Provides a case study of total quality implementation at a company which designs, manufactures and installs safety and control systems, employing over 1,000 staff worldwide. Reports on each stage of the implementation, noting the involvement of a university in the cultural analysis of the...

The vital factor in any of the “re‐” strategies (reinvention, re‐engineering, realignment, re…) is people’s personal capacity for accommodating change. The most successful organizational transformations include a focus on the readiness of the people as the real source of change....

Compares the organization improvement effort in two US companies, one which partially empowered its employees and one which fully empowered them, and concludes that although positive results are possible with partial empowerment they take longer to materialize and are often different from the...

Looks at the development of producing organizations, stretching from the earliest sole craftsman through to the modern day. Notes that “two‐dimensional” organizations have evolved over the last 200‐300 years ‐ the dimensions representing hierarchical and process elements. Suggests that...

The co‐ordinating nature of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model for business excellence means that it can provide a clear framework for those organizations seeking business excellence and also for those introducing change programmes or that have a number of improvement...

Describes how a Hong Kong company improves its operations and manages the improvement through the application of Deming’s principles. Gives the description in terms of Deming’s 14 quality principles. Discusses how the principles are applied within the company, and how they help change...

Introduces a change model as a tool to help change leaders and agents to understand why resistance to change occurs and to suggest some ways to reduce resistance. Suggests four change levers, i.e. beliefs, skills, values and behaviors as being elements within people which must change in a...

Total quality management (TQM) is an approach to change that can respond to the needs of the organisation and customers and has become the raison d’être of any organisation wishing to be competitive in an era of globalization. Since the introduction of a quality approach into manufacturing it...

The paper reports some findings generated by a postal survey of Northern Ireland’s top 100 companies. The aims of the survey included: gaining some insight into levels of awareness, understanding and use of business process re‐engineering (BPR) in the province; examining the positioning of BPR...

Classic quality management techniques can be used in a manufacturing environment for short production runs of products with many options and accessories. This paper considers methods of modifying normal quality approaches and integrating them into a cost‐effective management system to product...