Internal Customers?

In Chapter 2 we discussed the philosophy of Total Quality Management (TQM). Some of the proponents of TQM consider the customer to be the next step in the operating process. For example, with TQM a writer when passing a manuscript to a word processor operator would consider the operator to be the customer. The TQM approach would appear to conflict with our stance, which is that in a service industry the customer is an input into the process rather than the next step of the process - thus we would show the writer as the customer.

The TQM concept of the internal customer was always a contrivance, initially aimed to get factory workers on an assembly line to reduce waste and pass on a good job to the next operator in the process. It was easy to say that without customers goods cannot be sold, and without sales the factory will close, but for the operator wielding the screwdriver and faced with a seemingly never-ending assembly line the customer was remote and faceless. Making the next person on the line become the customer was meant to give the customer a face. We do not criticize this approach - anything that serves to make work more meaningful, gives people more...