Product quality involves the more usual aspects of fitness for use or meeting
the customer requirements for the item. Quality aspects for a product from the
customer's perspective include appropriate price, ease of use, safety,
durability, economical operation and simple, safe disposal at the end of its
life. Therefore, quality assurance has evolved to encompass how a product is
built, how it will be stored by wholesalers, how it will be used or misused and
stored after its sale, and how it will be serviced and discarded or recycled.
The CIP/TQM approach provides a means of directing technical expertise in an
organization, which ordinarily is known only to its developers, toward the
solution of product quality problems at all levels in all areas of that
organization. Consultants can help your company install this philosophy, as
long as their expertise is legitimate and you don't ask them to do it for you.
Few problems can withstand such a global attack and remain long in the
"unsolvable" category.
Mostly as a public service, based on the likely ratio of interested visitors to
potential customers and/or clients, this free tutorial covers the subject
sufficiently to partially enable your evaluation of the value of
most available related products and services within your planned approach to
goals fulfillment. (The word "partially" was emphasized to remind you that
knowledge of material from the complete set of tutorials listed on the home
page is necessary to properly evaluate the ODDSCO offerings.)
At the end of this tutorial is an opportunity to pose your question(s) on
this subject.
Continuous Improvement Process/Total Quality Management
TABLE OF CONTENTS (Return Links)
Return to Home Page [Use a Return Link after
any of the listed subsections to quickly reach this option.]
- Why CIP/TQM?
- What is a Quality Circle/Work Function Team?
- The Continuous Improvement Process
- What are the CIP/TQM principles?
- How are CIP/TQM principles applied?
- The "House of Quality"
- Improvement of Processes
- Continuous Improvement Metrics
- Facilitator Skills
- Where Do You Get Creativity?
- Quality Circle Leadership
- Management in CIP/TQM
- Executive Functions in CIP/TQM
- What Can Go Wrong
- CIP/TQM in Small Businesses
Why CIP/TQM?
What is the need for CIP/TQM? The change in markets is permanent. The old-
fashioned mass production, where a relatively stable product line lasts for
years, is dying in virtually all industries and has been comatose or dead in
high technology industries for complete systems of assemblies for at least a
decade. Some individual electronic components have the longest lives and volume
runs in the millions, but will continue to improve and differentiate during
their production period.
Global markets are fragmenting and products must diversify in response, so
productions runs become shorter and suppliers cannot count on many economies of
scale. Because only humans can learn to sufficient depth, their natural
intelligence must be assisted wherever possible to support the understanding
and innovation required for businesses to successfully compete in today's
dynamic markets.
Empowered, decision-supported minds are a company's principal strategic
resources. Use them well or lose the benefit.
Although some constraints are attached, higher quality ultimately reduces
costs through improved productivity. The main caveat is that quality must be
designed and built in, because it surely cannot be tested in. The later in a
product's life cycle that it fails, the more expensive it is to fix. Further,
as products become increasingly complex, liability for any detected product
quality deficiencies increasingly belongs to the producer rather than to the
consumer. Caveat venditor has replaced the ancient caveat emptor. The tendency
is for the buyer to have full legal recourse for product problems, along with
representatives of the public. Manufacturers are held responsible for all
damages, personal injuries and any environmental pollution assignable to its
products or production processes. Even potential hazard from obvious consumer
misuse is actionable today.
Product liability blame assignment for litigation has expanded to the point of
absurdity, to where individuals are absolved of all responsibility for their
actions, with accompanying awards coming from the corporate "deep pockets"
either directly or as higher insurance premiums. This is part of the general
drag on business productiveness. Because that is part of the price of doing
business in the United States, a quality program that ignores such issues
places a manufacturing company at extreme risk and increases product costs.
Because the label involves more than the design and marketing groups, insofar
as product liability is concerned, those responsible for accuracy of statements
made on labels and in explanatory materials must have a high awareness of the
necessary quality standards. The possibilities for a product's misuse should be
fully explored. These issues should be raised formally in planning and design
reviews for new products. The burden of product liability has shifted toward
the manufacturer.
CIP/TQM, as a management philosophy of empowerment, helps workers to
understand their organization's objectives, to upgrade their technical
knowledge, to help their company adapt, progress, prosper in a world market,
and become or remain a responsible member of the community.
What is a Quality Circle/Work Function Team?
A Quality Circle/Work Function Team is simply a temporary to permanent grouping
of five to ten diverse work-level employees who volunteered or were appointed
to periodically meet on company time with a preferably non-authority
team leader to discuss work products, processes and documentation within their
domain, with a view to improving the quality of each by solving group
identified problems.
Complete voluntarism is preferable to an implication that participation is
"just another job requirement."
Temporary teams usually are formed to solve single problems semi-permanently,
such as improving a critical process by reducing cycle time or removing non-
value added tasks or bringing company policies, procedures, and accompanying
forms into conformance with a new philosophy or with contract-imposed standards
for product development. They are task forces with defined purposes and a time
limit to provide the sense of urgency, which disband on implemented solution of
the problem.
Permanent teams address ongoing issues and chronic problems. Such teams oversee
the standard methods of doing business and perform analytical tradeoff studies
for improvement in the processes and procedures, cooperating with the other
Quality Circles or functional teams both within and outside the division or
company as necessary to address specific issues. While they may have
indefinite life, they are not like committees with undefined purposes.
Either team type should be built on differing, complementary members technical
expertise and abilities, with respect to task force objectives. Preferably, the
team leader should have a generalist, System Engineering perspective for
integrating proposed ideas.
A Quality Circle organization has one level of "management," a
steering committee made up of middle management, labor union leaders when
appropriate, and one or several "facilitator(s)" for liaison with
individual circle leaders.
The steering committee tailors the total program for the type of industry
involved and the composition of the teams. It provides the "management"
of the team, ensuring understanding of organization operating charter, arranges
resources, and provides feedback on apparent progress. It arranges for the
checking and testing of team suggestions, ascertaining that the current process
quality is maintained and that activities foster accomplishment of company
strategic objectives. Rapid GO/NOGO decisions should be the order of the day,
because procrastination stifles enthusiasm.
After assigning the initial tasks for permanent Quality Circles application, it
provides helpful "suggestions" for slowly broadening each standing
team's span of interest and helps to identify more potentially fruitful areas
of team investigation. The managers must allow sufficient paid time to address
the issues and to implement approvable suggestions. An often forgotten point:
Quality Circles and process improvement teams do not exist solely to serve
management ends. Some benefits of the effort should accrue to the workers.
