CROSBY’S QUALITY TREATMENT

Philip Crosby was a graduate of the Western Reserve University in the United States.

After naval service in the Korean War he held a variety of quality control jobs, the first being as

a line inspector. He was a quality manager on the first Pershing missile programme and later

joined ITT, where for 14 years he was Corporate Vice President and Director of Quality. In 1979

Crosby published his most famous book Quality is Free. Following its success he set up Philip

Crosby Associates Incorporated and The Quality College in Florida where he taught

organizations how to manage and improve quality. Crosby published Quality Without Tears in

1984 as well as a string of other management books.

Crosby’s name is associated with two very appealing and powerful ideas. The first is that

quality is free. This very powerful idea is premised on the idea that savings from quality

improvement programmes pay for themselves. The second idea most associated with him is the

notion that errors, failures, waste and delay—all the ‘unquality things’—can be totally eliminated

if the organization has the will. This is his controversial notion of zero defects.

Both ideas are very appealing in education. The idea that quality improvement can pay

for itself and can lead to an elimination of failure, especially if this could mean pupil and student

failure, is one that few institutions can ignore. Crosby, like all the other ‘gurus’, is at great pains

to emphasize that the route to zero defects is a difficult although achievable one. As he has

written, ‘Quality is free. It’s not a gift, but it is free. What costs money are all the unquality

things—all the actions that involve not doing jobs right the first time’.

Crosby’s improvement programme is one of the most practical and detailed guides

available. Unlike Deming’s more philosophical approach, Crosby’s model can be followed as a

plan of action. Crosby was a popular writer and his approach is essentially practical. In Quality Is

Free Crosby outlines his view that a systematic drive for quality will pay for itself. He says that it

is non-conformance problems that lead to scrap, rework, refits, tests and inspection. These are

the costs of quality. Savings come from doing things right. In education, parallels can be seen

with the cost and effort of retake examinations and the generally low success rate associated with

them.

Zero defects

Zero defects are Crosby’s major, but controversial, contribution to thinking on quality. It

is a powerful idea. It is the commitment to success and the elimination of failure. It involves

putting systems in place that ensure that things are always done in the right way first time and

every time. Crosby argues that aiming for zero defects, in a business context, will increase profits

by saving on costs. The impact of quality on the bottom line is what makes Crosby’s model so

attractive. Crosby does not believe in statistically acceptable levels of quality. For Crosby there

is only one standard and that is perfection. His is a pure prevention model, and he believes that it

is possible to remove errors the closer that one gets to zero defects. However, not all

commentators agree with this thesis. For example, Joseph Juran, a critic of Crosby, argues that,

after a certain point, conforming to requirements can actually impose additional costs and as a

result he does not believe that zero defects is an attainable goal.

Zero defects is a concept which is harder to apply to services than to manufacturing. In

services zero defects are desirable, but it is difficult to guarantee fault-free service with so many

opportunities for human error. Nevertheless, zero defects are an important service-industry goal.

It is an idea that ought to have an important echo in education. At its simplest and most powerful

it would mean that all pupils and students would make a success of their education and fulfill

their potential. The task of quality improvement in education would be building the systems and

structures to ensure that this happened. Much stands in the way of zero defects, particularly

norm-referenced examinations which make the goal of zero defects effects an impossibility and a

widely held view that standards can only be maintained by a high degree of failure.

Crosby’s improvement programme

1. Management Commitment:

The essential first step in a quality programme, according to Crosby, is Management

Commitment. This is crucial to the success of any quality initiative. The quality initiative

must be sanctioned and led by senior management. Crosby suggests that this commitment

be communicated in a quality policy statement, which needs to be short, clear and

accessible.

