What do you think?
Rate this book
La qualité sans larmes
The author's objective is to show managers how to build quality into all aspects of a company's operations thereby lowering costs, increasing sales, and boosting profits and do all this without the typical bureaucratic controls and procedures that merely hassle people without producing the desired results. Real situation and amusing fictional case histories are used to demonstrate that problems of quality and hassle are caused by management action.
241 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
9 people are currently reading
192 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 27, 2014
this is was my 1st book review :) it was a great experience and great days at AUS (THANKS FOR MY GREAT MENTOR DR. HOSSAM EL ZEBMELY)& here was my review:
*summary:
The book is talking about 2 main principles
1-Hassle free organization is possible.
2-The principle of ZD.
3- The main obstacle to improvement is the stubbornness of management.
Philip uses analytical, chronological &descriptive approaches to reach his ideas.
To know how to eliminate hassle, we have 1st need to know what is meant by hassle & to recognize the organizations with hassle & know the causes of this hassle then to provide the cure.
Philip defined hassle as: the unnecessary difficulties or harassment placed into the path of someone trying to do reasonable thing.
He talks about the symptoms of any organization that has troubles:
1- The outgoing product or service normally contains deviations from the published, announced, or agreed-upon requirements
2- The company has an extensive field service or dealer network skilled in the work and resourceful corrective action to keep the customers satisfied
3- Management does not provide a clear performance standard or definition of quality, so the employees each develop their own
4- Management does not know the price of nonconformance
5- Management denies that it is the cause of the problem
One of the causes of hassle is demotivation which is may be due to:
- The thoughtless & unconcerned way they are dealt with.
- The performance review & dishonest evaluation.
- Expense accounts.
- Unnecessary meetings.
A “hassle” company is one in which management and employees are not on the same side
While
The hassle free company is one which has all employees are together and there are no sides
To dehassle forever, it is necessary to change the company’s culture, to eliminate the causes that produce nonconforming products and service
For an organization to go through the dehassling business which is a process & not a program; it should be vaccinated against non-conformance.it can be provided with antibodies that will prevent hassle. Some of these antibodies are managerial actions & some are procedural.
To administer the vaccine continually to the corporation body requires a strategy that contains 3 distinct management actions:
1- Determination: evolves when the members of a management team decide that they have had enough & are not going to take it anymore. They recognize that their action is the only tool the will change the profile of the organization.
Organization Showing NOT much improvement has following characteristics:
Effort is called a program rather than a process (process – never finishes & requires constant attention).
All effort is aimed at the lower level of the organization.
Training material is prepared by the training function.
Management is impatient for results. Managers just lay back and wait for results. It brings everything to slowdown
Not enough to look & act determined. Subject we are being determined about has to be clear in the minds of all involved
The 4 absolutes of quality management:
1st absolute:
The definition of quality is conformance to requirements not as goodness & it is built on DRIFT (do it right 1st time) where it is the requirements.
Talking the requirements seriously is the 1st act in improvement.
Three basic tasks to be performed by Management here:
Establish requirements that employees are to meet
Supply whatever employees need to meet requirements
Spend all time encouraging and helping employees to meet those requirements
2nd absolute:
The system of quality is prevention not appraisal.
Appraisal (checking, inspection, testing, etc.) is always done after the fact &an expensive & unreliable way of getting quality.
‘Prevention’ is something we know how to do it if we understand our process.
Secret of prevention – ‘look at the process & identify opportunities for error’
3rd absolute:
Performance standard is ZD, not that's close enough.
Causes of Mistakes: Lack of knowledge & Lack of attention.
Lack of attention is attitude problem, which must be corrected by person himself through reappraisal of his moral values.
Error is function of importance that a person places on specific things.
People will perform to the standard they are given, provided they understand it.
4th absolute:
Measurement of quality is the ‘price of nonconformance’.
Main problem of quality as a management concern is that it is not taught in Management’s schools due to Quality is never looked at in financial terms the everything else is.
Cost of Quality divided into:
PONC – All expenses involved in doing things wrong {Represent 20% of sales in Manufacturing & 30% of operating costs in Service companies}.
POC – What’s necessary to spend to make things right, which includes quality functions, prevention effort, quality education. {Represents 3-4% of sales}.
2- Education: is the process of helping all employees have a common language, understand their individual roles in the improvement process & have the special knowledge available to handle antibody creation.
The overall educational aspect requires executive education, management education & employee education.
The entire education process can be summarized in the "6C's" comprehension, commitment, competence, communication, correction & continuance.
