INSTALLING TQM EDUCATION INTO THE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION PROFESSION

PART I ‑ BACKGROUND ON DEVELOPING AN EDUCATIONAL BOK

Introduction

There is a need for TQM education in the construction industry. In recent years, chief executives from different types of companies and industries have learned that new and better ways to manage their organizations must be explored. Competition from around the world has made inroads in both domestic and export markets. Meanwhile, customers have developed higher expectations of what is satisfactory to them. These expectations apply not only to the products of manufacturing, but to the services of business and governments. The construction industry is a service indus­try and comes under this type of expectation. As a result of these expectations, a new concept of management called Total Quality Management has emerged. However, our construction and engineering educational programs have not yet responded to meet this need.

In the U.S., the manufacturing segment of the economy seems to have been relatively successful in implementing formalized TQM since 1980. The procedures and method­ology for applying TQM principles to manufacturing are well known and well documented. However, the same is not true for the design and construction industry. The BOK has not yet been developed for TQM education to the satisfac­tion of educators or practitioners.

The United States design and construction industry is presently at the point where the manufacturing industry was in 1980. That is, just getting started with not much experience to draw from, and little concrete results in the form of case studies. The lessons and theory pertaining to TQM learned from the manufacturing industry can be applied to the construction industry in a rational, systematic fashion. The key elements to accomplishing this lie in education. Education programs should be devised in a manner that will allow members and organizations of the construction industry to educate, train, and implement TQM in their own companies.

Briefly, this concept of TQM encompasses ideas obtained from several different disciplines such as statistics, produc­tion, behavioral sciences, organizational theory, manage­ment science, marketing, and cost accounting. To provide and equip students with the state‑of‑the‑art theory, knowledge, and experience to meet this new education challenge, Schools of Construction need to create and adopt anew field of study called "Total Quality Management."

The intended purpose of this paper is to give the reader the information needed to make a decision on how to meet the challenge of implementing TQM using education. The paper will describe what comprises the elements of TQM, and presents in Part II, a recommended content of courses and seminars proposed in the area of TQM to comprise the BOK. One must understand that this area of Total Quality Management involves a process consisting of changes, developments, and innovations. It is not a simple rehashing of old methods; it is a complete, cultural transportation of a company's environs.

General Aspects of TQM

The general aspects of TQM that need to be covered in coursework are described in this section. TQM is an operational and cultural philosophy in which there is a strong commitment to customer satisfaction. One must understand that TQM goes far beyond the traditional limits of Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC). In TQM, the expectations of the customer, drive the quality process. To apply this principle to the design and construc­tion industry, more educational emphasis needs to be placed on defining the customers' needs and wants. These must then be translated into accurate plans and specifications that help permit a company to perform design and construction work in the manner that meets the customers' expectations. Also, the client's role has to be defined as going beyond only demanding quality. In the construction industry the customer is not "king."

Many Quality Management processes are based on the principles of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, a quality pioneer who successfully introduced the concepts to the Japanese in 1951. The amalgamation of his concepts, along with those of Crosby and Juran, has become known as "Total Quality Management," or TQM. The reader should refer to Appen­dix A for Deming's 14 Points for Management, Juran's 10 Steps for Quality Improvement, and Crosby's 14 Steps to Quality Improvement. Learning these Points and Steps is critical because they comprise the theoretical basis for the elements of TQM that are presented in the following paragraphs. Eleven elements selected for this paper are listed below:

These elements combine to make the TQM process. The first five elements form the basic elements of TQM. Im­proved Communication provides additional support and bridging to carry information to, from, and between the working elements of TQM. The working elements of TQM are known as Customer Satisfaction, Supplier Improve­ment, Process Improvement, Focus on Employees, and Continuous Quality Improvement are designed to function in a continuous mode. Understand that all of these elements are integrative and interrelated in a TQM process to provide an environment of "Continuous Improvement" for TQM.

For purposes of this paper, these elements compose the basic theoretical ingredients that make up the information that must be included in TQM coursework and training. Combining theory with the practical tools (like statistics) along with the experience of doing and observing TQM will give us the content for TQM education and training. Nine elements were chosen for discussion in the paper.

1 Quality Management Status Survey (9MSS)

The first step a company must take to start a TQM process is to take a "snapshot" of their current level of quality. A rational decision on how to implement TQM can then be made. This is the important first step that upper management must take but often overlooks. There is always a gap between how top management believes work is done, and how it really gets done.