Such work environment subjects are definitely not the exclusive province of
management and worker's contribution of their ideas or opinions should not be
seen as a threat.
Warning: When the process team leader is an authority figure, meeting reports
to the steering committee will have a significantly different filtering than
those provided by non-manager leaders. Team members recognize that a manager
cannot become "equal" without abdicating responsibility to represent
upper management. They then factor their normal work role relationship to the
one who is "more equal" into all interaction with the other members.
They will censor their expression of thoughts and employ much more caution
during meetings because their commitment to accomplishments can be imposed or
at least pressured. They won't know if their role is only to provide
consultation or implicit approval of the manager's decisions. Some team members
will fear challenging or appearing stupid or ignorant in front of the
individual who reviews their performance and salary. Team activity is not
really voluntary, the environment for brainstorming is missing, and claimed
employee empowerment is effectively squelched without trial beyond lip service.
Some authorities, catering to the management side (that is most likely to
employ them or to purchase their books), suggest that managers leading even
process improvement teams can easily provide an environment that allows members
to challenge across the authority boundary. Only the young and naive workers or
fearless older employees with scarce skills and the requisite personality may
offer such challenges. Most employees with significant work experience will
await results of such forthright behavior in terms of recognition, rewards,
promotions, or layoffs for those who exhibited temerity to speak up. Greatly
experienced employees will cynically await the end of this latest management
fad. When no apparent retribution for open challenges is seen in the annual
performance and salary reviews, and promotions seem fair and timely, some
employees without scarce skills will risk occasional open communication while
most others will await the consequences. In other words, it can take years to
build fully effective teams with mutual trust even in a fully supportive
company environment.
Some managers downplay the concepts of CIP/TQM, suggesting that "doing it
right the first time" is just doing your job as an obvious obligation to
the company; that certainly no praise is due. (After all, you weren't hired to
do the job wrong.) Unfortunately, this attitude requires that all employees
have perfect knowledge of their new job upon initial hire or promotion. (As
those omniscient managers themselves had, of course.)
How low the responsibility for problem-solving is accepted in an hierarchical
organization, as well as general results, is a criterion for judging Quality
Circle effectiveness. The idea is to relieve management of workload.
When first establishing the Quality Circles or Work Function Teams, some
department problems may be evident and appropriate as subjects to address.
Chronic defects are always appropriate subjects, because such problems are the
most difficult (and most rewarding) to solve. Often, causes of chronic defects
cross department or division boundaries and may require upper management
involvement to identify clearly and to solve. Remind circle leaders that
solutions to underlying problems are sought; that alleviating only symptoms is
really solving the wrong problem; that quality improvement can reduce cost
while improving productivity.
Middle managers should not hesitate too long to sponsor new teams to address
problems that are identified in existing circle meetings. If all the problems
beyond the initial ones are always suggested by management, expectations by
management may be excessive and lead to numerous missed goals. Moreover, it
will indicate that management has all the plans and the Quality Circle's only
role is to provide an automatic stamp of approval. Better hidden, but still
having a squelching effect, is management approval of and support for solutions
to only the management initiatives. Employee empowerment requires allowing
substantive participation, without problem subject constraints on other than
the temporary Quality Circles. Continued problem assignment to experienced
Quality Circles implies a lack of trust by management and member enthusiasm for
continuance and volunteering to serve becomes seriously muted.
It all seems simple, but effective employment of process improvement teams
requires much, much more than merely asking for volunteers, assigning problems
and standing back to await results. The entire process must be compatible with
the actual company culture and supported by company middle management's
observed behavior as well as top management's public exhortations. Action must
be encouraged, even at the price of minor errors. (That's how experience
is developed.) The team members must share values for maximum cooperation and
participation. To accomplish their tasks in a team environmenmt, they
frequently must get in each other's way. Under this apparent chaos, all must
know how to make effective decisions to coordinate their problem solving
efforts. In other words:
"Empowerment" must become more than a popular industry buzzword.
For many problems, as part of employee empowerment, it is appropriate for
Quality Circle members to implement the solution without explicitly seeking
management permission. Offloading routine duties from the more talented and
highly trained people assists their creativity. Loading up Quality Circle team
members with work that minimizes their time for addressing problems subtly
sabotages the process.
The Continuous Improvement Process
Many corporations and businesses are beginning to employ a major tenet of
successful modern Japanese businesses, Kaizen, the continual improvement
of and by all. In the United States, this approach is named something like the
Continuous Improvement Process or Total Quality Management. In Europe, the
coordinated approach is called integrated control of product quality (ICPQ).
It matters much less what you call it than that you just do it.
Kaizen or a CIP/TQM approach concerns providing understanding of and
mproving of processes used by people, and rewarding their efforts toward that
end, rather than overemphasizing "results" to set up good conditions
for employee blame assignment as in most implementations of Management by
Objectives.
Kaizen or CIP/TQM usually comes along with an organization's adoption of
a formal program for quality improvement with Quality Circles or Work Function
Team equivalents.
Done thoroughly, it will amount to a complete revision of the company
culture for typical medium to large businesses.
The ultimate goal is to attain a culture of employee pride in their company
successes. Within this approach, all employees undergo company training
that encourages them to think about, to suggest and to try out improvements in
their work processes. Then, because the easiest process enhancements will occur
from small changes, inevitable small failures are treated by management as
learning by members for the overall team's ultimate benefit.
That, along with knowledge that was formerly the sole province of management,
is the essence of employee empowerment. When organizations remove layers of
middle management, in accordance with today's ongoing trend in management, such
empowerment becomes a necessity. Workers are the managers, which threatens
those who enjoy hierarchical authority.
It all begins with training for understanding of the Continuous Improvement
Process/Total Quality Management concepts as truly a cultural change with
commitment to its adoption by company top management. That means the CEO or
President should announce the intent to adopt CIP/TQM. The CEO and most Vice-
Presidents should receive the initial training and then help to train their
immediate subordinates.
The CEO, with help of an outside expert, should conduct an initial CIP/TQM
audit. The audit helps to set the introductory goals. The CEO should appoint a
CIP/TQM Executive Director or Vice-President and establish the Steering
Committee headquarters and head of CIP/TQM at each division.
The heads of CIP/TQM establish their group charter, the CIP/TQM promotion
program and record for action the top priority problems discovered during the
initial audit.
