The European Way to Excellence

Rick L. Edgeman (Center for Quality & Productivity Improvement, Colorado State University, USA, , RR/98/003)

The TQM Magazine

ISSN: 0954-478X

Article publication date: 1 August 1998

163

Citation

Edgeman, R.L. (1998), "The European Way to Excellence", The TQM Magazine, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 311-312. https://doi.org/10.1108/tqmm.1998.10.4.311.2

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited


This work summarizes results from a collection of 35 case studies of European manufacturing, public, and service organizations and their use of quality management approaches. Enterprises examined were of an array of sizes with the smallest one examined being an Austrian bilingual school with only 36 employees and the largest ‐ Royal Mail in the UK ‐ having approximately 150,000 employees. Case studies were funded by Directorate‐General III, Industry of the European Commission and assembled by many of Europe’s leading quality management authorities from across Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the UK.

This book has many merits for diverse audiences. For those who wish to acquire an understanding of quality improvement practices and trends in Europe this is a valuable resource. Similarly, the breadth of types and sizes of enterprises studied makes it highly likely that any company will be able to “benchmark”, in a sense, European counterparts or, at the least, other companies with similar characteristics ‐ as such, this book provides a rich source of so‐called business intelligence. Numerous successful strategies ‐ and some unsuccessful ones ‐ are discussed and hence content provides a wealth of ideas as well as practical guidance.

The text is divided into several chapters. First up is a general introduction which provides discussion of quality management history and background as well as explanation for the common framework used in the case studies. A second chapter provides firm rationale for introducing quality management to the enterprise. Subsequent chapters detail essential elements of quality management that must be in place, the process of introducing quality management to the enterprise, leadership and techniques for developing key competencies, guidelines extracted from the case studies, and conclusions. Fully half of the text is then devoted to summary of the case studies.

Perhaps most valuable in this text ‐ and there is much that is valuable ‐ is the very brief chapter on “guidelines extracted from the case studies” for herein is found excellent advice in the form of numerous success factors (such as measurable objectives, cross‐functional teams, and benchmarking); lessons learned (a structured approach, emphasis on people, and importance of leadership to name a few); factors integral to case study results (e.g. management commitment, customer focus, management by fact, supply chain management, and policy deployment); and challenges and threats (failure to make quality involvement systemic, non‐alignment of performance measures, and resistance to change).

In all, this is an enlightening book that is well worth the price of acquisition. This is especially so since the cost of acquisition is “postage only”! For details simply fax Lisa at +44 171 70 42 700.

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