A.

Create a short background of the case

With the creation of PARC, the Palo Alto Research Center, in the 1970s, the Xerox
Corporation began its journey toward TQM. This institute was established to conduct research in
the fields of computer science, electronics, and materials science (Brown, 1992). These are the
same key ideas that PARC has identified as critical to research:

1. New work practices research is just as vital as new product research;

2. The problem is that innovation is all around us; the problem is that we don't know how to
learn from it;

3. Research can't just "create" innovation; it has to "co produced" it as well; and

4. The consumer is the research department's ultimate innovation partner (Brown, 1992).

Xerox has given itself a space to assist with the firm's innovation process, allowing the
corporation to accomplish its work more effectively.

B. Identify the problems and other areas of consideration

The Oral's market share was being eaten away by the copying and printing behemoths
around it. What was the cause of Xerox's demise? Technological change and management
incompetence are to blame for Xerox's demise.

The rapid transformation in the technology sector has harmed the majority of
technological businesses. Internal issues are Xerox's largest issue.

All of the following are failures: failure to protect market share from competition; being
behind in developing digital products; board responsibility; traumatic sales-force reorganization;
inefficient service-force reorganization; serious financial problems such as heavy short-term
debts, built-up working capital, and accumulated account receivables; ineffective transition from
selling high-tech products to selling high-tech solutions; ineffective transition from selling high-
tech products to selling high-tech solutions.
 To summarize, the issues arise from a lack of appropriate leadership, teamwork, and
trust. How would you describe Xerox's managers' approach to time planning, organization,
leadership, and control? Planning, in my opinion, was good until HP invented ink-jet technology.
The corporation was profitable and doing well in the "office and copying industry" until Xerox's
managers miscalculated the ink-jet technology and failed to plan.

Another issue with planning was that top-level executives couldn't come up with a
strategy for commercializing the Palo Alto Research Center's innovations. As a result, they have
fallen behind in developing digital products, and Japanese firms have already surpassed them in
market share.

C. List down the activities/techniques that were undertaken by the firm in the
implementation of its Total Quality Management program.

The Xerox corporation focuses on benchmarking, a reduced supplier base, and leadership
teams as a way of producing Total Quality Management. Benchmarking is a "standard or point
of reference in measuring or judging quality, and value. Xerox looks at what the competition is
doing and sets a level of quality and value that all of its products are compared against. These
levels of quality are also used by other companies because of Xerox’s excellence.

The second method Xerox is using in its strive for TQM is to reduce its supplier base. A
supplier base is the amount of companies that the ordering company, in this case Xerox, gets its
materials from. Xerox has gone from individual suppliers for each of the different manufacturing
facilities to a consolidated group of suppliers for all of the manufacturing facilities. This has
drastically cut the amount of suppliers needed which increases accountability of the suppliers to
get the materials to Xerox on time and it decreases some overhead costs because of shipping
reductions and economies of scale discounts. The smaller supplier base also gives Xerox more
control in the corporation's decision processes. If the company wants to make a change that
affects the way it uses its suppliers there are less problems arising from having too many
different suppliers.
 The third method Xerox uses to help in Total Quality Management is leadership teams.
Leadership teams are a new concept that many companies are adapting. These teams consist of a
group of people with different areas of specialty. The main functions of the teams are to produce
a product for the lowest possible cost with the highest quality. These teams can have jobs that
range from finding ways to cut costs all the way to how to handle difficult employees and
anything in between. The teams generally decide on what special project they are going to work
on. The teams also decide what hours they are going to work and the salaries they are going to
get for doing the jobs. Leadership teams also are put together to train other people how to work
in teams and how to take an active role in the workplace with your job. Xerox has established a
program called Leadership Through Quality (LTQ) and a Quality Training Task Force for its
company’s leadership teams.