3- Implementation: is guiding the flow of improvement along the "yellow brick road"
The process of installing quality improvement is a journey that never ends & it is made up of 14 steps:
1. Management commitment. This requires a specific management policy on quality. Quality must be the first item on the agenda at every regular status meeting. The manager must carry a speech on quality in his head and deliver it at every opportunity.
Team Actions:
2. The quality improvement team. "The purpose of the team is to guide the process and help it along.
3. Measurement. Is just a habit of seeing how we are going along? The real hassle begins when no one knows how well you are really doing.
4. Cost of quality. To determine the cost of quality, be sure you are measuring the same thing all the time, throughout the company. The tendency is for each area to try to limit its cost.
5. Quality awareness. Awareness must begin at the management level: "When conformance to requirements becomes part of the lexicon of the company, then it begins to take effect." Must be adapted to the culture of the company & it's not just making publications & promotions; it's spreading information.
6. Corrective action.
Real purpose is to identify and eliminate problems forever.
Corrective action systems have to be based on:
Data that show what the problems are &
Analysis that show the causes of the problems
Team Executions:
7. Zero Defects planning: The ZD’s commitment represents a major step forward in the thrust and longevity of the Quality management process
8. Employee education
9. Zero Defects Day. It's a time to show all people face to face that management is serious.
10. Goal-setting. Measurement leads directly to goal setting. "The ultimate goal, of course, is Zero Defects" but intermediate goals are necessary to move you in that direction. Ideally, the group chooses the goals and follows its progress on a chart.
11. Error-cause removal. People simply state what problems they are having.
12. Recognition. Very few organizations recognize their good performers. The most valuable recognition comes as a result of peer judgment.
13. Quality councils. Quality professionals get together to learn from each other and to support the improvement process.
14. Do it all over again.
As quality improvement becomes more and more an enduring way of life, as it becomes the culture of the company, the process gains speed and permanence.
To drive his philosophy, Crosby supports his own concepts using an imaginary case study:
In "A Quality Carol," Emory Spellman falls asleep on a bus. A spirit appears and takes him to see his deceased partner. The partner is repairing thousands of defective items that their company has made.
This is punishment...
For being the cause of the hassle other people had to live with. For not preventing these things by being interested in quality.
The apparition warns him:
Unless you change your ways of treating quality, you are going to wind up right next to the apparition, forever and ever, twenty-four hours a day. No time off, no visitors, no meetings ---- just all the problems you ever caused.
Predictably, three more visitors appear.
Quality Past is a former college professor who wants to retract something he had taught Emory. The misinformed lesson was to cut corners on quality.
Quality Present appears as a woman who tries to sell him on the quality vaccine. Failing in that, she brings Emory's customers to him through a television screen. One after another comes into view with a litany of complaints about the company's products and services.
When Quality Future enters, Emory finally sees the light. The final and most portentous visitor is a "severe looking person carrying a briefcase and dressed in a black three-piece suit." He has just bought the company from a bankruptcy court.
Emory returns later in the book and applies Crosby's methods to avert that fate.
*some success stories:
Philip lists some organizations that did a great improvement in these aspects:
Cost of quality
Paper work
Data entry errors
Defect reductions
*critics:
The concept of ZD has received criticism but has the positive site to it too.
Humans are not perfect and zero defects aren't about perfection. It’s about every employee's commitment and understanding that processes must constantly be improved, and that defective systems must be reworked and reorganized from the top down.
With a zero defects in mind, each defect is given great deal of attention and traced to its root cause, and each cause is prevented till we are sure that we have completely eliminated the problem.
Quality Guru Deming believed that slogans like "Zero Defects" are actually counterproductive and may deemphasize the culture and tools associated with continuous improvement.
Since Defects vary in size and severity, not all defects are bad. Some defect actually throw light on some process improvement never thought of before. Zero defects may also mean that all defects are bad and counterproductive if not explained well. It may not leave time for continuous improvement to occur.
Zero Defects has its advantages and disadvantages. It should be carefully evaluated given an industry or case. It may apply and produce outstanding results for some and it may be counterproductive for other cases.
*conclusion:
At the end the ideas of the book are so interesting & stimulate thinking & however I didn't agree totally with the concept of ZD, I think the book contains a lot of useful facts & concepts so I recommend it.
*summary:
The book is talking about 2 main principles
1-Hassle free organization is possible.
2-The principle of ZD.
3- The main obstacle to improvement is the stubbornness of management.
Philip uses analytical, chronological &descriptive approaches to reach his ideas.
