Look at this. TQM, CQI, EOQ, QAT, SQC, TQC, CWQC, QFD, QCC, QPE, AOQL. What does this alphabet soup mean? Look again. Each is Q plus other letters; each is a variation on one theme -- Q.
Q stands for quality, an innocuous word meaning a feature of some thing or person. We use it also to mean degree of excellence. In manufacturing, quality control means the efforts to reduce defective products. Inspectors examine assemblies and if they spot defects, send them back for rework or scrap. Inspecting for quality is not inspiring work.
But today the word shimmers with excitement. Corporate executives repeat it as a mantra. Now educators are using the word with fervor and frequency. University Vice President and Provost John Brighton recently declared: "Penn State has made a commitment to incorporate quality management into both academic and nonacademic components of the University. . ."
There is a University Council on Continuous Quality Improvement and a Continuous Quality Improvement Center. IBM awarded the University $1 million this month to apply quality management principles to recruiting, teaching, learning, classrooms and curricula.
Are there any ideas behind the letters, the centers, the councils and the declaration?
Yes, and in 15 years those ideas may mean a different Penn State --leaner, more effective but gentler too. In the near future they mean conflict with new demands on students, faculty, staff and administrators.
One man has made quality exciting -- William Edwards Deming. During World War II, Deming taught statistical quality control methods to thousands in government procurement and defense industries. Walter A. Shewart, his mentor and collaborator, devised those methods.
Shewart based them on an idea shocking to novices, but familiar to scientists and engineers. That idea is: there is no true value for anything. There is no true value for the speed of light or for the number of inhabitants of Centre County.
Imagine the task of counting all the people in the country. Think of the arbitrary rules we would need to carry it out. How many days would we allow for the count? Would we count students, transients or visiting professors? Any change of rules will change the number.
Shewart recognized the importance of this for making quality products. He saw that statistical methods could reduce confusion in the face of variation. Any product's features will fluctuate. A quality product is one with a narrow range of variance.
He devised control charts to show the difference between two kinds of variation in any process. There were variations with common causes inside the system and variations with special causes outside the system.
The first kind of variation in, say, the production of a widget, can be reduced by changing the manufacturing process itself. Such a reduction will improve quality. The second kind of variation is more dramatic and gets more attention, but reducing it won't improve quality.
For example, if the students' grades in my introductory class show the same range of variation year after year, the process is in statistical control. Any improvements require me to change my methods of teaching, my textbooks or the preparation of students. Ranting, grading severely or offering special rewards will not improve learning.
By 1949, no one in the United States was interested in these ideas. Deming reasoned that he had taught the wrong people. Technical people could learn and apply the method, but without management backing no improvements could last.
He got a second chance in 1950 when the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers invited him to give a series of lectures. Deming's philosophy of managing quality was a sensation in a rebuilding nation known for shoddy goods.
This time he talked to top executives. He told them they could capture markets the world over within five years. But only if they adopted process controls, redesigned their products and recognized that consumers were the most important part of the production line. They achieved his prediction in four years.
Despite his fame in Japan, Americans did not discover Deming until 1980. A television documentary on the nation's economic decline catapulted him to prominence at the age of 80. Twelve years later the 92-year-old Deming still conducts seminars for the nation's managers and advises the quality programs at corporations such as Ford, AT&T, and Honeywell.
He begins his four-day seminars with a harangue against American management techniques. Deming's 85-15 rule says that 85 percent of problems are management's fault, while only 15 percent are the fault of workers.
Deming claims that improving the quality of products and services reduces costs. He reasons that improved processes mean fewer rejects and less time on rework.
Will total quality management change the University? Maybe. Deming's commandments -- Institute leadership, Drive out fear, Break down barriers, Eliminate quotas, Institute training and Eliminate slogans -- can become new slogans. His techniques can also become new gimmicks.
Taken as a map of reform in higher education, his philosophy means drastic change. To get some idea of how drastic, consider this. Deming has taught at NYU's Graduate School of Business Administration since 1946. In his courses, he gives every student an A. "And what do I get? Great papers. Only one student has ever failed me," Deming reports.
