Andrew Ryan at Vc Brakes

Sharon Liu 260550894

Professor Robert Tousignant

MGSC 405

08 February 2016

Case Study: Andrew Ryan at VC Brakes

Crossroads Corporation’s execution of the Total Quality Management program is a meaningful and necessary step in changing VC Brakes’ autocratic and unresponsive organization culture, which has hindered the business’s process improvement and led to the organizational dysfunctions. Embracing the value of people’s involvement at all levels associated with the organization, TQM can be an effective method in discovering VC Brakes’ “root cause of challenges in production or design or sales” and responding to the problems in time (Cespedes and Yong 5). However, due to poor implementation, VC Brakes failed to meet its TQM objectives and there was no sign of its being on the right track.

One of the objectives, also as the key step in a successful implementation of TQM, is to manage through leadership. Nonetheless, very few people in leadership positions at VC Brakes responded to the call of TQM positively. James Baynard, who was on the Crossroads TQM advisory group and was capable of leveraging his influence for resources, did not share the value of TQM and showed no support for the activities involved; the senior managers, who were on the TQM Steering Committee and were supposed to provide follow-up execution and support, never held a meeting to “ensure accountability for ideas generated through TQM sessions”(Cespedes and Yong 6); for the middle managers, most of them clearly did not understand the program. For example, one manager questioned about the purpose of TQM and how it fitted into the company’s overall strategy after receiving the training. His confusion showed the lack of effectiveness of the training program in helping middle managers identify the limits in their current management approach and align their own interest with the overall quality improvement. Since the managers in general did not have a clear vision of the organization’s future under TQM, even though some of them applied the quality tools such as quality circles, their old way of ruling over workers and being uncooperative with other departments did not change.

As a result of the failed understanding of TQM at the management level, the objective of involving all employees in problem solving became hard to meet. Even though employees at the bottom level of VC Brakes understood and embraced the TQM concepts through the training session, their attempts in putting the theory into practice were blocked by the middle managers. For example, when a woman at the warehouse raised the problem of the discomfort caused by the standard-issue box cutter, her supervisor did not recognize her efforts in contributing to the productivity improvement, but treated her as a troublemaker. Such treatment only created fear and stopped workers from participating in the TQM program. Therefore, it is impossible to have all people’s involvement in improving quality without managers’ commitment to establish a safe and encouraging environment for idea sharing.

Moreover, Crossroads’ approach at VC Brakes is ineffective in following other TQM principles and meeting the objectives, such as to have a strong customer focus and to relentlessly pursuing quality management. VC Brakes had already lost an important contract with a major retailor due to frequent line stoppages, however, the company did not focus on solving the production challenges that were directly linked to the customer needs and expectations, but excluded its customers from the whole process of the TQM program. Crossroads had designed TQM in a way that aimed to solve too much in a too short period of time. It ignored the fact that the effectiveness of TQM required long and continuous improvement practices, and instead, asked for weekly reports using numerical measures that were not consistent with TQM objectives to track the progress. As a result, the approach did not fit into the unique situation of VC Brakes and only reduced the effectiveness of the TQM program.

As the instructor of TQM, Andrew Ryan did a good job in motivating people at the bottom level of VC Brakes to participate in the TQM program. He established a clear vision of what to expect in the company’s future among the frontline workers and provided guidance on how they can contribute to improve total quality. Encouraged by his leadership and openness, workers started bringing up the problems in the production process and also the recommendations for how to fix them. However, Ryan’s overall approach is ineffective. He failed to persuade the middle managers to adopt the value of the TQM program and gain their support, but only set up the workers’ expectation without the ability to grant their requests. Therefore, workers’ involvement and contributions were not recognized and appreciated. Ryan improved nothing at VC Brakes but lost his credibility and people’s faith in the TQM program.

There are several things that Ryan could have done differently to avoid his current situation. First, he should have well communicated with Baynard and the TQM Steering Committee members to gain shared understanding of TQM objectives to define the long-term vision, translate the objectives to numerical goals, and set up proper strategy and measure. Ryan believed that Baynard would not want to make substantial changes at VC Brakes and was new to the TQM’s concepts. Therefore, Ryan put no effort into improving mutual understanding with Baynard. This was wrong. Ryan might have personal bias against Baynard due to long-term conflicts between engineering and operation departments. Similar to the case that his relationship with Kante got improved after they worked together, Ryan might be able to cooperate with Baynard better if they based their cooperation on the shared purpose of making VC Brakes a better organization. After all, the support of Baynard was the key of the TQM’s success at VC Brakes as Baynard was able to coordinate different departments and manage the TQM Steering Committee. Only with the support of Baynard and other senior managers, the ideas generated through TQM sessions would be taken into execution and so workers’ involvement could lead to a substantial quality improvement.

After gaining the shared understanding and support of Baynard and other senior managers, Ryan should have rallied them to establish a system approach to management, which was to set up strategy and measure that fit into their objectives and goals, and then have the lower level managers to develop their objectives, goals, strategy and measure that catered to the strategy and measure set by the higher level managers. The results of measure should then be included in the managers’ personal evaluation so that managers would align their own interest with the overall improvement of the company. Such approach would encourage the managers to seek for improvement opportunities and to actively engage workers who knew better about the system to identify the defects and solutions. In the example of improving transporting carts for brake pads, if it were the direct manager who sensed the urgency and actively searched for solutions to improve process’s quality, then when the workers came up with the idea of improving carts, the whole process of implementing the ideas would be much faster and more effective. Moreover, the manager would be able to perceive workers’ involvement in a positive light. To increase managers’ awareness of their important roles in TQM practices, Ryan should have brought in direct managers to the training program for workers rather than have grouped people separately according to their level and department. The training program could even be tailored to match the managers’ needs. Such adjustments would provide managers with a strong sense of responsibilities and effectively reduce the mismatch of the program’s vision between workers and managers.