Adoption of an organizational innovation: total quality control in industrial firms

Abstract

This survey of the adoption of total quality control (TQc) in 98 companies in the Netherlands shows that few firms do set goals with respect to quality and quality control and that even fewer firms evaluate their own quality performance. The adoption of total quality control is a very time-consuming process, which may take about ten years. Furthermore the adoption process is often dominated by solving the quality problems by experts instead of improving the problemsolving capability of the organization. The adoption process ofTQC and the actual application of TQC are related to each other and to company characteristics. In particular the size of the company is related to the formalization of the quality system.

Current Status and Analysis of the Study on Quality Control

“…To explore the factors restricting the development of qualitycontrol, this paper based on the research by Chinese scholar Zhang Gongxu [9,10] , takes the time as the master line about quality control and control theory in literatures [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] and finds that the earliest study on quality control coulde be traced back to Francis Galton (1822-1911) who putted forward the concept of quality control in 1892. After that, the two concepts of qualitycontrol and control quality had been no clear boundaries, until 1942, W.K.…”

FMS Implementation Management: Promise and Performance

“…The achievement of market advantages using an FMS depend on whether the FMS is implemented in a "strategic" bottleneck, and on the use of other technologies such as CAD, CAPP and CAM for creating the circumstances in which the flexibilities of FMS can be fully used. However, the implementation of elements of JIT, TQC and preventative maintenance, CAD, CAPP and CAM, and other organisational measures and technologies, are usually protracted processes as well (see for example [20] for the implementation of TQC). It may therefore take many years to fully achieve the operational advantages of FMS, let alone the market advantages, if internally and externally consistent reorganisation are not implemented along with the introductions of FMS [3].…”