Selection of CIP/TQM Director staff should be from respected employees with
political savvy who have risen from the ranks. These people need not be skilled
statisticians or should avoid flaunting it, lest they risk overwhelming the
plant workers and losing essential cooperation. Next, the formal quality
information channels are designed and the company-wide training program begins.
If the company offers it as in-house formal training, CIP/TQM usually becomes
part of the mandatory management training. As all the members of upper
management complete their training, formal training is extended to middle
management and then to higher level technical staff. Training includes use of
statistical methods and other process flow analysis tools.
Equivalency of pay grades can be the determinant for next level taught, as the
CIP/TQM training proceeds downward through the ranks. The Quality Circle
Facilitators group is established as the initial set of Quality Circles is
staffed with CIP/TQM training graduates. The Steering Committee next
establishes the company audit committee and prepares to audit progress on
solutions to the identified high priority problems.
Eventually, all the work force receives training in the CIP/TQM principles and
their application. Therefore, having executive and managerial performance
review and salary review dependence on both work behavior and evangelism
in support of CIP becomes essential in autocratic company cultural environments
for most rapid assimilation of concepts and culture change.
What are the CIP/TQM principles?
- Quality is definable as conformance to customer requirements or fitness for
use.
- Everyone's job bears on the quality of the company's output as products or
services.
- Everyone helps achieve quality by preventing the occurrence of problems and
product or service defects
- Improvement is measured by reducing the cost associated with not providing
products or services meeting the first principle
How are CIP/TQM principles applied?
Customer requirements must be identified for every process because failures
more often stem from improper marketing than from poor products. Market
research allows a proactive identification of customer needs. At worst, work
interactively with your existing or potential customers to determine their
needs. In the military supplier environment, customer interface usually awaits
design reviews of products developed in accordance with a requirements
specification.
An immediate goal is to establish integrity of existing systems, through proper
documentation of processes and procedures, which provides baselines for
measurements and from which to depart for making improvements. Areas of
nonconformance are identified and reduced or eliminated through process
improvement(s).
This means finding root causes of abnormalities, to prevent their recurrence,
instead of addressing only the symptoms. Obviously, individuals may
discover ways to improve portions of their own work processes when their
environment encourages such a search.
The quality information channels must work both directions. Defect and
improvement data must be sent to the organizations responsible for dealing with
specific issues.
Quality information includes planning data, product use and reliability data,
including internal as well as external customer comments and complaints,
product liability and hazard data, and any information that helps to administer
the quality program, particularly its policies and procedures. The Steering
Committee must know who is affected in any degree by what information, to
categorize and disseminate it.
The more complex the problem or the more people (customers) affected by the
process, the more valuable the Quality Circles or Work Function Teams become.
These work process investigation teams begin or continue to analyze and
evaluate processes.
The "House of Quality"
The House of Quality is a graphical depiction of a customer-driven Quality
Function Deployment (QFD) and cross-functional team approach to product design.
The underlying philosophy of the QFD approach strongly resembles
Concurrent/Systems Engineering, although the "requirements"
statements are necessarily abbreviated for fit in the graphical representation
of a product specification. QFD can assist with early requirements analysis and
definition from the customer viewpoint as well as assist in its better known
role of design for production. The completed QFD process developed analysis
matrix resembles a cartoon house, which led to the name. Customers are
government regulators as well as end users, whose requirements are called
customer attributes. For convenience in designation, these attributes are
grouped in bundles of related items but kept in customers words to avoid
interpretation by engineers or others that could change their meaning. Because
of conflicts such as high power with light weight, prioritized tradeoffs are
used. Customer polls set their relative importance. These attributes form the
left side of the house.
Customer evaluations of your own and competing products are listed on the right
side of the "house" for each bundle of attributes to map out where
your product is positioned in the market.
The second floor or top of the house is formed by vertically listing the
engineering characteristics for the product with dividing lines to form a
matrix of open boxes with dividing lines extended from the listing of customer
attributes as the main body of the house. These are measurable characteristics
that should affect one or more of the attributes. An attribute that is not
affected by an engineering characteristic represents a product improvement
opportunity with direct marketing potential. A plus or minus sign is placed by
the label for characteristics engineers would like to increase or reduce.
Tolerances are avoided here to avoid the tendency to initially design for the
least cost. Cost reduction should come later, when the overall balance of
desired characteristics is established.
The matrix of crossed attributes and characteristics dividing lines is filled
in with symbols representing the relationship of each engineering
characteristic to each of the attributes, from strong positive through neutral
to strong negative. Evaluations based on experiment may be colored differently
then those based on judgment.
The basement or foundation of the house is formed from objective measures
comparing the engineering characteristics for each competing product. When
these are known, new design target values can be set for future products.
The roof of the house is formed by 45 degree lines from the top sides of the
house which meet at the center. Lines are drawn from each engineering
characteristic dividing line in parallel with each roof line until they meet
the other roof line. This forms a matrix for indicating the interaction between
engineering characteristics and is filled in just as is the body of the house.
This reveals the effect of changes to remind designers of the necessary
tradeoffs and changes that must be made in concert. The roof matrix should
await development of the product baseline because requirements correlation is
implementation dependent.
Improvement of Processes
Process improvement resembles product improvement, although the actions are not
tangible. The existing flow from input suppliers to output customers is defined
and analyzed for products, task times and labor requirements in a Decision
Model of the ideal process. Cost to implement is a necessary parameter, as is
cost to perform. Products are examined for full or partial elimination. Flows
paths and tasks are examined for necessity, effectiveness and efficiency.
Capital equipment (automation) support may be considered. It is another
tradeoff analysis. The predicted results of proposed improvements are compared
with the present process and evolutionary or revolutionary changes are studied.
Continuous Improvement Metrics
Manufacturing processes improve most quickly, because methods for production
usually are clearly documented and, most important, can be directly measured
through application of Taguchi Methods for stabilization and variability
reduction. Quality for high volume is increasingly expressed in the form of
defect levels in parts per million (ppm) with 6-Sigma goals of 3.5 where yields
of 99.9% may equate to 1,000 or more parts per million. Such disparity reduces
satisfaction with quality and yield of present processes, showing that wording
for the problem is always important. As another example, stating assembly
worker output in terms of seconds per cycle rather than pieces per hour changes
the focus to application of personal skill.
