The Five Pillars of TQM: How to Make Total Quality Management Work for You

By Bill Creech

Book Overview

One of the foremost educators of the Total Quality Management (TQM) technique looks at TQM's fundamental principles and their implementation, explaining how anyone can introduce the Five Pillars of TQM into every aspect of an organization. Filled with engaging and enlightening stories, the book explores 19 major companies which have achieved TQM success.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0525937250
• ISBN13: 9780525937258
• Release Date: February 1994
• Publisher: Dutton Adult
• Length: 560 Pages
• Weight: 2.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 20.0" x 20.0" x 20.0"

Customer Reviews

The message is stellar, the delivery could be better

The book is verbose and repetitive. However, the message is stellar. TQM in Creech's style works. Even if a company does not completely implement the method, Creech's philosophy of empowerment and responsibility for the quality of a product is something that everyone should take to heart. As to the negative reviews on this site, it seems that people have problems with organizations that did not implement the methods fully, or fell back into the management styles that Creech warned against. Bottom line, anyone interested in management would do well to learn from the book's philosophy of responsibility for the product at all levels.

This book and the "Quality Pioneers."

One of the unique qualities of this "Five Pillars" book is that it covers in detail the contributions of all the early "quality pioneers"--including Juran, Deming, Feigenbaum, and Crosby. It also covers the works of others who have contributed to our knowledge on "management" matters writ large--not just the far more narrowly focused "quality control" literature. For example, the works of Drucker, Iacocca, and the like are also covered and blended with those of the quality pioneers. The "Five Pillars" praises Deming for what he contributed to the quality movement, but also places his contributions in their needed perspective for those seeking real and not superficial results. Accordingly, it is not suprising that one Balaji S. Reddi from Pune, Maharashtra, India would not like the book. It will be noted that Balaji S. Reddie is an electrical engineer who specializes in teaching the "Deming Way." In fact his e-mail address places him at "DemingIndia.org." Within the pages of the "Five Pillars of TQM" the prediction is made that the book will draw flak from those who have turned Deming into "The Man Who Discovered Quality" and the "patron saint" of quality management. It took a long time for the flak to arrive, and then all the way from India! In fact, a deciple of Walter Shewhart of the Bell Laboratories along with Joseph Juran, W. Edwards Deming made contributions of the "SPC" and "SQC" variety of "QM" but provided false and irrelevant guidance on most of the broader management issues. "TQM"--a term invented by General Bill Creech--is likened as "Total" because its reach is far broader than a set of quality control tools--and the "Five Pillars" book says that in an unambiguous fashion. ("Process" being but one of the five pillars upon which success is built.) What is taught at the DemingIndia organization is unknown to this reviwer, but according to Balaji S. Reddie's reaction it is certainly not the broad based approach to "quality management" that the Bill Creech book is all about. Read it and verify that for yourself.

Creech's Five Pillar Management and the University of Okla.

General Bill Creech's turnaround of the Air Force's Tactical Air Command is nothing short of miraculous. He did it through the application of the basic canons he developed and so eloquently describes in his book, The Five Pillars of TQM. His book is the textbook we use for our leadership and management course that I developed and teach for engineering seniors and graduate students at The University of Oklahoma. General Creech's approach to management has become the benchmark by which we measure every case we study. The student's analyses of problems in our case studies always ask, "What would General Creech do"? Two years ago when we brought in a new Dean of the College of Engineering, he launched a change program toward a new vision and new goals. General Creech's book, The Five Pillars of TQM became every Department Chair's guide for achieving the new vision and goals. Additionally, for the past two years, faculty and staff from colleges and staff agencies across the campus of the University of Oklahoma have been lining up for our series of leadership seminars using General Creech's Five Pillars as the text.The way General Creech got everybody involved and the way he created leaders at every level during his turnaround of Tactical Air Command allowed him to take full advantage of the vast human resources and ingenuity in his huge organization. His leadership of this monumental effort caught on like a religious revival. Everybody wanted to be a part of this winning organization-the largest in the Air Force. When the leaders of government and industry took notice, TAC became the standard of excellence for the entire Department of Defense. General Creech's principles work in every type and size of organization-military units; large corporations; small start-up businesses; universities; not-for-profit foundations; everything! If every organization adopted General Creech's people-centered, common sense, five-pillar approach to management, the results could be the most dramatic increase in productivity we have seen in modern time.When General Creech retired from the Air Force, he applied his Five Pillars approach to the corporate world where he is in great demand as a consultant. He is a regular guest lecturer at the University of Oklahoma where he draws large audiences of converts to his management principles. If you want your organization to succeed in the competitive world economy, The Five Pillars of TQM can show you the way to make it happen.Jerry D. Holmes Adjunct Professor, College of Engineering University of Oklahoma Norman, Oklahoma March 25, 2001

The Benefit of Hitting on All Five Cylinders!

What I like about Creech's approach to TQM and more effective organizational management & leadership, is his emphasis on the need to attend to all five pillars of TQM: Product, Process, Organization, Leadership, and Commitment. If you try to improve piecemeal (as so many have), the results will be minor improvement. It is only when you get all five pillars in alignment that you start to get dramatically better results. Also, his specific advice makes so much sense: Organizations need to get a clearer picture of what constitutes quality in their product or service; they need to organize the work process with small teams as much as possible; they need to provide much more training, from the CEO on down; they need to provide clear feedback on how well the organization is doing ("scoreboarding"); etc. One other reviewer is right: Now that I have read this book, I find myself looking around for evidence of TQM practices by the employees every time I interact with an organization. It is amazing what differences you can see in organizational performance, once you are sensitized and start looking for them.

Excellent! A must read if you manage an organization.

The Five Pillars of TQM is an excellent book on how to stucture and manage an organization for success. Mr. Creech captures in one book everything I have been looking for, but not found, in countless other books, magazines, journals, and training courses. There are some spots where it becomes a bit wordy, but the nuggets of knowledge in between are worth every page.