Overview

The real voyage of discovery

Is not seeking new lands

But seeing with new eyes.

Marcel Proust

To gain a competitive edge, to satisfy customers and to keep costs down many operations have used the incremental improvement approach of total quality management (TQM) and the often drastic restructuring approach of business process re-engineering (BPR). Each of these approaches has their proponents and each approach, or elements of each approach, can result in great advances. Equally each approach has been criticized and there have been many reported examples where an attempt to impose TQM or BPR has resulted in disappointment and even disaster. Some of these disasters can be explained away by saying they didn't do it right . Likewise, often when a business is in real difficulties it is too late to hope for a miracle cure. Turning a business around is like turning the QE2 around - it doesn't happen all at once.

In addition, each organization - manufacturing or service - is in some way unique, and although there is a tendency to exaggerate this, it is still a fact that what will work for one business will not necessarily work as effectively for another. There can be a variety of reasons why one technique, seemingly successful for one organization, will not work quite as well for another. Reasons can include the type of business, the management style of the chief executive and the overall culture of the organization. Often a change to TQM or to BPR...