Engineering and design processes improve slowly because the existing methods
are complex and more likely to be in the senior employee's heads than in
written procedures. The first step in that case is to document the current
understanding of the appropriate process. No measureable baseline exists from
which to controllably improve until the engineering and design manuals are
written by the appropriate Quality Circles or Work Function Teams. Proposed
measures are such things as the count (adjusted by the subjectively determined
value to obtain some standardized benefit) of innovations in products or
methods, inventions, tradeoff studies performed, reports generated, approved
product or subassembly or circuit designs generated, specifications written,
etc. To construct a metric that means anything, the measure must be converted
to a standardized rate or density, such as errors per page. Engineering and
other processes produce documentation whose criteria for acceptance include
readability, traceability, consistency, and usability. Of these, only
traceability can be objective and then only when the specification contains a
Verification Cross Reference Index or a traceability matrix constructed to the
individual source requirement level.
Creative process metrics necessarily are indirect and therefore imperfect even
without the probable heavy dose of subjectivity, but many claim that such
estimates are better than none because productivity and quality of white collar
work is steadily increasing in importance with respect to blue collar activity.
It is rewarding to obtain a measurable improvement from an implemented process
change. That is most so when the employed metric has a direct relationship to
the strategic objective of the task performed. Average times for accomplishing
tasks are particularly perverse, however, because exemplary performance of a
complex task looks the same as abysmal performance of a simple task when raw
measurements are compared. A normalization factor for complexity, although it
may be somewhat subjective and have multiple components, is required for
gaining meaning and knowledge from the measurement.
Nevertheless, emphasizing improvement of results based on indirect metrics can
detract from accomplishing the actual purpose of knowledge workers. When
emphasis is on the result, the process will suffer. Including those being
measured into the planning for improvement and identification of the possible
metrics will bring more gain than the attempted application. This is guaranteed
if application is via an autocratic approach. Although some will wish to
enforce rigid adherence to the process, this can be dangerous. Have you not
heard of what happens when people actually "work to rule?"
Further, duration of the design cycle for complex equipment may be many months,
making effective process measurement of a stable baseline impractical. When an
arguably effective change is feasible for such a lengthy process, it should be
implemented forthwith. Therefore, each complex development project will occur
with significant processes variation from previous projects throughout its
development phase. The lack of repeatability is not because it is an
"intellectual" process but because duration requires implementation
of improvements along the way.
Even without defined metrics, describing such complex processes with written
procedures can result in immediate improvement by providing a logical approach
with a roadmap for their next application. Although not easily measurable in a
quantitive sense, because major projects take many months and processes evolve
so you are measuring a moving target, even the difficult creative areas will
benefit from applying the CIP/TQM philosophy. Some requirements for process
metrics are:
- Support CIP for process; not monitor individual performance
- Naturally produced by process, if possible, or minimal extra effort to make
measurements so benefit far exceeds their cost
- Direct measurement of important, controllable parameters
- Sufficient detail and accuracy to plot trend lines
- Consistent over time through all seasons
- Understandable, with unfiltered, simple to acquire data
To focus attention on improvements, ask everyone at the start of a major task
to produce a short list of what an observer who wished to monitor their
performance should look for. Even if no external measurement is made, the
concept is planted.
Facilitator Skills
The facilitator's job is substantially that of on-the-job trainer, while
temporarily associated with a process team or Quality Circle or addressing a
quality problem. Facilitators give advice, not orders or judgments. Facilitators
privately counsel to help the group leader avoid the problems that lead to
groupthink and too-early forming of group consensus or irrational support for a
previous solution.
The ideal is to promote the positive activities and to guide the team away from
the negative activities such as heavy competition between individuals or
subgroups. A facilitator usually can determine when a team depends too much on
the leader or is avoiding mistakes rather than taking minor risks to advance the
attainment of objectives. Post-meeting feedback to the team leader assists
future meeting effectiveness. This must happen without favoritism to any issue
other than assisting circle performance. Of course, the basic problem may be a
manager assigned to a process improvement team whose other members are
non-managers.
The facilitators must remain aloof from the problem, regardless of their
experience, but become intimately involved with the group process. They help
the group to understand where it is and how it got there and how to keep on
track. Conflicts should be between ideas rather than between people. Ideas need
only be unique and original within the context of the problem at hand to be
considered creative. (See the next section for more on creativity.)
The naturally highly creative persons must be required to explain their ideas
until they are readily understood by all. The articulation of ideas clarifies
them further in the mind of the originator, as well. Setting forth ideas fosters
rise and development of other ideas, so the final result exceeds what any
individual could have produced. Overconfidence should be discouraged but when
the time has come to act, a facilitator's enthusiasm should be apparent to all.
Facilitators should learn to phrase broad questions that produce more than one
problem answer, such as "How many ... ?" or "Why is it necessary?"
or "What else is the purpose?" or "When, where, and how is it
done?" or "By whom?" The purpose of the questions is to promote
nteractive thinking among team members.
Each idea can be subjected to further examination to suggest improvements, such
as the Osborn checklist:
- ;Can this idea, thing or situation be used in other ways?
- Can it be adapted, modified, or combined with something else to increase its
value?
- Can it be enlarged, reduced, divided, lightened or simplified?
- Can it be substituted for or substitute for something else?
- Can its elements be rearranged, decomposed, eliminated, or reversed for better
result?
Suggesting that answers be classified into types or made analogous to something
in nature (bionics) or combined in unexpected ways may lead to further answers,
as will asking if the decision should be addressed by the team at all. Assuming
the answer is yes, employ the following approach to obtaining a synergy in the
group:
- Define the decision problem with its objectives and environment, clarifying
until every member understands, but deemphasize results until the last stage of
the process. (Have each member contribute a different reason for the existence
of the problem.)
- Brainstorm for analogies of any kind (symbolic, personal, fictional, or direct),
grouping related items for increased abstraction.
- Determine and list connections between those analogies and the original problem.
- Don't overlook a dialectic or opposite to each.
- Work backwards from an ideal solution toward the problem.
- Explore physical and economic limitations and other assumed constraints for
feasible means to overcome them.
- Periodically, assess feasibility of the generated analogies while emphasizing
that potentially workable is good enough.
Use negative thinking to get a sense of the risk of adverse consequences. This
means the highest ranking individuals of the group must not telegraph their
preferred solution or the possibility of honest appraisal by the lower ranking
members can evaporate. When high probability of disaster looms, the sense of
feasibility deteriorates rapidly.
