QUALITY CIRCLES

By
Zaipul Anwar
Business & Advanced Technology Centre,
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Overview

What are Quality Circles?

Summary of History and Practices
How Do Quality Circles Work?
How Can They be Used in an Organization?
Example and Activity
Problems with Quality Circles
Bibliography

Summary of History and

Practices

Quality Circles were first seen in the United

States in the 1950s
Circles were developed by Dr, Kaoru Ishikawa
in Japan in the 1960s
Circles were re-exported to the US in the early
1970s

Summary of History and

Practices (continue)

1980s brought Total Quality Management and a

reduction in the use of Quality Circles
Quality Circles can be a useful tool if used
properly

Summary of History and

Practices (continue)
Inspection (1950s)

Quality Control (1960s)

Total Quality (1980s)

Quality Assurance (1970s)

World Class
Zero Defect,
Customer Focus,
Quick Response (1990s)

2000s ?

What is a Quality Circle?

Voluntary groups of employees who work on similar

tasks or share an area of responsibility
They agree to meet on a regular basis to discuss & solve
problems related to work.
They operate on the principle that employee
participation in decision-making and problem-solving
improves the quality of workThe reduction, by their efforts,
of the countless number of problems which impede the
effectiveness of their work
Encourage circles to elect their own leaders towards the end
of the training period

What is a Quality Circle?

(continue)

Frequency and duration of meetings is set by the group

Circle should be autonomous in that it should select the
problems that it wishes to solve QCCs useful for

mutual-self-development and process control and

improvement within their workshop.
Utilising basic 7 QC Tools.
Japanese experience indicated that 95% of the
problems in the workshop can be solved through 7
QC Tools

The Japanese description of the

effectiveness of a quality circle is
expressed as:
It is better for one hundred people to take one step
than for one person to take a hundred

The World Turned Upside Down!

CUSTOMER FOCUSED /
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

CONTROL

CEO
OPERATORS
SNR MGT
MANAGEMENT

SUPERVISORS
MANAGEMENT

SUPERVISORS

SNR MGT

OPERATORS

CEO

MASS PRODUCTIVITY /
SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

COACH

How Do Quality Circles Work?

All members of a Circle need to receive training

Members need to be empowered
Members need to have the support of Senior
Management
Characteristics
Volunteers
Set Rules and Priorities
Decisions made by Consensus
Use of organized approaches to Problem-Solving

Formation of Quality Circles

Start on the Shop Floor

Base Circle on Training
Allow the Circle to Form Itself
Do The Training Properly
Support with Information Required
Provide Skills and Experience

Requirements of Quality Circles

Management Support
Training
Recognition System

How Can They be Used in an

Organization?

Increase Productivity
Improve Quality
Boost Employee Morale

The Premise of Quality Circles

Much of the trouble originated from the gulf

between management and shop floor
Operators were frequently well aware of the
cause of quality problems and, with modern
standards of education, often knew how to
cure them

Team Exercise

Break down into teams of 6-8 people

Establish a leader and rules for your Circle
Have a brainstorming and problem-solving
session to resolve the issue on the next slide

Team Exercise

A Collegiate class on Statistical Analysis has a total

enrollment of 45 people.
Average attendance is 18 students
The class consists mainly of lectures
How can the professor of this class improve the quality
of this course and increase student involvement?

The Benefits of Quality Circles

A Direct Pay-off (cost/benefits)

An Operator To Manager Dialogue (involvement,
participation, communication)
A Manager To Manager Dialogue (awareness)
An Operator to Operator Dialogue (attitudes)
A Quality Mindedness (product quality and
reliability, prevention of non-conformance)
The Personal Development of the Participants

Reasons for failure of

Quality Circles

Inadequate Training
Unsure of Purpose
Not truly Voluntary
Lack of Management Interest
Quality Circles are not really empowered to
make decisions.

Reasons for failure of

Quality Circles (continue)

They have not had enough training

They have not been given sufficient
autonomy
The Quality Circles have been started in
isolation and not part of a wider programme
of Company-wide Continuous Improvement

Bibliography

Cole, Robert E. 1999. Managing Quality Fads: How American

Business Learned to Play the Quality Game. New York, NY: Oxford
Press.
Aubrey, Charles A. 1988. Teamwork: Involving People in Quality
and Productivity Improvement. Milwaukee, WI: Quality Press.
Foster, S. Thomas. 2001. Managing Quality: An Integrative
Approach. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Author
Unknown. 1984. Quality Circles in the Community College [online].
Available online via
http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed353008.html
Author Unknown. 1994. Kaizen and Quality Circles [online].
Available online via
http://sol.brunel.ac.uk/~jarvis/bola/quality/circles.html

QUALITY
IMPROVEMENT TEAMS

QUALITY IMPROVEMENT
TEAMS

Team formed where there is a specific problem

whose solution is unlikely to reside in a single
department and which is large enough to justify
the establishment of a team to resolve the
problem
For example (the combined actions of
Production, Testing, Technical Departments as
well as the Supplier for persistent equipment
breakdown)

CHARACTERISTICS OF QITS

Set up by management
Inter-departmental
Group is usually formed to resolve a problem
identified by others
Team is usually disbanded once the problem
solved

BENEFITS OF QITS

Break Down Inter-Departmental Barriers

Solutions Are More Global In Concept

optimised for corporate rather than departmental goals

Improved Communications

QIT process is part of team building and ownership of the

problem

solutions are sought for the corporate good rather than to

shift blame

Improved Problem Solving

create a degree of mobile expertise in problem solving

within the company

THE QIT PROCESS

Adequate training in appropriate skills must

be provided before the QIT starts work
To deny the team the problem-solving tools
it needs to carry out the task is inviting failure
which will affect not only the issue under
consideration but the credibility of the QIT
process itself

THE QIT PROCESS

Identify the Project And Form The Team

Define The Problem Accurately
Identify And Verify Root Causes
Plan And Implement Corrective Action
Standardise And Seek Other Applications
Conduct A Review Of The Project