D. Discuss the effects of the TQM program implementation to Xerox Corporation.

Through Xerox’s effort with TQM the corporation has won the Baldrige Award as well
as a few other awards. The Xerox Corporation's achievement of the Baldrige Award is just one
of the many benefits of Total Quality Management. The company's employee and customer
assistance is another illustration of TQM's effects on the Xerox Corporation. Teams can come in
and show off their creations to other employees and guests on Xerox's teamwork day. This is a
great illustration of how TQM is implemented in the workplace. Workers are motivated to
participate in this activity by a sense of competition to come up with the greatest ideas and pride
in the team's accomplishments. These are the types of personnel who contribute to a company's
success and long-term viability.

Another effect of Total Quality Management is the amount of knowledge the company
has learned by implementing the new procedures. As part of the TQM process, the new
procedures incorporate research. As part of this research, Xerox conducts surveys of consumers,
stockholders, and workers. These surveys are addressed to the individuals in question and ask
about their satisfaction with the products as well as suggestions for changes. Employee
comments on how to improve the products and the manufacturing process are also taken into
account in the surveys. "Ongoing surveys of employees, the media, government, and investors
are conducted by Xerox and other leading TQM firms, and the results are shared in the public
domain."

This empowers employees while also shortening the time it takes to improve and
increasing the rate at which changes are accomplished. These surveys serve to enhance the
corporation since the firm responds to them, and the corporation's image is strengthened as a
result of the development of good customer relations.

E. Make a conclusion about the case

Xerox Corporation has been known as one of the leading enterprises in the service
business sector. But with the competition in the advent of technology and information archiving
distribution has increased in the eighties, it has resulted in the company’s shrinking market up to
35%. The company then created a quality improvement plan, wherein progress and survival of
the organization were the goals (Ebner, et al., 2016).

The implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM) at Xerox began as a reaction

to the negative market performance. The company lost about 65% of market share in the 1980s
and was moving toward obsolescence. It needed to change its strategies and once again become
dominant in the market. Thus the adaptation of benchmarking, reducing supplier base, and
creating leadership teams provided a key for Xerox to find a solution in implementing Total
Quality Management (TQM) strategies to its improvement and its competition.

In conclusion, it is clear that TQM may be used to mitigate the effects of difficulties
experienced by any company– whether the issue is anchored inside through the human resources
department or externally, through competition and policies, or as a resource. TQM and its
principles were used and implemented by Xerox to raise the chances of success. The
implementation of reform as well as the survival of the organization are both important. Hence,
the achievement of Xerox such as the Baldrige Award. TQM is a highly valuable management
tool, as demonstrated by Xerox in the given case. TQM is indeed a management strategy that
encourages growth and improvement in the direction of the achievement of the company's
objectives
F. As an OM student, draft recommendations or highlight your insights based on your
learnings.

As an Operation Management student, the learnings from the Xerox Corporation case
study are the application and significance of Total Management Quality or TQM. TQM is now a
comprehensive tool used by nearly all major firms in the Western world. In the case study, Xerox
Corporation opens their research facility as one of their ways to implement TQM, which is a risk
because TQM was not fully invented at the time. They do, however, conduct research in order to
fully comprehend. Now that TQM is well-known, Xerox Corporation is correct to take risks
because the program has already been established and can thrive. Another thing I learned from
this case study was how they seriously observe the competition and how they set their own
quality, they will create another standard, higher than the previous one, so that they can continue
to strive and have a higher quality product than other firms. In this case, because TQM focuses
on teamwork and mentoring, which leads to knowledge sharing, the recommendation is to
reward teams that showcase their great ideas. They can rank the teams that participate and award
prizes or trophies. Although teams will be proud of their accomplishments, receiving a reward
will motivate certain behaviors in them.

References:

Ebner, K., Urbach, N., & Mueller, B. (2016). Exploring the path to success: A review of the
strategic IT benchmarking literature. Information & Management 53(4), 447-466. doi:
10.1016/j.im.2015.11.001.