Quality and Power in the Supply Chain: What Industry does for the Sake of Quality

Quality and Power in the Supply Chain reconciles two divergent worlds for the beleaguered quality manager. The first is that of quality and managerial fads, promoted by quality professionals and the quality 'industry' - with its seminars, certification programs and the pressures of an ever increasing number of international standards, state and national legislation and powerful corporations. The second is a virtual antithesis to this world of mission statements, quality policies, procedures and statistical techniques, and is embodied in the international phenomenon that is the Dilbert (TM) cartoon strip. Across America and Europe millions of ordinary employees revel in the truths that are exposed concerning corporate absurdities and a blind reliance upon acronym-laden quick-fixes.

Here you will find the gap bridged between the vast literature of quality fads (including the recent tranche of international standards) and that more humorous portrayal of these worlds. The origins of today's quality ideology and industry is traced, followed by a description of how the quality profession popularizes, promotes and ultimately benefits from the fads that come and go. Finally it is shown that despite the propaganda of the profession, there is a separate reality to "quality" and that management principles in this field can only ever be a small limiting factor in corporate success.

1 Power and its Impact on Customer Supplier Relation 2 On Registrars and Bureaucratic Power

Part III: The Limits of Quality: Essays on a Separate Reality 3 Thoughts on the Relativity of Quality 4 How Old Can a Company Hope to be? 5 Built to Last for a While 6 On Servicing the Customer 7 Fads, Incompetence, Ignorance and Stupidity

PART III Colbertism and the Dawn of Power in Customer-Supplier Relations 8 Colbertism: The Dawn of Regulatory Practices 9 The Quest for Repeatability 10 Military as Customer and Controller of Subcontractors 11 The Value of Standardization 12 The ISO 9000 Phenomenon and The Privatization of Military Standards 13 Quality Professionalism and the Ideology of Control 14 On The Origin of Procedures 15 Writing Procedures 16 By Way of Conclusion: Dos and Don'ts; Challenges of the 21st Century: General conclusions; For the quality professional; Need to integrate many methods; For companies; Final Thoughts on Don'ts; What to do; How to Simplify?; ISO 9000 Software: No panacea; On quality speak; Teamwork: Another view; Smaller would be better.