The Japanese approach is asking for ideas from the lowest ranking member of a
circle before others talk can prevent their intimidation in the face of ideas
which differ from those presented by their superiors. Everyone listens to the
input information by each member until the top ranking person has presented his
views, which may well have changed after hearing all the subordinate presentations.
The best solution may have become obvious by that point. If not, every member
gathers more information for a subsequent meeting. In any case, the top person's
task is to bring out the elements of the solution from below rather than to
impose one as in the American approach where the boss is expected to produce
the innovative ideas.
Another approach is to require that some rotated selection member of the group
act as the opponent of the strongest solution to foster revelation of the
negatives by others. The ideas of high ranking persons may be shot down. The
greatest contribution of the DSIDE™ process for the evaluation phase is
that the Decision Model rejects the losing ideas, rather than an individual.
Egos suffer less, so positive attitudes are better maintained.
When an inexperienced circle suggests work on a problem that may not be within
its purview, the facilitator likely will have the task of gentle redirection or
ensuring that the team reorganizes to allow accommodation of the problem.
A basic tenet of CIP/TQM is that Quality Circles or Work Function Teams must
be composed of the right people to address the issue.
The more experienced circle members are likely to recognize when a particular
problem exceeds the team's authority to solve. Circle leaders or facilitators
should pass such perceived problems on to the steering committee for resolution,
of course. The statement of the problem should be recorded, however, and
circulated throughout all the teams. The object is to put the subconscious
minds of others using different paradigms to work on partially or fully solving
such problems. Your team's partial solution to something may help another team
to a solution. It is the connective integration of concepts that solves problems.
Facilitators should be heavily involved in feeding back to circle members any
instance of positive recognition from the steering committee members and others
who may notice and comment on implementation of their suggested improvements.
When CIP/TQM team members understand that they "own" the solution,
they will enthusiastically support its adoption.
In this vein, submitted ideas should not be half-baked but undergo some
preliminary development by the originator in the form of a model or paper
describing what the implementation would entail to obtain the predicted results
and list the underlying assumptions.
Facilitators should know, but need not be experts on, application of the
favored decision methods and other process analysis tools.
Where Do You Get Creativity?
The requirements for creative ideas are usually modest. Solving fundamental
scientific research questions is not necessary for most problems, so nearly
everyone can be creative in a useful sense and contribute some of the original
thinking required to make some of the necessary advances.
Creativity is looking at the same things that others look at and discovering
something different or previously unrealized, then not squelching the new
thought before it has helped to spur other new thoughts. This includes ideas
which seem to challenge common sense and conventional assumptions. Creation is
like scientific advances in that new ideas are built from understanding
relationships between old ideas and the subconscious incubation process cannot
be scheduled or rushed. Some ideas resulting from this are so elegantly simple
and obvious that everyone involved is amazed it wasn't the first solution
invented. These ideas often lead to a widespread pardigm shift. Most people
have adequate intelligence and will apply the necessary mental effort if they
are given the right stimulus during an active group session in a supportive
environment.
Every person in a group must be encouraged because it is a single mind, not the
group consciousness, that performs the critical integration and leap to the key
conclusion. That person must feel empowered to contribute every germ of a
concept rather than pressured to conform to a developing consensus.
Inventions, especially technical advances, usually must await the synthesis in
one prepared mind of interconnecting underlying knowledge. Because you
cannot know what that knowledge must be, continuing your education in every
subject of interest is the best approach to your business life. Creative
inventors of practical items or enhancements may not have earned formal degrees.
No formula for finding such people exists, so you may have to innovate without
guidance of genius. A high level of creativity is required to define the market
for a new application of high technology by educating customers.
Although it cannot be well-defined or taught more effectively than higher math
(some get it, some don't), various approaches to unlocking each team member's
creativity must be encouraged by enthusiasm and receptiveness of other members.
Teach that rejection of an idea is just input data, even when you are shown to
be wrong. Develop the will to accept even hostility or derisive laughter. As
for criticism, most ideas will fail some feasibility test for implementation
at their first submission. The key is to remain open to acquiring another piece
to the puzzle. That piece could be the "flash of genius" of another
who could not implement the idea when made. Sometimes, the timing is just not
right and the resources cannot be mustered. Persist. (To use a baseball
metaphor, you neither strike out nor hit home runs if you avoid batting.)
Recognize that creativity is area specific for each individual, but that area
may be unrelated to either training or career assignments to date. Suggestions
for investigating how others have approached similar problems in their
different fields, asking why some aspect or assumption of the problem is
understood as it is, and judging merit only after the quantity of ideas becomes
overwhelming may help keep the creative juices flowing. After all, "common
sense" may be all that is blocking the solution.
It may help to provide a label for the problem, so your mind remains focused.
When a few minutes are available, consciously think about it. If something
occurs to you which helps, write it down. If not, do the other things you must
do. Your subconscious mind has not stopped working the problem, so you may be
surprised at any time by some critical piece of the puzzle jumping forth
seemingly unbidden.
Quality Circle Leadership
The Quality Circle team leader provides the minimal structure necessary for the
team to accomplish its tasks in a reportable fashion. The initial charter of
the group and its authority to address the introductory issues is explained.
The leader makes sure that one member undertakes the essential record-keeping
function at each meeting, so agreements, action item assignments and due dates
are recorded.
Another member may be asked to pay attention to time expended on topics, with
respect to agenda. The leader also should maintain pursuit of team purpose and
have the scribe record interesting deviations for addressing at another time or
by another more appropriate team.
At a minimum, chairpersons or leaders of Quality Circles or Work Function Teams
should be trained as thoroughly as first level supervisors. A necessary skill
to develop is that of integrating the raw ideas generated by Quality Circle
team members into useful intelligence for development of alternative solutions.
Part of this skill is knowing how to tailor the flood of information such that
more of it is usable within the problem at hand. Another part is knowing how to
ask questions that disconfirm hypotheses that would later prove incorrect. The
final part is knowing that conflict between ideas is to be encouraged; that
friendly debate helps to generate additional alternatives and to further the
group consensus; that teams provide the broader, overall perspective that
individual's lack.
Team leaders should learn to require that estimates be stated in confidence
levels and ranges, to test solution hypotheses for merit and to present
differences of team member opinion without bias to the steering committee in
progress reports.
The fact that expert opinion is divided on a particular issue is valuable
information because lack of dissent may conceal and encourage an erroneous
opinion.
