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Show NEWS 7 Hilltop Times Feb. 13, 1992 Workers continue to clam Hill's quality program manager 111 wgawMiwitw iiii i. .u i.iiiiii. tuiit i.iulmii. says base is making great strides, but needs to continue to improve by Frances Kosakowsky Hilltop Times staff Change is hard. It's often awkward and frustrating. It is also inevitable, like death and taxes. But change can also be positive. Changes in the world political situation have forced sweeping of America's defense needs. Budgets are being reduced; the military is downsizing. To cope with the radically altered role of the military, senior leadership looked for ways to do more with less. That effort today functions under the name, Total Quality Management. "Today's TQM program within the Air Force has been a succession of steps up the ladder," he said, "and I believe as we go along, we are making more and more progress in a shorter and shorter time. "We started with the Professional Administrative Careers program and have had a lot of intervening successes and failures, but we have always been able to learn from those things," said Col. William E. Lindsay, quality program manager. Lindsay said that making progress in quality programs is simply a matter of experience. The more practice an organization has using the guidelines, the more proficient it, and its individual members, become. "Five years ago, we were telling folks that we wanted them to learn a whole new approach to getting their job done," Lindsay said, "and now, they're to the point on the learning curve where with a little fine tuning, they'll be experts." There may still be pockets of people who are still learning the quality approach, he said. "But more and more we're finding there are workers and supervisors who are well along in the process." hri- s 1 Organizations throughout the entire Defense Department now compete for workloads to keep their facilities in operation. The key to winning work is learning to do more with less. Hill is competing only for a portion of its workloads now, Lindsay said, but "eventually we'll comnot pete for progressively more of our workloads other other AFLC with with but organizations, just Air Force, DOD and civilian organizations. "We have to be the best to compete successfully," Lindsay said. "Total quality is the way to do just that." The colonel said competing is new for the Defense Department. "If you look at virtually every civilian industrial that is doing well," he said, "you will organization find they have evolved to the point where they say, 'Quality is where it's at and we couldn't live without it.' " He said this is because TQM: Is efficient; Focuses on the customer; and Draws out the best ideas of the people. "You can't exist in this era of competition without those things," Lindsay said. How TQM fits in competitive process Government workloads are awarded on the basis of contracts. An invitation for bids on a workload is put out, then interested organizations submit a bid. The assessment of the bids is made on the basis of technical merit, quality of the product and price. And while quality management isn't considered as a separate item, it is an important part of an organization's ability to successfully bid for work in today's environment, according to Lindsay. Lindsay believes government workers can successfully compete for workloads despite the fact they've never had to in the past. "General (Maj. Gen. Dale W.) Thompson has spent a great deal of personal effort in getting the word out to the people," he said. But as to the question, "Do all of the people un- derstand it?" Lindsay said, "No, but they will eventually." Lindsay said government workers need to understand that everything they do can be done by civilian contractors, up to and including interface functions such as personnel management. Y il i ' s i ' itTW - I ; .. sr - . sJ 0 U.S. Air Force Self-hel- p Why TQM? JF - f holo is available Mike Bryson, Plans and Programs Office, checks out a book about Total Quality Management from Joan Parkhurst, Quality Office. "There are private companies out there who would be delighted to do the work and, they may be able to do it cheaper than the government is now doing it," he said. "We need to get a different mindset. If we don't save money, become more efficient, and do it better, we're going to lose workloads.- "And, just because you're not out on the line bending sheet metal doesn't mean you're not in competition. Every person here is in competition," Lindsay said. Understanding TQM principles One way the work force can better understand TQM is to learn the definition of the TQM terms. For example, the term "empowerment" isn't even defined in a dictionary. "Empowerment in total quality is a combination of trust and authority," Lindsay said. Empowerment doesn't work with a person who does not trust in the system, he said. "If you give a person the authority to do a job at low a level, and if he or she does the job well and does it to a manager's satisfaction, then that authority is rewarded with trust," Lindsay said. Then, the next time a manager needs something done, he will trust the person with still more authority. "It's just like little building blocks. Pretty soon, the worker understands what needs to be done and the manager trusts that worker to complete the job. That's empowerment," Lindsay said. Understanding what is needed should be thought of as vision, mission and goals, Lindsay said. Each worker must understand the organization's vision, mission and goals at whatever level he's operating." Lindsay said. Using this understanding a worker can say, "Oh, yeah, I know that whenever the boss says, 'We need to do that,' he means make it happen, now." "And he means don't waste money; he also means having an abiding concern for the customer; making sure we don't endanger any employees and that everybody's happy with the process," Lindsay said, "and, making sure everybody is involved at the same time. ; , "It Is incumbent upon management to provide , this insight to the worker," he said. "Workers must know what's expected, then they need to be trusted and given the authority." Total quality is aimed at: Changing the way people make decisions, both in management and in the work force. Using everyone's ideas to the maximum extent rank-and-fil- e possible. Emphasizing working as teams, rather than individuals. Looking at processes instead of end products. Where do we go next? Results from the TQM survey have been provided to every directorate. These results provide a baseline of where Hill workers feel the base is concerning quality. An analysis or survey comments and copies of the comments will be presented to General Thompson shortly. Both the survey and written comments are being used to give direction to action plans for every organization at Hill. There are no plans to change the quality program goals when the Air Force Logistics Command and Air Force Systems Command are consolidated into the Air Materiel Command. "Quality will still be emqualiphasized within the AFMC organizations is said. to the Lindsay go," way ty Where we will be in five years? I envision us being nearly to the top the quality ladder we're climbing." "I also believe the standards of quality will be raised to higher levels in that time," he said. "Because quality is a process of continual improvement and I think what we are seeing now is the first eche- "In five years, of lon of improvements." Editor's note: The Quality Program Office has TQM video tapes and books available for checkout. Everyone who has access to the OFFICE VISION network can go to "QPshow for a list of what's available and a short synopsis of the contents. There is also a regular broadcast schedule of weekly quality videos every Tuesday and Thursday at 10 a.m., 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. For more information, please contact Joan Parkhurst, Ext. 74392. |