Joseph Boyett, Author & Consultant
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Quality Journey
by Joseph Boyett, Stephen Schwartz, Lawrence Osterwise and Roy Bauer
The Quality Journey is the story of a corporate quest: A quest for a prize.
And a quest for renewal. The prize was the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality
Award, created by Congress in 1987 to recognize the achievement of the
highest standards of quality in U.S. businesses. From its inception, the
award has become the ultimate seal of American corporate excellence, and
in 1989 IBM set out to win it.
For IBM the quest for the award was far more than a corporate ego trip. By
the end of the 1980s this proudest and most successful of American
enterprises could no longer ignore the fact that it was in serious trouble.
Once the unchallenged leader in a vast industry, its market share and profits
were eroding. It was searching for ways to reverse this quicksand decline.
Now, in its famed Rochester, Minnesota, manufacturing and development
center, its people and its policies, its time-honored approaches and its
innovations would be put to the test by judges whose hard-nosed
objectivity and stringent standards already were legendary.
The Quality Journey captures the full drama and import of what happened in
Rochester when the decision to go for the award was made and a great
corporation was forced to see itself as others saw it. Rich with personal
portraits of the people involved, from the highest levels of management on
down, and filled with fascinating vignettes and documents charting the
demands for change and the nature of the response, the book chronicles the
Rochester center's failure to win the award in 1989--a failure that came like
a brutally awakening slap in the face. Even more important, it tells what
happened next as, in 1990, IBM tried again--and this time succeeded.
The gripping business case history, combining nitty-gritty details with a
broad overview, is an inspiring story of the uses of adversity and the power
of renewal. Moreover, it is a valuable and illuminating study of how and why
a vast corporation can and must reinvent itself to meet the challenges of a
world that refuses to stand still. Including the official criteria of the Malcolm
Baldrige National Quality Award and the full text of the successful Rochester
application for it, The Quality Journey is important reading for all American
businesses determined to meet challenge and change in the 1990s.
REVIEWS
"There is no better way to understand the essence of quality as the way of
doing business than to study it through the case history. Here is the finest
documentation of such a case history in recent times." ROBERT W. GALVIN,
CHAIRMAN OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, MOTOROLA, INC.
"We have greatly benefited from ten years' benchmarking with IBM. They are
a quality company, and this is a quality story." ROGER MILLIKEN, CEO,
MILLIKEN & COMPANY
"The Quality Journey proves that total quality is not just a fad but an
essential ingredient of success in the twenty-first century." JOEL BARKER,
AUTHOR OF DISCOVER THE FUTURE: A BUSINESS OF PARADIGMS
"Joe Boyett presents a fascinating and instructive quality play in three acts
with lessons for each part of the quality journey de describes so well.
Stephen Schwartz of IBM opens by demonstrating what a leader actually
does to develop and implement quality, and does it against the backdrop of
a very public IBM crisis.
"Act Two teaches would-be Baldrige winners that there is more to winning
than simply doing a great job and repeats the grammar school order to
answer the question being asked.
"Act Three, as always, talks about the long haul, and in this case, discusses
the real issue of quality, which is the integration of quality into ongoing
operations.
"The Quality Journey is bound to hold the interest of anyone interested not
only in quality but in the interaction between events and people as they
strive for continuous improvement." DAVID B. LUTHER, SENIOR VICE
PRESIDENT, CORPORATE DIRECTOR--QUALITY, CORNING, INC.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1. From Dominance to Decline
Chapter 2. Fortress Rochester
Chapter 3. Becoming Market-Driven: The Silverlake Project
Chapter 4. Stumbling Upon the Path to Greatness
Chapter 5. The 1989 Baldrige Application
Chapter 6. The 1989 Site Visit and Verdict
Chapter 7. Market-Driven Quality
Chapter 8. The 1990 Baldrige Application
Chapter 9. A Different Rochester
Chapter 10. The 1990 Site Visit
Chapter 11. The 1990 Verdict
Chapter 12. A New IBM
by Joseph Boyett, Stephen Schwartz, Lawrence Osterwise and Roy Bauer
The Quality Journey is the story of a corporate quest: A quest for a prize.
And a quest for renewal. The prize was the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality
Award, created by Congress in 1987 to recognize the achievement of the
highest standards of quality in U.S. businesses. From its inception, the
award has become the ultimate seal of American corporate excellence, and
in 1989 IBM set out to win it.
For IBM the quest for the award was far more than a corporate ego trip. By
the end of the 1980s this proudest and most successful of American
enterprises could no longer ignore the fact that it was in serious trouble.
Once the unchallenged leader in a vast industry, its market share and profits
were eroding. It was searching for ways to reverse this quicksand decline.
Now, in its famed Rochester, Minnesota, manufacturing and development
center, its people and its policies, its time-honored approaches and its
innovations would be put to the test by judges whose hard-nosed
objectivity and stringent standards already were legendary.
The Quality Journey captures the full drama and import of what happened in
Rochester when the decision to go for the award was made and a great
corporation was forced to see itself as others saw it. Rich with personal
portraits of the people involved, from the highest levels of management on
down, and filled with fascinating vignettes and documents charting the
demands for change and the nature of the response, the book chronicles the
Rochester center's failure to win the award in 1989--a failure that came like
a brutally awakening slap in the face. Even more important, it tells what
happened next as, in 1990, IBM tried again--and this time succeeded.
The gripping business case history, combining nitty-gritty details with a
broad overview, is an inspiring story of the uses of adversity and the power
of renewal. Moreover, it is a valuable and illuminating study of how and why
a vast corporation can and must reinvent itself to meet the challenges of a
world that refuses to stand still. Including the official criteria of the Malcolm
Baldrige National Quality Award and the full text of the successful Rochester
application for it, The Quality Journey is important reading for all American
businesses determined to meet challenge and change in the 1990s.
REVIEWS
"There is no better way to understand the essence of quality as the way of
doing business than to study it through the case history. Here is the finest
documentation of such a case history in recent times." ROBERT W. GALVIN,
CHAIRMAN OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, MOTOROLA, INC.
"We have greatly benefited from ten years' benchmarking with IBM. They are
a quality company, and this is a quality story." ROGER MILLIKEN, CEO,
MILLIKEN & COMPANY
"The Quality Journey proves that total quality is not just a fad but an
essential ingredient of success in the twenty-first century." JOEL BARKER,
AUTHOR OF DISCOVER THE FUTURE: A BUSINESS OF PARADIGMS
"Joe Boyett presents a fascinating and instructive quality play in three acts
with lessons for each part of the quality journey de describes so well.
Stephen Schwartz of IBM opens by demonstrating what a leader actually
does to develop and implement quality, and does it against the backdrop of
a very public IBM crisis.
"Act Two teaches would-be Baldrige winners that there is more to winning
than simply doing a great job and repeats the grammar school order to
answer the question being asked.
"Act Three, as always, talks about the long haul, and in this case, discusses
the real issue of quality, which is the integration of quality into ongoing
operations.
"The Quality Journey is bound to hold the interest of anyone interested not
only in quality but in the interaction between events and people as they
strive for continuous improvement." DAVID B. LUTHER, SENIOR VICE
PRESIDENT, CORPORATE DIRECTOR--QUALITY, CORNING, INC.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1. From Dominance to Decline
Chapter 2. Fortress Rochester
Chapter 3. Becoming Market-Driven: The Silverlake Project
Chapter 4. Stumbling Upon the Path to Greatness
Chapter 5. The 1989 Baldrige Application
Chapter 6. The 1989 Site Visit and Verdict
Chapter 7. Market-Driven Quality
Chapter 8. The 1990 Baldrige Application
Chapter 9. A Different Rochester
Chapter 10. The 1990 Site Visit
Chapter 11. The 1990 Verdict
Chapter 12. A New IBM