Process team leaders must be aware that it takes time for members to whom the
CIP/TQM concept is new to adjust to being respected and listened to rather than
just being told what to do. A few successful trials are necessary to convince
the wary. Crediting the team with successes helps bring out everyone's
contributions.
The team leader must be careful to prevent the differences from harming the
group process, however, by being diplomatic and caring for feelings of all
members. The leader may have to tell the team members that failure to bring
about a common understanding of the problem could lead to a less desirable
final result. Team leaders should encourage a bargaining process to trade off
the various sub-group interests with the goal of arriving at eventual consensus.
A business team is everyone involved in the chain from creation of an idea to
delivery of the product or service. It includes suppliers and customers who may
not be directly represented on the formal team, so someone should be appointed
each meeting to represent those perspectives.
When consensus is difficult to obtain, postpone the deadline rather than
accept an agreement based solely on meeting the goal. Following continued
failure to obtain consensus, the team leader may become an arbitrator to force
resolution of conflict.
Generally, the team leader's job is discovering where the group wishes to go
and to help it get there. This does not mean that compromise should be the
normal result, because the winning side usually will need the unconditional
support and acceptance of responsibility from some of the team members for
implementation of solutions.
A compromise solution without consensus will lack wholehearted support from
anyone.
Those who insist on trying always to win should be counseled regarding the
ultimate benefit to the organization from occasionally gracefully losing.
Remember that small mistakes are to be treated as opportunities to learn.
Finally, the team leader job isn't always or usually easy, requiring listening
and accommodation to keep the group from becoming a responsibility-avoiding
traditional committee.
Training of circle leaders should include facilitator methods for encouraging
idea generation and mediating negotiations between opponents in a group, but
not methods for remaining apart from the problem.
Circle leaders are full-fledged team members, although they must guide and
teach. To avoid being perceived as the authority, they should wait until most
other opinion has been offered before presenting theirs. They should know how
to employ cause and effect (Ishikawa) diagrams, check sheets, graphs, and to
use simple statistics as the basic tools (with understanding of when such data
is appropriate).
Of course, the approved decision methodology is a new basic tool.
Training should include emphasis on effective ways to quickly teach the essence
of CIP/TQM, such as the precept that failure to implement authorized
improvements is considered irresponsible.
Merely meeting work standards is not enough. Team leaders should learn to
prioritize problems by how much each costs the company, to separate the vital
few from the trivial many.
Tracking down the source, rather than addressing the symptoms, of noncomformances
and taking action to prevent their recurrence is the charter of all circle
members.
Management in CIP/TQM
Effectiveness of the Continuous Improvement Process/Total Quality Management
concept requires that every manager not just understand and accept, but
psychologically internalize the cultural behavior involved. All managers must
accept that their personal managerial skills are just as imperfect and subject
to the concepts of continual improvement as virtually everything else.
This is not to suggest that judgments of experienced managers are not extremely
valuable, but to remind them that underlying personal biases and assumptions
need to be continually verified for propriety under current conditions.
Providing the appropriate company culture for effective adoption requires that
knowledge and individual acceptance of the CIP/TQM be diffused throughout the
company. Therefore, training in the CIP/TQM should be top-down, complete with
follow-on training and associated performance appraisal, as a key item for
maintaining involvement by all employees in the company's cultural change
toward continuous improvement.
Fundamental to implementing the CIP/TQM philosophy is widespread managerial
understanding of exactly what the company business really is, what it is to be
"known for" to the world at large, along with what plans are in place
to achieve specific priority objectives in line with the guiding vision. The
strategy may be emergent and evolving from interplay of the various stakeholders
in the business or deliberate, from top executive intent to fulfill the vision.
When a manager clearly knows what the relationship of the company is to the
inside and outside world, from employee to potential customer and community to
world, company philosophy and operating strategy can be internalized.
When company strategic goals are that well known, CIP/TQM objectives are
automatic and can be generated for all circumstances without spending a lot of
time wallowing in detailed planning whose close monitoring and reporting
interferes with work performance because each variance requires a new detailed
plan.
The objectives must be stated in such a way that everyone will know when any
one of them has been accomplished. This philosophy is transferrable to employees
at all levels as well, via the corporate culture, so their understanding of
general organization objectives and performance measures also is automatic and
clear. Department and division strategies are all will remain in accord with
the overall adaptive strategy. Every manager and every key employee then knows
where, when, and how the organization will compete and how their strategy
differs from behavior expected of competitor executives. All their ideas and
decisions are then made within the total situational context, which certainly
should contribute more to success than working in the dark.
Such internalization of the philosophy cannot occur within an autocratic form
of management, because it requires substantial trust in all employees.
Middle managers may not like being treated as "just another troop,"
but that is the new reality. It is just like glasnost and perestroika
in the former Soviet Union, with an old guard fighting the change to no avail
beyond temporary blockage. If they do succeed in restoring their old power, the
country (company) dies.
So, the following solution may seem radical only at first glance:
Top management in companies should treat managers who are addicted to their
power and perks much as users of mind-altering controlled substances should be
treated today by the federal government.
That is, such power-addicted managers should be required to undergo mandatory
counseling and continued periodic testing to assure that no backsliding has
occurred, on pain of certain job loss.
In that vein, continued failure to empower subordinates in any meaningful
fashion beyond buzzwords emission is evidence of a manager's unbroken addiction
to personal power and is a strong indication of the necessity for extraordinary
punitive measures with public revelation of the cause.
As long as they exist in the organization structure, managers necessarily are
part of the quality improvement team and cannot be outsiders. Nevertheless,
heed this repeated warning:
A manager should avoid assuming any position of authority in a process
improvement team made up primarily of direct subordinates.
Otherwise, all members suddenly "know" how to behave and ideas will
be evaluated more in accordance with the organizational rank or perceived
political standing of their source than with their intrinsic merit. The highest
ranking individual soon becomes the dispenser of all important decisions.
Managers in such teams must act as no better than peers and accept being
addressed as just another person whose ideas are probably worth considering.
Disagreement, when the organization's interests are involved, is not
disloyalty. Their former role of coordinator is gone as well. They must
accept being challenged by subordinates and possibly subjected to ridicule in
the heat of group discussions. They should immediately admit when they don't
know something. That may not be pleasant, but the ultimate rewards are worth it
to the company. It is a powerful sign of respect for the troops to treat them
as equal contributors to decision consensus.
The employees will become the temporary natural leaders when their expertise
fits the problem at hand. When they are no longer the most knowledgeable
person for the task, another natural leader emerges. When managers are too
enamored of their privileges of rank, they don't belong in a CIP/TQM team.
