ROBERT C. WINN

Engineering Systems, Inc., 4775 Centennial Blvd., Suite 106, Colorado Springs, CO 80919, USA

ROBERT S. GREEN

USAF Directorate of Technical Training, Randolph AFB, TX 78150-4321, USA Total Quality Management (TQM) is recognized as an important management philosophy and is widely used in US industry. Over the last few years, TQM has been applied in the education industry.

INTRODUCTION

         TOTAL Quality Management (TQM) was first espoused by Dr. W. Edwards Deming in the late 1950's. His ideas were not accepted by US industry but were heartily endorsed by Japan in their recovery from World War II [1].

         Universities, however, have been slower to see the value of using TQM in their business, although several schools are now using TQM to improve the administration of the university. In 1990, Oregon State University endorsed TQM as its management philosophy and has experienced outstanding success in improving the operations of the university. For example, using TQM they reduced the average duration of remodeling projects by 23% [2]. In 1988, the Air Force Academy began an attempt at applying TQM to curriculum development and, in 1990, offered a course that was designed and conducted using the principles of TQM.

TQM PRINCIPLES

         TQM is a participative management philosophy, and the students had to participate throughout the effort. We therefore had to teach them about TQM and then show them how we were changing things in the course. Without that education process , we would not have had the support of the students that we enjoyed.

         Once the commitment is made to implement TQM, one of the first steps is to identify the customers' or stakeholders. To do this, you must treat the educational process as a system; all elements and the interactions between those elements must be addressed. Process improvement should begin and end with the customer [6].

         A systems approach to industrial process improvement is relatively common now. All relevant participants must be included in the educational system. Once all participants are identified, the relative importance of each participant can be established. Taking a systems approach to education can be a very useful endeavor.

         If the student is identified as one of your customers, you must try to satisfy that customer, but you must be very sure you know what that customer really wants. Customers must make an informed decision in deciding what they want, taking into account costs, performance needed, legal issues, etc. Students may say they want an easy `A' in every class, but what they really want is an education.

         The perspective we should take is that the students are, at least in principle, paying for the services we provide. We must be sure that we are satisfying their real long-term needs, not simply short-term desires.

DEMING'S 14 POINTS

         The 14 points of Dr. W. Edwards Deming form a framework for the implementation of TQM [1].

         We have used this list as a checklist of sorts in our effort. These 14 points are general enough that an implementation at one school would probably look considerably different from one at another school. The way that these 14 points should be used is to come to a consensus as to the application of each point to the particular situation at hand. In the following paragraphs, we will present some suggestions on how each point might be applied to the university setting in the administration of the university and in the curriculum.

         Realize that these are just suggestions, many of which will be totally inappropriate at a particular university. Our purpose here is to give some food for thought and suggest by comparison a methodology one could use to apply TQM to a unique situation.

1.Create constancy of purpose

          Develop a mission statement as your corporate purpose or aim. For example, the mission statement for a university might be, `To develop the skills, attitudes, and motivation in our students so they will become responsible citizens and be capable of making positive contributions to society.' The mission statement is also hierarchical; the department's mission depends on the college's mission, which depends on the University's mission, and so on. Once the mission statement is developed, everyone (not just the faculty and administration, but everyone employed by the University) must know how they contribute to the mission.

2.Adopt a new philosophy

         Insist on quality in everything - classroom instruction. To achieve this quality, an atmosphere of cooperation as opposed to competition must be instilled. This is particularly true in the classroom; management must ensure that the processes put in force encourage cooperation at every level student to student and faculty to student. What can we, the teacher and the students, do to ensure every student has the best opportunity to learn this material?

3.Cease dependence on mass inspection

          Focus on the product or service process. Don't depend on audits, tests, or inspections to build quality. Inspections will only keep bad products from hitting the market, but there are large costs incurred with each bad piece. The analogy in education is that the failed student is scrap that must be either reworked (take the course again or get extra tutoring) or discarded. We need to develop processes in which there is less testing but more focus on progress in learning. There is evidence that we test far more than is needed to evaluate our students [7]. Statistical process control can be an important tool in developing processes that do not require much inspection [8].

4.End the practice of conducting business on cost alone

         The lowest bid usually does not result in the lowest life-cycle cost. In all our processes, we need to focus on long-term costs and benefits. University professors often complain about the poor job the high schools are doing in preparing students for college. The long term costs of supplying educated people to society may be less if some of the resources of the university were spent on improving high and junior high schools.

5.Constantly improve processes

          Are your customers (the students and their future employers) more satisfied than they were last semester?

          Analyze the process to determine what changes can be made to make it better. Incremental improvements must be made every semester.

          Carefully designed questions on anonymous surveys can be very valuable, but talking directly to the customer is still the best way to find out what the barriers are. There is a side benefit to talking directly to the students about their problems - they appreciate it and make the `us versus them' attitude much less likely.

6.Institute training

          Everyone needs to know their job. The faculty is certainly well educated in their disciplines but maybe not in the art of teaching. Faculty development programs help teachers know their jobs. Money spent on faculty and staff training has long-term payback. In addition, you should teach TQM to everyone - faculty, staff, and especially students. The more everyone knows about the management principles used on a daily basis, the easier it is for everyone to buy into the idea.