2) Education and Training

A basic element of a TQM process is education and training. Both are absolutely necessary due to the process' requirement for a participa­tive, disciplined, and organized approach to identification and problem solution. In addition, the process has the requirement for the collection and evaluation of both qualitative and quantitative information.

Employees need training in teamwork, interpersonal rela­tions, communications, process improvement, and job re­lated technical skills. Senior and upper management need the training first. Education and training programs are then required for all employees to understand quality process responsibilities and their relationship to completing assign­ments effectively. The initial training period is usually one to two weeks with organizations that are leaders in TQM providing about five days of training per year per employee.

3) Co rate Quality Policy

The following reflect the content of Corporate Quality Policy:

4) Up=per Management Involvement

Quality must start at the very top of an organization. It is well documented that without upper management support, involvement, and lead­ership, a TQM process takes longer and costs more to implement. This means that all CEO's must become educated in the principles of TQM, committed to TQM's implementation, and provide an example to their organiza­tion. The key points that upper management must do are as follows:

5) Improved Communications

This is a critical part of the TQM working structure. When we draw lines around a position in an organization chart, we are creating an island. The more blocks we create, the more levels of management that we create, the more difficult we make it to communi­cate. We must facilitate communication among these blocks which are commonly known as purchasing, person­nel, comptroller, estimating, equipment maintenance, warehousing, marketing, engineering and project management so that information flows freely and willingly throughout the project site.

Specifically, within the construction industry there has been created by past common practices large islands called the designer, the owner, and the contractor. These islands must be bridged to cost effectively manage construction

work. These project shareholders must learn each other's expectations and communicate freely in helping each other improve the design and construction process.

Communication within construction companies must be improved so that we have two‑way communication. This can be achieved by learning how to apply the principles of TQM to eliminate fear within a company so that employees become eager to be participants in the improvement process.

6) Customer Satisfaction

Internal client flow is the first place to start to insure customer satisfaction. In TQM, the concept of the "customer" must be defined in a broader sense. Normally, we tend to think of the customer as someone external to the company who receives the service or end product. In the TQM concept, you must include anyone who receives a product or service from another. Within your company there are customers. A superinten­dent at a construction site is a customer of the warehouse, the equipment shop, the personnel department, the sched­uling section, the purchasing department, etc.

Companies must learn that customer satisfaction is a philosophy which enters the entire organization and governs all the work that is done. It becomes the highest goal of each employee. To be sure that customer expectations are being met, a company must have a program that determines items of dissatisfaction and feeds this information back to the company so that the source of the problem can be elimi­nated. This measuring of customer satisfaction must be done for both external and internal (employees). The basic philosophy to be taught here is that quality starts and finishes with the voice of the customer.

7) Supplier Involvement and Improvement

The delivery of a completed product or service whether it is an automobile or a building requires the support and cooperation of a supplier. Thus Supplier Involvement and Improvement is another working element of TQM. For the owner, the supplier is the architect, consultants, the general contractor, and principal subcontractors. For a general building con­tractor, the suppliers become the subcontractors, material suppliers, and equipment vendors. In addition, during everyday operations, anyone in a company can be a sup­plier, e.g., the Structural Engineering Department Head supplies the Project Manager with plans.

Suppliers should attend quality courses offered by their customers. When a supplier cannot meet the quality standards established in the project documents, then they are dropped as suppliers. TQM provides that the number of suppliers for a product be reduced and that, contrary to past practice, price should not be the only criteria used in

supplier selection. Both private and public construction projects are affected by this criteria element.

8)Process Improvement

In the proper application of TQM, the focus is placed on the process involved for the identifi­cation of problems and potential solutions. In construction, a major process might include the interaction of the prepa­ration of shop or fabrication drawings, the placement of concrete, the fabrication of structural steel, and the manner in which a project manager deals with the members of the project team on these interrelated sub‑processes.

Again, TQM places its emphasis on prevention, not only correction of problems. Sole dependency on downstream inspection ceases. In TQM, inspection efforts are intended to be directed at prevention by providing information to management on errors and deficiencies that will be used to identify problems. These problems can then be examined by teams so that the process itself can be improved. This thinking puts a positive rather than a negative emphasis on inspection.

