Taylorism And Business Prepare Reengineering And Lean Production

In the early 1990’s companies started developing their own total quality Management principals. The most notable of all these new theories was Six Sigma which was developed by Motorola Corporation and later implemented by other industry giants like General Motors, Microsoft, Helwet-Packard etc., another significant new generation Quality management theory was ACE-(Achieving Competitive Excellence) developed by United Technologies Corporation(UTC). While 6 Sigma approach is data oriented in quality management of products, services, processes and customer experience, ACE approach is process improvement, waste elimination, skill improvement, problem solving and decision making tools.

Design can be related to the creation of products goods and services for the benefit of customer satisfaction. When a product is not created effectively the organization could be plagued with costly problems down the line. However, Six Sigma uses tools that will allow companies protection from future problems and widespread liabilities (Kumar et al., 2009). If an organization implements six sigma in well planned out and methodical way, the benefits for the organization could be endless and have a positive effect well into the future of the organization. Therefore, main focus of Six Sigma is to ensure speedy breakthrough performances, substantial financial outcomes, and to have long lasting effects. Another component of Six Sigma is Total Quality Management which focuses things such as strategy, process, and the end

It is a present-day instance of the recurring theme in human history toward increasing efficiency, decreasing waste, and using empirical methods to decide what matters, rather than uncritically accepting pre-existing ideas. As such, it is a chapter in the larger narrative that also includes such ideas as the folk wisdom of thrift, time and motion study, Taylorism, the Efficiency Movement, and Fordism. Lean manufacturing is often seen as a more refined version of earlier efficiency efforts, building upon the work of earlier leaders such as Taylor or Ford, and learning from their mistakes.

The author juxtaposes the two management philosophies Six Sigma and Total Quality Management and, therefore, perceives that they have chief components indistinguishable. Gibson & Tesone (2001) demarcated five stages in the fad’s life cycle and on comparing with Six Sigma & Total Quality Management cycle found the analogous pattern being trailed by them. On the

This paper emphasizes on Management fads and their life cycles, precisely Total Quality Management (TQM) and Six Sigma. Management fad typifies a change in management philosophy followed by the organizations. As long as management fads create a positive incremental impingement on the organization they are acceptable. The author juxtaposes Total Quality Management (TQM), Quality circles and Six sigma with different hypothesis, patterns of their life cycles and various databases. The basic difference between the management fads is their approach to ameliorate the quality. Six Sigma approach has exhibited outstanding potential and generated billions of dollars in cost savings drawing intense interest from business community.

Taylorism is a system that was designed in the late 19th century, not only to maximise managerial control, but to also expand the levels of efficiency throughout workplaces. With this being said, productivity levels increased and fair wage distribution was the main result. However, with other, more recent theories and systems, such as Maslow and Herzburg’s theories, these helped to focus on the satisfaction and motivation of the workers rather than the concern of managerial control and empowerment. Fredrick W. Taylor ended up developing 4 main principles to help increase the work efficiency and productivity in workplaces; these will be discussed later on. Other theories relating to this include, Fayol, Follett, Management Science Theory as

In order to accomplish this vision, Ford decided it would be in their best interest to use Six Sigma. According to google, “Lean six sigma can be defined as a management methodology that relies on a collaborative team effort to improve performance by systematically removing waste.” Six sigma was originally created by Bill Smith and Bob Galvin of Motorola in 1986. The idea is to improve quality so that the number of total defects is reduced to the point where they are statistically insignificant; and means that an error will occur only 3.4 times per million observations.

Taylorism is a management system which was popular in the late 19th century. It was designed to increase efficiency by breaking down and specialising repetitive tasks. This is exhibited as mentioned in ‘Selection and Development: A new perspective on some old problems’ that several jobs presently no longer consist of clusters of similar tasks, but are now process based collections of activities (Harrington, Hill & Linley 2005). According to Weber’s foundation of organisation theory; bureaucracy was portrayed as an “instrument or tool of unrivalled technical superiority which entailed charismatic, traditional and rational authority” (1978, cited in Clegg 1994). Thereafter, other theories derived based on the instrument being used as a form of manipulation. This is evident in Knights & Roberts’ (1982) concept of human resource management and staff misunderstanding the nature of power, treating it as if it were an individual possession, as opposed to a relationship between people (Knights & Roberts 1982). Subsequently, this led to the establishment of unions and increasing cooperative resistance in the workplace as employees seek change in the occupational structure (Courpasson & Clegg 2012). The change in this occupational structure was based around the ‘superior-inferior’ concept where managers prioritise their own success

This section provides a brief review of the literature and theoretical background on the two main constructs underlying the models tested in this study: Competitive Strategy, Total Quality Management.

Belohlav (1993) describes that Due to stiff competition to maintain quality American companies started redrafting strategies based on the goal of quality. The changed business environment forced American companies the way they produce products and to look at customer’s requirements.

The basic concepts involved in lean and lean manufacturing was originated from The Toyota, one of the Japanese automaker in the global competition since decades. In 1988, Taiichi Ohno brought the lean concept into operation for the first time at Toyota and called it as Toyota Production System (TPS), to overcome economic crisis due to World War II. TPS was mainly developed to flourish with minimum resources. Owing to the immense shortages of material, human and financial resources, TPS had no other option but to choose the waste reduction policy to cut down the costs at the shop floor. Even in the hard economic crisis, Toyota sustained and was successful because of its higher efficiency in operation and improved production system. In the meantime, inadequacy of the resources which was at first an obstacle to the company transformed into an opportunity to establish Toyota as a world class car manufacturer. ‘Lean’ approach was slowly applied in many manufacturing and management floors over the last few decades.

We have concluded that these methodologies have evolved through various stages from the early 1700’s as “division of labor”. This was when manufacturing first moved into factories from the cottage industry. These methodologies is not only executed by conventional business but is tailored for all sorts of organizations such as government agencies, departments, charities, mutual and cooperatives as well as many others. An example that can be used is the “Six Sigma” was first developed by Motorola Inc, in the mid 1980’s. This methodology provides extensive “Six Sigma” training and consultancy services. Accordng to Motorola I.T “Six Sigma is a highly disciplined process that helps us focus on developing and delivering close to perfect products and services. This system drives clarity around business strategies and the metrics that reflect success with strategy. Through experience, Motorola has learned that discipline use of metrics and applications of this methodology is still not sufficient to drive a desired breakthrough for improvements and results that are sustainable over a period of time.

Looking at the success of Motorola, many companies like Texas Instruments, Allied Signal etc started using Six Sigma methodology to bring organization-wide improvements.

Ford Motor Co., an example which every manufacturer had been following for their quality improvement practices before the introduction of ISO quality systems, they were the one to introduce revolutionary new products and used TQM to drive down the cost.

This process worked for a time, however, eventually companies began to experience challenges in completing quality control standards as organizations grew and expanded. Conflict developed as workers were upset with their working conditions, and how the work was done. It became obvious that the system needed to change and evolve in order to meet the growing demands.