2. Quality Improvement Team :

The second step builds on the commitment with the setting up of a Quality Improvement

Team. Since every function within the organization is a potential contributor to defects

and quality failures, it follows that every part of the organization must participate in the

improvement effort. The Quality Improvement Team has the task of setting and directing

the programme that will be implemented across the organization. This team does not do

all the quality work. The task of implementing improvements is the responsibility of

teams within individual departments. The plan that the Quality Improvement Team draws

up must be accepted and endorsed by senior management. An important task of the

Quality Improvement Team is to decide how to specify quality failure and improvement,

and this leads into Step 3, Quality Measurement.

3. Quality Measurement:

It is important to be able to measure the current and potential non-conformance in such a

manner that it permits objective evaluation and corrective action. The types of

measurement vary between manufacturing and service organizations and, typically, they

include data from inspection and test reports, statistical data, and feedback data from

customers.

4. Cost of Quality:

A major contributor to quality measurement is provided by quantifying The Cost of

Quality. The cost of quality consists of such things as the cost of things going wrong,

rework, scrap, having to do things again, inspection, and testing. It is important to be able

to identify the costs of quality and to put a value on them.

5. Quality Awareness:

It is necessary to raise the awareness of everyone within the organization of the costs of

quality and the need to implement a quality improvement programme. This requires

regular meetings between management and employees to discuss specific problems and

means of overcoming them. Information about the quality programme needs to be

communicated. Crosby does not go for the big-bang approach to introducing quality. He

argues that quality awareness should be low key and linked to a constant stream of

events.

6. Corrective Action:

Once awareness has been raised it is possible to move on to Corrective Action.

Supervisors need to work with staff to eliminate poor quality. A systematic methodology

is required to deal with problems. Crosby suggests setting up a series of task teams with a

carefully constructed agenda for action. Reports of the task teams should be fed up the

chain of command in a regular series of meetings. To decide which problem to tackle first

he suggests applying the Pareto rule. This suggests that 20 per cent of the processes cause

80 per cent of the problems. The biggest problem needs to be tackled first, followed by

the next most important and so on.

7. Zero Defects Planning :

One way of highlighting the improvement process is through Zero Defects Planning. He

argues that a zero defects programme should be introduced and led by the Quality

Improvement Team, which is also responsible for its implementation. Crosby argues that

all staff should sign a formal contract or pledge to work towards zero defects.

8. Supervisor Training:

It is important that all managers understand their role in the improvement process and this

is carried out through a formal training programme. This is particularly important for

staff carrying out crucial middle-management roles.

9. Zero Defects Day:

This is a day-long event that establishes the idea of zero defects and informs employees

that there has been a change. This is essentially a jamboree to highlight and celebrate the

work being carried out on quality and to emphasize the management’s commitment to it.

It has a more serious side, which is staff development.

10. Goal-Setting:

Once the pledges to work towards zero defects have been made and the idea has been

launched on Zero Defects Day, it is important that individual action plans are completed.

The goals which teams set themselves must be specific and measurable. Goal-setting

leads naturally into Error-Cause Removal.

11. Error-Cause Removal:

There needs to be a means by which individual employees can communicate to

management the situations that make the pledges difficult to implement. This is best

achieved by designing a standard form that goes to the appropriate line manager. All such

forms must receive a reply within a particular time period.

12. Recognition:

It is important to appreciate those who participate in the improvement exercises, Crosby

says in his twelfth step, Recognition. People, he argues, do not work for money, and once

their salaries are established something more important takes over. What staff need is

recognition of their achievement and contribution. Crosby argues that the recognition

needs to be linked to previously set goals. The awards can be prizes or certificates.

Recognition, not money, is what is important.

13. Quality Councils:

Crosby’s step 13 is the establishment of Quality Councils. This is an institutional

structure also favored by Juran. It is important to bring the quality professionals together

to decide how problems can best be tackled. Inspectors and quality controllers need a

consistent and professional approach to their work. Part of the role of the Quality Council

is to monitor the effectiveness of the programme and to ensure that the improvement

process continues.

14. Do It Over Again:

The quality programme never ends. Once goals are reached, the programme needs to start

over again.