Test Questions: Corporate Planning and Strategic Management

CH1 Intro: QA refers to any planned & systematic activity directed toward providing consumers w/ products of appropriate Q, along w/ the confidence that products meet consumer’s req. Age of Craftsmanship: skilled craftsperson served both as manuf & inspector. Early 20 century (1900) Frederick W. Taylor father of scientific mgmt separate planning function from execution. Henry Ford total Q practices. 1920 Bell Telephone Labs development of new theories & methods of inspection. Pioneers of QA: Walter Shewhart (statistics QC), Harold dodge, George Edwards, Joseph Juran, W. Edwards Dening. Post WWII: 40s & 50s shortage of civilian goods in the US made production priority, Q remained in its own dept. Top mgmt showed little interest in Q & relied on mass inspection. 2 consultants, Dr. Joseph Juran & Dr. W. Edwards Deming went to Japan & introduced statistical Q control techniques. Intro to top mgmt & adopted a philosophy of continuous improvement (kaizen) throughout the entire org. 1951 Union of Japanese Scientists & Engineers (JUSE) instituted the Deming Prize. Improvements in Japanese Q took 20 yrs until they surpassed US manuf. US Q Revolution: before 60s Japanese products were considered inferior & most consumers bought domestic products. 70s, increased international competition & appearance of higher Q foreign products on the market failure of the space expedition Challenger is the largest example of needs for Q. Businesses see Q as key to their survival, let alone profitability. A trend w/ US companies: focusing on Q short-term & doing bad long-term From Product Q to TQM: Q initiatives focused only on products & saw a distinction between “Q of mgmt” & “mgmt of Q.” Big Q – throughout the entire org & Little Q – Q on manuf only. This brought the notion of TQM. Org-wide performance excellence rather than just focusing on production-based technical discipline. Now, TQM has no significance (it failed) but the underlying principles of Q mgmt are recognized as the