7. Institute leadership

          Emphasize leadership instead of management. Everyone at the university has a leadership role of some sort. Each person in a supervisory role (including the faculty) should try to be a coach and teacher, not a judge and overseer. The leader should be a designer, a creator of an environment [6]. A teacher who is an effective leader will see to it that the lighting problems are fixed. A teacher, who will adjust the due date on a project based on special student situations, will probably increase the learning of his students.

8. Drive out fear

         In the academic setting, fear is often a big factor in student and faculty performance. When asked, most professors will readily say that their job is to educate their students; however, the amount of time they spend on evaluation tends to contradict this view. On the faculty and staff side, fear can also play an important role. If a high price must be paid for failure, few people will be willing to risk experimenting with a promising new innovation, thus keeping a process improvement out of the system. Researchers must have the opportunity to fail without the fear of demotion or lack of promotion opportunity. Fear is a powerful emotion and can have very negative effects on the performance of an organization.

9. Break down barriers

          Encourage cooperation, not competition. Encourage the forming of cross-function teams to address problems and process improvements. A team made up of faculty, staff, and students (perhaps from more than one department) will have a broader perspective in addressing issues than a more narrowly composed committee. A solution devised by only one organization will usually have a negative impact on some other organizations. Bringing everyone in on the decision process will usually result in a better solution, and certainly one that is easier to accept.

10. Avoid obsession with goals and slogans

         Just telling someone to do well is meaningless without the means to achieve that goal. Management must improve the processes so that the goals can be achieved. Stating that 80% is the minimum acceptable score on an exam will not by itself achieve that goal. Stating that goal and then providing excellent instruction, arranging for study teams, giving extra help where needed, etc., will give the students a much better chance for success.

11. Eliminate numerical quotas

          It is often said that numbers are the crutches of poor supervision. If there are quotas established for `x' number of papers per year or `y' number of majors enrolled, quality will decrease.

          The number one priority should be quality. Only after the process is designed so that quality is assured should the questions of quantity be addressed.

12. Remove barriers to pride of workmanship

          Pride is a strong motivator. If the students are included in some of the decision making processes, they will develop a strong pride of ownership that can have a significant impact on their attitudes. Using some of the elements of cooperative learning also empowers the students by sharing some of the teaching role with the faculty. A secretary who is allowed to choose how the work is to be done and has a voice in some of the administrative decisions that affect secretarial work will be a much more productive and happy worker. Barriers between departments and colleges should be dismantled; each professor can learn a lot by studying the operation of another department.

13. Organization-wide involvement

          Everyone in the institution must be included in the education process and be aware of and concerned for their immediate `customer'. Lab technicians who sit in on the courses that they support will have a much better idea of how their work contributes to the mission. Secretaries who learn about new techniques and technologies for use in the office are much more likely to suggest improvements to the processes they are exposed to. Professors should audit courses in other departments, particularly those courses that are prerequisites for their own courses. Faculty members who learn about TQM are much more likely to endorse the concept and to suggest new ways to implement TQM in their jobs.

14. Define management's responsibilities to make it happen

          Management, at every level but particularly at the very top, must take and show pride in adopting the TQM philosophy. This is not a trivial process; a good deal of time must be spent in analyzing the various processes and discussing how the 14 points relate to those processes. The time spent in this effort forms the foundation for all of the TQM implementation.

APPLICATION OF THE 14 POINTS

          The above 14 points are very general. The form that a particular implementation takes is dependent on many factors such as the size of the institution, whether the institution is private or public, and the strengths of the people involved, but the most important variables are the maturity of the students and the involvement of the employer. Careful consideration of all aspects of the educational system will help determine just how the TQM implementation will ultimately look.

          The principles of TQM can also be applied to high school, middle school, and elementary school educational processes as well as to training situations. In a training situation, the most important customer is the organization that needs the individuals trained.

Literature

         1. 1. M. Walton, The Deming Management Method, Perigee Books, New York, NY, 1986.

         2. L. E. Coate, Total Quality Management at Oregon State University, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, March 1992.

         3. R. S. Green, R. C. Winn, and M. L. Smith, Integrating Total Quality Management into a thermodynamics course, Proceedings of the First International Conference on Post High School Technical Education, Jerusalem/Tel Aviv, Israel, December 1991.

         4. R. S. Green, and R. C. Winn, Application of Total Quality Management to engineering education, Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference, Toledo, OH, July 1992.

         5. R. S. Green, and R. C. Winn, Application of Total Quality Management to a thermodynamics course, USAF Academy Technical Report, (accepted for publication).

         6. P. Senge, The Fifth Discipline, Doubleday, New York, NY, 1990.

         7. R. C. Winn, How much testing is enough? Proceedings of Frontiers in Education '90, Vienna, Austria, July 1990.

         8. G. Bounds, L. Yorks, M. Adams, and G. Ranney, Beyond Total Quality Management: Toward the Emerging Paradigm, McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, NY, 1994.

         9. M. Imai, Kaizen, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, 1986.