Juran's Quality Handbook by Joseph M. Juran, Joseph M. Juran (Editor), A. Blanton Godfrey, A. Blanton Godfrey, A. Blanton Godfrey (Editor)

From the Publisher

For decades, Juran's Quality Handbook has been the one essential reference in quality management and engineering—the ultimate authoritative source of answers on quality applications, procedures, techniques, and strategies. Now this Fifth Edition—a major revision and the first new edition of Juran's Quality Handbook in more than 10 years—forges a new standard in tools for quality. Bringing managers and engineers the most up-to-date methods, research, and theory, under the guidance of a team of the world's top experts, Juran's shows you how to plan for quality, achieve quality control, and ensure quality results. Packed with new methods, research, and thought on quality, and emphasizing the need for quality software and quality software development methods, this completely updated classic also gives you new information, new techniques, and new applications. Broad in scope and inclusive in methodology, Juran's Quality Handbook is the reference of choice for anyone concerned with quality in business, manufacturing, or engineering. Whether you're just beginning your journey or a longtime traveler on the quality path, this book is the best possible companion for your voyage.

Dr. Joseph. M. Juran, Co-Editor-in-Chief, publishes the leading reference and training materials on managing for quality, a field he has led internationally for decades. A graduate in engineering and law, Dr. Juran helped to create the U.S. Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and has received over 40 medals and awards from 12 countries, including The Order of the Sacred Treasure from the Emperor of Japan, and the National Medal of Technology from the President of the United States for "hislifetime work of providing the key principles and methods by which enterprises manage the quality of their products and processes, enhancing their ability to compete in the global marketplace." Among his 20 books, the Handbook is the international reference standard.

A. Blanton Godfrey, Ph.D., Co-Editor-in-Chief, is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Juran Institute. A former head of the Quality Department of AT&T Bell Laboratories, he is a co-author of Modern Methods for Quality Control and Improvement and Curing Health Care. He contributed to the creation of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and served as a judge from 1988-1990. He holds a Ph.D. in statistics from Florida State University.

Booknews

This reference on quality engineering and management practices is revised from its 1981 edition to address current methods and concepts, as well as updated technology. The volume's 48 sections are arranged into five groups. The managerial group deals with basic concepts and the processes by which quality is managed (planning, control, and improvement). The functional section follows the sequence of activities through which product concepts are converted into marketable goods and services. The industry group of essays illustrates how quality is attained and maintained in selected industries. How quality is managed in selected geographical areas throughout the world is treated in the international group of contributions. The final part contains chapters on how to use the principal statistical tools as aids to managing for quality. Of likely interest to managers, quality and industrial engineers, and students in business and management. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Product Details

• ISBN: 007034003X
  
• ISBN-13: 9780070340039
• Format: Hardcover, 1872pp
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing
• Pub. Date: March 1999
• Edition Description: Subsequent
• Edition Number: 5
• Sales Rank: 72,370

• Table of Contents
• Read an Excerpt

Table of Contents

Read an Excerpt

Section 25: Customer Service

...Considerations of Quality in Customer Service

The second important area where quality must be considered is the design area. Companies that emphasize customer service design customer service capabilities as part of the product/service life cycle. Structures andprocesses are devised during the design phase to implement the strategy for customer service that was determined in the strategy formulation. The approach to design that is presented here is patterned after the service systems engineering framework of Pyzdek. Pyzdek's framework combines concepts and methods from the systems engineering, organizational design, and behavioral science fields. All these components are important to achieve an effective design of customer service delivery capabilities.

The third area where quality must be considered is organizational structure. This is where quality is built into the organization's customer service delivery structure according to the requirements of the product or service life-cycle design. Important considerations are enabling technologies and training, process engineering and reengineering, legacy migration, and outsourcing. It is common to find that process models for customer service capabilities involve almost every business function and, therefore, almost every part of the organization. This creates an opportunity to use customer service as an integrating force that knits together a company's quality thrust. However, in many firms this pervasive characteristic also creates a problem of distributed responsibility and accountability for effective customer service.