TQM requires that the working element of Process Im­provement be taken in a systematic and professional man­ner. Quality Improvement Teams are trained in new analytical tools, communications, and teamwork dynamics so that they can work together to solve problems effectively. Only well trained personnel can accomplish what is needed to measure and quantify information. The concept of measurement is critical to TQM, since without it, one cannot verify improvements.

9)Focus on Employees

TQM enables every employee to have significant potential to make improvements in pro­cesses that only they are intimately familiar with. The employee potential can be tapped by using a combination of the following:

Each employee should be considered as both a customer and a supplier, since this is what happens in the everyday operation of the company. TQM treats all employees as internal customers that exchange information, tools, equip­ment, materials, and services on a daily basis. A company, then, strives for internal excellence and satisfaction just as it does for external customers. To implement a TQM process, there needs to be a recognition system established as part of the TQM process. This system will serve as motivation for employees to continue to contribute to process improvement.

PART II ‑ RECOMMENDED BOK COURSE CONTENT

Descriptions of Courses in Quality Management

The following course descriptions are presented as initial suggestions for what information and content should be covered in quality management coursework, as part of the BOK. The topics presented here are required to become proficient in the theory, use and application of the elements of TQM. These courses are designed to be taken as needed to provide a student with the state‑of‑the‑art knowledge to meet the challenge of learning to use TQM on the job from "day 1"ofemployment. The following paragraphs describe seven proposed courses in TQM and one introductory continuing education program for TQM. Some of the courses are technical in nature, while others are general in nature. One can pick courses from this list to achieve any desired level of expertise in and working knowledge of TQM.

Quality and Productivity Improvement

Ideas for quality and productivity improvement are related to all areas of management and all industries including construction. There are also applications of quality and productivity improvement for organizational development and business policy. This course will emphasize the proper use of statistics for the improvement of quality and productivity within the design and construction profession. The use of statistics as a management tool for Process Improvement and the leadership issues relevant to successful statistical use will be stressed.

The course content has four statistical components:

A recommended text for the course would be S chonberger's Building a Chain of Customer's. Reference books would be Walton's The Deming Management Method, Ishikawa's Guide to Quality Control, and Box, Hunter and Hunter's Statistics for Experimenters.

Statistics for Quality Improvement

Statistics for quality or productivity improvements have commonly been associ­ated with production and engineering. However the broader approach to quality management has extended the need statistical quality control to all areas of management. A working knowledge of statistics is absolutely necessary for the implementation of a TQM program. The objectives of this course would be:

The topics, which are appropriate for consulting engineers, and design and construction professionals, covered will include statistical process control, use of control charts, acceptance sampling, design of experiments, and Deming's (and others) approach to quality. This course will give management the statistical tools to measure Customer Satisfaction, Supplier Improvement and Process Improve­ment.

Quality and Innovation for

TQM This course will examine the best practices in management that encourage and foster quality and innovation. The terms quality and innovation represent the rallying cries for the changes in management know as TQM. These are major changes in traditional management thinking and practices and are well underway. Some of the major topics to be covered in the course are:

Baldrige Criteria

This would be a course based on the Malcolm Baldrige National Award examination criteria. These criteria can be used as an outline of   topics covered in the course and to serve as focal points for class discussions.

The 1991 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Ex­amination is divided into seven basic categories as follows:

When applying for the award a company submits an application describing their quality programs covering the seven categories listed above. A team of four examiners then rate the applications. The companies that are selected as finalists for the award are site‑visited by the team to insure that the actual quality processes are as they appear in the applications. The criteria, while not complete as an effective measure of a company's success, allows a company to use the application process as a self‑assessment tool.

The seven criteria categories form the outline for the course. The course can be divided approximately equally between class lecture, student discussions and actual case studies. The course will use a case study of an actual Baldrige application as the focal point of the class. This will provide information on how to successfully handle the elements of Customer Satisfaction, Supplier Improvement, and Process Improvement and how a company actually accomplishes Focus on Employees.