If top management truly wants to change the company culture to a fully
supportive CIP/TQM environment, recognition that such middle managers don't
belong anywhere within the organization as managers should become widely
and clearly perceivable to all as the aftermath discussions confirm the rumors.
Managers should learn to help subordinates identify problems in their work
environment and become competent to assist their training. A can-do attitude
and follow-through are critical. Avoid postponing even informal meetings to
provide help and to remove obstacles to performance, which eliminates excuses
for failure. When failures happen, learn from them. Provide everything from a
sense of mission to resources.
Some workers need only to be left alone to do the job, but that may mean
diverting their lower priority tasks to others. Doing that certainly
makes your priorities clear to all. Attend to the process, once goals are
defined, and let the results take care of themselves.
When managers make it plain that communications will be open without violating
confidentiality, that skepticism by anyone may be openly expressed, and that
candor is required (in brief, that empowerment is real), the groundwork is well
laid for building trust between management and workers. Managers should know
that workers will evaluate such communications as less open than managers will
and may express criticism.
Defensiveness here will close channels and reduce building of trust. Further,
avoid scolding or threatened punishment for mistakes if you want the immediate
and full disclosure of problems so the underlying causes may be found. Avoid
disciplinary action for false alarms or mistakes where the intent was to
prevent a quality problem. You don't want people to stop trying to succeed.
Intolerance of failure means taking actions to cause success.
"Killing the messenger" effectively delays and may even prevent
discovery of the best solution. Perhaps the goal was incorrect. Taking risks is
the price that all pay who intend to contribute.
The door to trust is closed completely when management rewards substantial
productivity enhancements with layoffs to enhance immediate profits rather than
awaiting normal attrition. Using the performance review system to substantiate
the usual concept of organizational winners and losers also is counterproductive.
The atmosphere of trust within the common culture facilitates reaching the
depth of understanding (the knowledge of what affects their contributions)
necessary for all competent employees to make better decisions and to
participate fully in determining the future of the company. Managers usually
underestimate the competence of even their best employees.
In one area, the CIP/TQM approach and the Management By Objectives (MBO)
approach are in full agreement. That is, you set the priorities and establish
who will do what, where they will do it, when and how it will be done. Why it
must be done was established as the priority was assigned. Just as in MBO, you
determine the gap between where you are now and where you want to be and devise
the means to narrow and close it.
The major difference is that within the CIP/TQM approach you are likely to be
under review of your peers on the team, rather than being subordinate to an
immediate manager. You are trusted to do the right things. This means
that formal budgets and schedules are less desirable because of their potential
for misuse as a substitute for more important project knowledge. Implementation
should be divided into logical stages, with clear milestones for completion of
each stage, so task accomplishment may be planned into the normal workload for
those responsible. Each step should be reviewed before commencing the next step,
in sequential operations.
Executive Functions in CIP/TQM
The function of the CIP/TQM Director and the immediately underlying
organization is not to do total quality activities, but to make sure that all
other organizations in the company become and remain total quality-conscious.
Total quality policy deployment and its day-to-day management begins here.
Accordingly, the individual selected for this executive position should be
respected and trusted by middle management, but not just marking time to
retirement. Evangalism regarding CIP/TQM then will not be immediately suspect
or discounted as a passing fad.
Acceptance of the underlying philosophy comes much more from consistent
persuasion than from commands.
Accordingly, resist detailed policy manuals that the CIP/TQM opponents can use
to slow its adoption through literal rather than intended interpretation.
Choice of words, analogies, and metaphors used by executives and managers
therefore is quite important in this regard.
Executives should be able to explain the quality policy with the same
interpretation as the president and the CIP/TQM Director. The words need not be
exactly the same, but the meaning should be essentially identical to those
receiving the messages.
This suggests holding an executive level briefing session to clear up any
possible misunderstandings through explanations which develop a consistent
voice that fosters acceptance and minimizes self-serving interpretations.
The quality policies should be in line with the idea that if management
concerns shift from attention to the bottom line to broad concern with benefits
of quality improvement to society, it ultimately strongly benefits the company.
None of this will work, however, if middle management attention to quality and
process is outranked by their reward for autocratic behavior and attention to
cost and schedules. The organizational incentives must support the desired
change because the forces of resistance to change always exist.
All executives should be able to identify the major contributors to product
quality, as seen by other executives in related industries as well as both
internal and external customers, and their current and likely future
competitive position in that regard. They should understand their competitor's
choices as well as their own options. They should understand the critical
nature of product liability issues and insist on being privy to relevant
information. The financial and high performance people resources of the company
must shift to match the stated objectives of implementing innovations. Products
determined to be nearing their end of profit generating life should undergo
euthenasia to free up such resources. (Perhaps even earlier.)
Accordingly, the quality information channels must be designed to operate
horizontally, across departments or divisions, as well as vertically toward
the CIP/TQM Director.
Executives should be able to identify some opportunities for key improvements
in products, for hard-to-copy improvements in the manufacturing processes, for
advantageous market positioning, for reductions in the various costs of non-
conformance, and for feasible improvements in allocation of human resources.
Executives should be aware of any unexpected successes, as a subset of problems
they are monitoring. Change should be more proactive and anticipatory than
reactive, at the strategic level. Subordinates must become involved in
implementing the vision. Support for R&D should, therefore, be much higher than
is typical for old-style organizations. Tomorrow's products in response to
an opportunity must be in development today.; Executives should understand
that problems always have plural solutions, if sufficiently analyzed, from
which the most feasible can be selected.
Executives should learn how to perform a CIP/TQM audit, perhaps by performing
the second audit as part of a team led by the President and an outside
advisor.
The audit should be total, rather than restricted to each separate operating
division of the company, and may uncover activities that are not part of a
division's charter and goals. While performing the audit task, they cannot help
learning exactly what are the company capabilities and limitations with regard
to manufacturable product quality. They likely will discover something that
currently is not a problem but which has great potential to become one. They
may discover serious problems such as flawed company policies and inappropriate
goals.
The audit tasks get them out of the office and in touch with the company as it
responds to changes in the business climate. With that knowledge, their
contribution to quality policy development and goals priority setting should
become virtually unimpeachable. Preparation for their smooth ascendancy toward
the desired CEO responsibilities could not be much better, if that is among their
personal goals.