The last important area where quality must be considered is the operational area. This is where results are achieved, measured, and improved. The ongoing performance of operating customer service processes is important here and includes such considerations as human performance, process control, process capability, process improvement, and performance metrics. Three areas of consideration dominate an effective end-to-end life-cycle design. The first includes continuous communication, reward, recognition, and development of customer-facing associates; second is continuous oversight of processes in search of stress cracks that may be caused by saturated processes, by changes in customer needs, or by other considerations not congruent with the design intent and implementation criteria; and the third is continual environmental scans in search of early warning signs of changing markets, of new opportunities, and of new competitive threats. Common to all these considerations is the need for instrumentation for collection and analysis of information.

Here I present a model that features customer service as a strategic differentiator. To illustrate the use of the model, data and examples are provided, taken from the literature, from published benchmarks, and from Baldrige Award-winning companies. The reader may wish to review the contents of Sections 3, 13, and 18 as preparation for this topic.

The model presented in Figure 25.1 helps us visualize customer service as a vehicle to achieve strategic goals and objectives for a product or a service or for a family of products or services. During the planning period for a specific product, or during the annual business planning interval for the forthcoming year, customer service is proposed as a competitive differentiator. The elements of customer service that may be appropriate for the particular type of product or service are selected. These elements are a subset of the assumed KCSs for the product or service. Insight for this inductive step may come from experience with previous products, from customer feedback such as complaint or suggestion data, from competitive analyses and environmental scans, or from new technology or business capabilities. A structured approach for this step, called service blueprinting, is described below, under Strategic Intent, AT&T Universal Card Services.

At this point in the strategy development, these insights should be verified. This verification step often is omitted, leaving the ultimate verification to the marketplace. This sometimes turns out to be an expensive shortcut. Therefore, every effort should be made to obtain verification. KCS data for the industry or for the specific product or service must be acquired. Identifying and addressing the key customer satisfiers constitute an essential step toward achieving customer satisfaction. KCS data are acquired from market research studies conducted in appropriately defined market segments. The KCS data provide insight into the specific product and service attributes that are important to customers in each market segment and the degree of importance the customers attach to each attribute. Depending on the industry, on its marketplace characteristics, and on the particular type of the product or service, one or both of two types of market research are commonly used for this purpose (see Section 18).

In many cases, it is possible to verify the proposed KCSs by using such preimplementation techniques as focus groups or market research surveys or by limited prototyping experiences. In other cases, it may be necessary to use a rapid cycle-time implementation of initial production to get feedback. This is called a beta test in some industries. A more traditional term is field trial. These alternatives are illustrated in an expansion of the Lisrel model as shown in Figure 25.2.

The well-known quality function deployment technique often is used as the vehicle to integrate two important steps, the understanding of what is important to customers in market segments (e.g., KCS data) and the correlation of the important attributes, stated in terms meaningful to the customer, with specific product and service attributes, stated in terms that are meaningful to the designer (see Section 3).

When the strategic approach to customer service is verified, improved and updated, and documented, it is usually included in a preliminary business case.

AT&T Universal Card Services

The blueprinting process is illustrated and summarized in Figure 25.3. The blueprint is usually recorded as a flowchart of the particular process under study. The flowchart is segmented to clearly illustrate the lines of interaction between the service and the customer and the so-called line of invisibility. The line of invisibility is the boundary between the directly customer-facing subprocesses and the "back-office" subprocesses that support the customer-facing elements. Using the blueprint diagram, it becomes possible to answer the questions summarized in the bullet list in Figure 25.3. These answers provide the basis for selecting key moments of truth and for making other implementation decisions.

The service blueprint, which was implemented as a process, included fast, accurate, supportive, and helpful customer service representatives. The service representatives are empowered and rewarded for helping customers. First, a rigorous daily customer satisfaction measurement process was put in place, coupled with a daily bonus plan. Figure 25.4 offers an example of bonuses actually received during a period of time. On those days when the service representatives do not receive their bonus, no manager receives a bonus. Second, the customer service processes are supported by leading-edge technology. This gives the service representatives easy and rapid access to all the information that could possibly be needed in support of the customer. Third, the customers are given differentiating value in the form of lower interest rates than are provided by any other vendor. And fourth, the company undertook the role of the agent of the customer in relationships with credit bureaus and other users of credit information.

In recent years, AT&T Universal Card Services has initiated more than 300,000 new accounts per month. This growth stems in part from the sales story that is part of the front-end, customer relationship-building process. It also comes from finely tuned customer service operations that also were part of the strategic design of the business and which have been improved and enhanced over time. This customer service strategy was part of AT&T's Baldrige Award-winning approach.

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