Special Topics in Quality and Management

This course will examine current styles of management and then will introduce the concepts of TQM and its related continuous improvement models. The ides is to introduce students to various improvement tools and elements of TQM and then use them to attack real problems. The topics to be covered in the course are as follows:

Construction Quality Management

This course is will provide general, overall coverage of the topic of Total Quality Management and its application to the design and construction industry. Emphasis will be placed on team­work and developing skills in identifying and solving problems associated with implementation of TQM as a change process in an existing corporate climate. This will be directed to construction organizations. The class objec­tives and class topics are as follows:

The class should be conducted with a combination of lectures, student readings and class discussions, written reports and a team case study. The team case study will be accomplished by preparing a survey of an owner or contractor to determine the extent to which they are implementing a formal TQM program within their organization. Also, the survey will include a survey of Baldrige Award winners to determine the nature of their quality programs. Then oral presentations of the surveys will be made by the teams.

Recommended texts for the course are Quality is Free by Philip Crosby and The Deming Management Method by Mary Walton.

Continuing Education Course in TQM or a Seminar in TOM

Numerous courses are available to educate and update companies and their employees in TQM. A summary of their content is contained in the next several paragraphs.

Typically, companies exploring TQM and just starting out need to identify specific steps required to obtain significant quality results as well as how to save expensive trial and error cost by learning the pitfalls to be avoided on the road to improvement.

Likewise companies already into a TQM process need the opportunity to validate their own process. In addition they should be able to explore and adopt new ideas for making improvements and for keeping the results they have achieved so far.

This seminar/workshop should be comprehensive and prac­tical in scope of managerial and worker integrated activity needed for total quality success in a design or construction organization. It should deal with factors unique to construc­tion professional services, as opposed to manufacturing processes. The objectives of this course will be to:

The final objective of these courses is not to assist a company to win a quality award, but to help a company realize the amazing proven competitive advantage a company can realize once they seriously commit personally and as a company to TQM. They need to learn that TQM changes the way they do business permanently to become the organization of choice for employees and customers alike.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

TQM uses a scientific, prevention based approach to quality improvement. The key to TQM is to harness the creative and productive power of an entire organization by releasing the workers knowledge. Tapping this potential is accom­plished through a systematic process that depends on educating the entire organization in an unique TQM process that is tailored to fit that organization. The educational process is accomplished with strong management involve­ment, participation and guidance and by employee empow­erment. Again the crucial element in the process becomes the required extensive training for management and em­ployees on subjects like interpersonal relations, teamwork, customer satisfaction, structured problem solving, continu­ous process improvement and statistics and other technical skills. Management and employees then learn to work together in interdisciplinary teams to improve the process that has been selected for study. In the construction industry the continuous processes include design, construction and administrative activities.

No substantive change is ever made without first a real sense of discomfort with the way things are. A quick summary of the "way things are" include the following:

The domestic construction industry is presently at the point where the manufacturing industry was in 1980. That is, just getting started with little experience and concrete results to draw on. The lessons and theory pertaining to TQM learned from the manufacturing industry can be applied to the construction industry in a rational, systematic fashion. The key to accomplishing this lies in education. Education devised in a manner that will allow members of the con­struction industry to educate, train and implement TQM in their own companies. A list of recommendations concluded from this paper are given below:

APPENDIX A

DEMING'S 14 POINTS FOR MANAGEMENT

JURAN'S 10 STEPS TO QUALITY IMPROVEMENT

CROSBY'S 14 STEPS TO QUALITY IMPROVEMENT

REFERENCES

Barrie, D. S. and Boyd P. C., Professional Construction Management, McGraw‑Hill, Inc., 1992, pp 371‑394.

Chase, G. W. and Doyle, P., Application of TQM to Acquisition of Construction Services, DCQI Forum Fall 1991, pp. 33‑42.

Chase, G. W., A Primer on Total Duality Management, unpublished paper, 1991.

Chicago, University of, Class Bulletin, Graduate School of Business, The University of Chicago, 1991.

Design and Construction Quality Institute, Quality Man­agement: Making. It Ha~n, DCQI National Conference Proceedings, July 1990.

Deming, W. E., Out of the Crisis, MIT CAES, Cambridge, 1986.

Hayden Jr., W. M., QUALITY BY DESIGN, The Design and Construction Professionals Quality Management News letter, July and October 1991.

Juran, J. M., Juran  on Planning for Quality, The Free Press, New York, 1988.

Kooser, W. W., Personal communication with William W. Kooser, Assistant Dean for Management, University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business, December, 1991;.

Lew, J. J., Quality Improvement Programs for construction, Proceedings: Associated Schools of Construction, 1991, pp. 87‑92.

Walton, Mary, The Deming Management Method, Putnam Publishing Group, 1986.