about crosby
- Crosby is another of the American quality gurus who rose to international fame mainly thanks to his teachings on quality management.
- He is best known for the concepts of ‘Zero Defects’ and ‘Do it right first time’.
- He has authored many books, including “Quality is Free”, “Quality without Tears”, and “Let’s talk Quality and Leading: The art of becoming an Executive”.
- He was the founder and chairman of the board of Career IV, an executive management consulting firm. He also founded Philip Crosby Associates Inc. and the Quality college.
Crosby’s Contributions
Crosby is known for his following contributions:
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1.Crosby’s Absolutes for Quality Management
Crosby proposed four absolutes of quality for his quality improvement process. They are presented in Table 1.1.
| First Absolute: The definition of quality is conformance to requirements, not goodness. |
| Second Absolute: The system for causing quality is preventive, not- appraisal. |
| Third Absolute: The performance standard must be zero defect, not “that’s close enough”. |
| Fourth Absolute: The measurement of quality is the price of non- conformance, not indexes. |
2. Crosby’s Fourteen Steps for Quality Improvement
Crosby has laid down 14 steps for implementing the quality improvement process in an organisation. His 14 steps are presented in Table 1.2.
Table 1.2. Crosby’s 14 steps for quality improvement
| Step 1: Establish and ensure management commitment. |
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Step 2: Form quality improvement teams (QITs) for quality improvement process planning and administration.
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| Step 3: Establish quality measurements. |
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Step 4: Evaluate the cost of quality and explain its use as a management tool to measure waste.
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| Step 5: Raise quality awareness among all employees. |
| Step 6: Take actions to correct problems identified through previous steps. |
| Step 7 : Establish a zero defects committee and programme. |
| Step 8: Train supervisors and managers on their role and responsibilities in the quality improvement process. |
| Step 9: Hold a zero defects day to reaffirm management commitment. |
| Step 10: Encourage individuals and groups to set improvement goals. |
| Step 11: Obstacle reporting (i.e., encourage employees to communicate to management any obstacles they take in attaining their improvement goals). |
| Step 12: Recognise and appreciate all participants. |
| Step 13: Establish quality councils to discuss quality matters on a regular basis. |
| Step 14: Do it ail over again to demonstrate that the improvement process never ends. |
3. Crosby’s Quality Vaccine
In the Crosby style, the “vaccine” is explained as medicine for management to prevent poor quality. The five sections of vaccine that cover the requirements of total quality management are presented in Table 1.3.
Table 1.3. Five sections of Crosby’s quality vaccine
| Section 1-Integrity: Treat quality seriously throughout the whole business organisation from top to bottom. That the companies future will be judged on its performance on quality. |
| Section 2-Systems: Appropriate measures and systems should be put in place for quality costs, education, quality, performance, review, improvement and customer satisfaction. |
| Section 3-Communication: The communication systems are of paramount importance to communicate requirements and specifications and improvement opportunities around the organisation. Customers and operators know what needs to be put in place to improve and listening to them will give you the edge. |
| Section 4-Operations: Work with and develop suppliers. Processes should be capable and improvement culture should be the norm. |
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Section 5-Policies: Must be clear and consistent throughout the business.
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Summary of Key Contributions of Quality Gurus
Table 1.4 presents the summary of important contributions of the quality gurus.
