June, (1982), "How To Avoid
Quality Circle Failure in Your Company", Training & Development Journal, 36(6): 54-59.
This study, based on the planned school development model developed to improve schools, aims to define establishment, functioning and problems of school development management teams similar to
quality circles in TQM practices, and to provide recommendations in the light of the findings.
The GTCW grant enabled seven heads of geography from the Wrexham area to meet on three separate occasions, to work through a set of common themes identified in the
Quality Circle meetings.
Though implemented in a variety of forms and often not clearly defined (Wood 1999; Godard and Delaney 2000), these alternative work practices are for present purposes considered to generally include [1] some combination of work re-organization (for example, autonomous work teams, job rotation, and multi-skilling) and formal participatory mechanisms (for example,
quality circles and town hall meetings), often implemented in the context of a quality management, work re-engineering, or lean production program, and supported by performance-based pay systems.
Statistical process control (SPC) and
Quality Circles (QC) are integral parts of the TQM philosophy.
The total team hours per employee invested in
quality circle and quality breakthrough team activities from 1986 through early 1995 showed extreme variation -- with a mean of 402 and a standard deviation of 444 -- ranging from less than a single hour in one county to more than 1,600 hours in another.
The earlier part of the investigation, which consisted mainly of a literature survey, revealed that
quality circle programmes are the best means of obtaining and utilizing human knowledge, which is possessed by all levels of a manufacturing firm, for continuous quality improvement[14-21].
A Study of
Quality Circle Failures, Occasional Papers in Management Sciences, UMIST, Paper No.
Battling to reconstruct its industry and for a place in world markets, with a reputation for shoddy and cheap goods, Japanese
Quality Circle activity -- contrary to many western observers -- was not concerned with working conditions.
Companies can use
quality circle meetings to obtain detailed knowledge of employees' union sentiments and to manipuIate group processes to intimidate and isolate union supporters during organizing drives (Grenier, 1988).
This includes a list of reasons why the
quality circle chose this problem, a Pareto diagram (which shows key factors contributing to the problem), and specific goals for the team's activities.
Big Y employees can earn degrees that mirror those of a traditional university by completing five Cornell courses relevant to their position and
Quality Circle (QC) Leader Training.