To know how to eliminate hassle, we have 1st need to know what is meant by hassle & to recognize the organizations with hassle & know the causes of this hassle then to provide the cure.
Philip defined hassle as: the unnecessary difficulties or harassment placed into the path of someone trying to do reasonable thing.
He talks about the symptoms of any organization that has troubles:
1- The outgoing product or service normally contains deviations from the published, announced, or agreed-upon requirements
2- The company has an extensive field service or dealer network skilled in the work and resourceful corrective action to keep the customers satisfied
3- Management does not provide a clear performance standard or definition of quality, so the employees each develop their own
4- Management does not know the price of nonconformance
5- Management denies that it is the cause of the problem
One of the causes of hassle is demotivation which is may be due to:
- The thoughtless & unconcerned way they are dealt with.
- The performance review & dishonest evaluation.
- Expense accounts.
- Unnecessary meetings.
A “hassle” company is one in which management and employees are not on the same side
While
The hassle free company is one which has all employees are together and there are no sides
To dehassle forever, it is necessary to change the company’s culture, to eliminate the causes that produce nonconforming products and service
For an organization to go through the dehassling business which is a process & not a program; it should be vaccinated against non-conformance.it can be provided with antibodies that will prevent hassle. Some of these antibodies are managerial actions & some are procedural.
To administer the vaccine continually to the corporation body requires a strategy that contains 3 distinct management actions:
1- Determination: evolves when the members of a management team decide that they have had enough & are not going to take it anymore. They recognize that their action is the only tool the will change the profile of the organization.
Organization Showing NOT much improvement has following characteristics:
Effort is called a program rather than a process (process – never finishes & requires constant attention).
All effort is aimed at the lower level of the organization.
Training material is prepared by the training function.
Management is impatient for results. Managers just lay back and wait for results. It brings everything to slowdown
Not enough to look & act determined. Subject we are being determined about has to be clear in the minds of all involved
The 4 absolutes of quality management:
1st absolute:
The definition of quality is conformance to requirements not as goodness & it is built on DRIFT (do it right 1st time) where it is the requirements.
Talking the requirements seriously is the 1st act in improvement.
Three basic tasks to be performed by Management here:
Establish requirements that employees are to meet
Supply whatever employees need to meet requirements
Spend all time encouraging and helping employees to meet those requirements
2nd absolute:
The system of quality is prevention not appraisal.
Appraisal (checking, inspection, testing, etc.) is always done after the fact &an expensive & unreliable way of getting quality.
‘Prevention’ is something we know how to do it if we understand our process.
Secret of prevention – ‘look at the process & identify opportunities for error’
3rd absolute:
Performance standard is ZD, not that's close enough.
Causes of Mistakes: Lack of knowledge & Lack of attention.
Lack of attention is attitude problem, which must be corrected by person himself through reappraisal of his moral values.
Error is function of importance that a person places on specific things.
People will perform to the standard they are given, provided they understand it.
4th absolute:
Measurement of quality is the ‘price of nonconformance’.
Main problem of quality as a management concern is that it is not taught in Management’s schools due to Quality is never looked at in financial terms the everything else is.
Cost of Quality divided into:
PONC – All expenses involved in doing things wrong {Represent 20% of sales in Manufacturing & 30% of operating costs in Service companies}.
POC – What’s necessary to spend to make things right, which includes quality functions, prevention effort, quality education. {Represents 3-4% of sales}.
2- Education: is the process of helping all employees have a common language, understand their individual roles in the improvement process & have the special knowledge available to handle antibody creation.
The overall educational aspect requires executive education, management education & employee education.
The entire education process can be summarized in the "6C's" comprehension, commitment, competence, communication, correction & continuance.
3- Implementation: is guiding the flow of improvement along the "yellow brick road"
The process of installing quality improvement is a journey that never ends & it is made up of 14 steps:
1. Management commitment. This requires a specific management policy on quality. Quality must be the first item on the agenda at every regular status meeting. The manager must carry a speech on quality in his head and deliver it at every opportunity.
Team Actions:
2. The quality improvement team. "The purpose of the team is to guide the process and help it along.
3. Measurement. Is just a habit of seeing how we are going along? The real hassle begins when no one knows how well you are really doing.
4. Cost of quality. To determine the cost of quality, be sure you are measuring the same thing all the time, throughout the company. The tendency is for each area to try to limit its cost.
5. Quality awareness. Awareness must begin at the management level: "When conformance to requirements becomes part of the lexicon of the company, then it begins to take effect." Must be adapted to the culture of the company & it's not just making publications & promotions; it's spreading information.
