are a competition, and success is marketed as a sign of commitment to customer; Innovation is a constant refrain in business journals and even advertisements; Customer surveys are endemic; Data is rampant, so differentiating between real change and random variation becomes a core competency; and so on. The cost of poor quality is realized in real time as loss of market share or profitability.

This latest edition expands on the historical notions of Juran's quality trilogy to describe business transformation through innovative customer-driven strategy, meaningful process control using statistics, and management-sponsored, focused improvements in core products and services. Deming's teachings on management responsibilities and systems are integrated throughout.

The manager in today's world must implement cost-reducing quality initiatives that increase market share in spite of competitive forces. This text seeks to demystify the science of quality management for their effective use and benefit across the organization.

We hope you enjoy it.

Paul Keller