Expression of executive level commitment must include approval of critical
funding that goes for broke, because implementing CIP/TQM has start-up costs
that do not contribute immediately to the company bottom line. Underspending
can be fatal to adoption and to ability to break past the inevitable plateaus
in rate of improvement. Concurrent Engineering (see that tutorial) helps, when
the bean counters allow more up-front and parallel activity to do things a bit
closer to right the first time and soon enough to affect the development time.
When management obviously approves spending the necessary hours and appears to
recognize that workers closest to the job are usually the true experts, work
process teams will begin to make significant improvements. General employee
morale is improved, as discussions are more often based on the facts and
figures in a problem-solving environment.
Along with enhancing the employee relations, because an increasing percentage
sees themselves as paid to think, many of these changes will increase company
profits by reducing expenses. Few of today's contracts are on a cost plus fee
basis, so reducing costs can be critical to ongoing company survival. Adoption
of CIP/TQM should more than pay for the effort.
As workers continue to contribute their small improvements and become more
skilled at thinking about their work processes, their suggestions for change
become more fundamental, profound and effective. A great mental capacity is
provided by teams of workers who understand the purpose and goals of their
organization, along with the policy decisions. Formerly hidden talents are
allowed to emerge. Mistakes, either of commission or omission, become fewer.
With a multitude of minds everywhere at work on similar goals, cumulative
improvements inevitably are greater and more lasting than the few spectacular
successes in major breakthroughs from paradigm shifts that dedicated high-level
teams may accomplish. One of the keys to success for the approach is that none
should care who gets the credit, including the boss. You want to get the job
done, which may mean setting the ego aside for the duration. Such dedicated
teams are seldom formed or funded, however, although even semi-permanent
quality circles have been known to produce breakthrough ideas.
Keeping the quality vision going is an executive responsibility. One means
participating in teaching the courses. Another is to require that all new
employees have an approximate peer (equal in the hierarchy or one level either
way) as a sponsor for explanation of the company CIP/TQM philosophy and
strategic mission. The object is to convert new employees into solid
contributors to organizational objectives as quickly as possible by showing
them how the company vision is applied and imparting the concept that:
Part of being a "professional" is making sure that the company
for which you worked can be assessed as being better off for your having been
there.
What Can Go Wrong
Embracing a philosophy of continual improvement enhances a company's long-term
survivability. Although the initial adoption and training costs may slightly
hurt the immediate bottom line, for a period depending on company size and
intensity of the initial application, the breakeven point could be within a
year or so. Unfortunately, that is not likely.
More frequently, the natural tendency by middle managers to resist changes that
appear to reduce their assumed authority (because individual employees are
empowered by implementation of CIP/TQM) will lengthen the probable time span
for effective adoption to several years or actually put it off indefinitely.
Employee participation becomes a facade or farce (form without substance) when
managerial support for implementation of their ideas is withheld or is
requested with insufficient fervor.
When management decides all terms of worker participation or coopts the ideas
that are implemented, cynicism is the inevitable result. Even when the team is
credited with successes, their activity may be limited by rules restricting
team time to consideration of improving internal or external customer
satisfaction and reductions in process time, product defects, or company
bureaucracy. The ground rules for team participation and scope of effort will
exclude their consideration of employee physical environment and such.
(Evidently workers cannot really be trusted and will turn the company into a
non-productive playpen if not constrained.)
Further evidence of top management distrust in employees is continuance of the
old messages, "Trust us," "Be tolerant of our mistakes even if
we don't return the favor," and, "although we won't explain much of
it to you, we have good reasons for doing to you what we are doing so accept it
with good grace." Unfortunately for those holding on to their last
vestiges of autocratic managerial power, trust must be extended to be
obtained and retained.
Employee perceptions of the company climate are subject to change when elements
of that climate are changed without their assistance. Negative changes in pay,
benefits, management style, work environment, or product affects their interest
in positive participation beyond that minimum necessary for job retention.
Being allowed to vote on preferences regarding changes to the climate is
neither participation nor assistance. Before applying such reductions in
climate, it is best to obtain employee concurrence at a level commensurate with
participation. The employee should have some grounds for belief that improved
work will benefit its provider as well as the company.
CIP/TQM adoption failure probably is caused by some form of management failure.
Most often, middle management is the key to the problem, because top management
sees the need for the change and workers want it when they learn about
empowerment. They don't see the changes as anything but good if they don't fear
assuming the responsibility. Middle managers often are stuck back at perceiving
their power as a zero-sum game and do all in their power to avoid losing any.
That is how they got where they are and how they intend to stay there. The
paradigm has yet to shift enough to convince them that any other course will
work.
Some middle managers attend CIP/TQM training but are not interested or think it
is unnecessary. Some may believe it is being applied when only the superficial
aspects of Quality Circles, reports and paperwork are in place.
Only when the company top management leads and drives the cultural
change by teaching the vision, extends the necessary trust, and CIP/TQM becomes
the prevailing "religion," will the inevitable trend change to
becoming ever more competitive and profitable. Product quality will become
designed and built-in, rather than "inspected and reworked" in and
maintenance of that quality will never become subject to compromise by cost
improvement efforts. Even innovators in the early stages of knowledge based
products must do it right the first time from the customer's perspective and
attend to management basics because the competition is already in place.
CIP/TQM is a management tool that must be understood fully and employed
properly or it will cost more than it returns. Good management of its
implementation will provide the payoff.
CIP/TQM in Small Businesses
For sole proprieterships, partnerships and small businesses with few employees,
responsiveness to customer requirements is the essence of their survival. They
cannot lose sight of their market segment, what they produce, and how that
earns the profit. They must apply resources economically and stick to their
basic business. Quality should be their way of life because customers remember
it long after they have forgotten the price. Nevertheless, keeping the
fundamental concepts in mind when making decisions may provide an additional
competitive edge over time.
The two fundamental concepts are: First, that quality is fulfilling the
customer requirement with a product or service. Second, that continuous
improvement means taking each nearly right step further along the path toward
exactly right. Keep in mind that exactly right is dynamic rather than static.
If you have any questions on this tutorial subject, please contact the author as
listed below. A response will occur and a FAQs section may result.
This tutorial is presented by:
Optants Documented Decision Support Co.
(ODDSCO)
297 Casitas Bulevar
Los Gatos, CA 95032-1119
(408) 379-6448 FAX: (Same, by arrangement)
www.optants.com
E-mail:
Tutorial Author: jonesjh@optants.com
Other subjects: consult@optants.com