6. Corrective action.
Real purpose is to identify and eliminate problems forever.
Corrective action systems have to be based on:
Data that show what the problems are &
Analysis that show the causes of the problems
Team Executions:
7. Zero Defects planning: The ZD’s commitment represents a major step forward in the thrust and longevity of the Quality management process
8. Employee education
9. Zero Defects Day. It's a time to show all people face to face that management is serious.
10. Goal-setting. Measurement leads directly to goal setting. "The ultimate goal, of course, is Zero Defects" but intermediate goals are necessary to move you in that direction. Ideally, the group chooses the goals and follows its progress on a chart.
11. Error-cause removal. People simply state what problems they are having.
12. Recognition. Very few organizations recognize their good performers. The most valuable recognition comes as a result of peer judgment.
13. Quality councils. Quality professionals get together to learn from each other and to support the improvement process.
14. Do it all over again.
As quality improvement becomes more and more an enduring way of life, as it becomes the culture of the company, the process gains speed and permanence.
To drive his philosophy, Crosby supports his own concepts using an imaginary case study:
In "A Quality Carol," Emory Spellman falls asleep on a bus. A spirit appears and takes him to see his deceased partner. The partner is repairing thousands of defective items that their company has made.
This is punishment...
For being the cause of the hassle other people had to live with. For not preventing these things by being interested in quality.
The apparition warns him:
Unless you change your ways of treating quality, you are going to wind up right next to the apparition, forever and ever, twenty-four hours a day. No time off, no visitors, no meetings ---- just all the problems you ever caused.
Predictably, three more visitors appear.
Quality Past is a former college professor who wants to retract something he had taught Emory. The misinformed lesson was to cut corners on quality.
Quality Present appears as a woman who tries to sell him on the quality vaccine. Failing in that, she brings Emory's customers to him through a television screen. One after another comes into view with a litany of complaints about the company's products and services.
When Quality Future enters, Emory finally sees the light. The final and most portentous visitor is a "severe looking person carrying a briefcase and dressed in a black three-piece suit." He has just bought the company from a bankruptcy court.
Emory returns later in the book and applies Crosby's methods to avert that fate.
*some success stories:
Philip lists some organizations that did a great improvement in these aspects:
Cost of quality
Paper work
Data entry errors
Defect reductions
*critics:
The concept of ZD has received criticism but has the positive site to it too.
Humans are not perfect and zero defects aren't about perfection. It’s about every employee's commitment and understanding that processes must constantly be improved, and that defective systems must be reworked and reorganized from the top down.
With a zero defects in mind, each defect is given great deal of attention and traced to its root cause, and each cause is prevented till we are sure that we have completely eliminated the problem.
Quality Guru Deming believed that slogans like "Zero Defects" are actually counterproductive and may deemphasize the culture and tools associated with continuous improvement.
Since Defects vary in size and severity, not all defects are bad. Some defect actually throw light on some process improvement never thought of before. Zero defects may also mean that all defects are bad and counterproductive if not explained well. It may not leave time for continuous improvement to occur.
Zero Defects has its advantages and disadvantages. It should be carefully evaluated given an industry or case. It may apply and produce outstanding results for some and it may be counterproductive for other cases.
*conclusion:
At the end the ideas of the book are so interesting & stimulate thinking & however I didn't agree totally with the concept of ZD, I think the book contains a lot of useful facts & concepts so I recommend it.
August 18, 2010
This is an excellent book and a must read for managers. Crosby has listed 14 steps to attaining the Zero Defects. However, this should not be the first read, unless you are already familiar with the concept, tools and techniques of quality management. First you should be reading Quality is Free (by the same author).
I strongly feel that you should believe in the concept of quality or the fact that there is always a scope of improvement in what you do, only then you can progress.
The entire concept of Quality Management is about "excellence in work", which is what is taught by ancient Hindu holy book - Srimad Bhagavad-Gita.
And yes this applies to your personal life as well as work life.
I strongly feel that you should believe in the concept of quality or the fact that there is always a scope of improvement in what you do, only then you can progress.
The entire concept of Quality Management is about "excellence in work", which is what is taught by ancient Hindu holy book - Srimad Bhagavad-Gita.
And yes this applies to your personal life as well as work life.
August 3, 2008
Philip Crosby different than Juran or Deming approaches Quality in a quite pragmatic and practical way, yet disciplined nonetheless. The goal is zero defects and then finding the path to this goal is the tale of the book. Zero defects is non-negotiable. If you do it right the first time, you don't have to do it over again.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews