Quality Is Just the Beginning: Managing for Total Responsiveness

What happens when everyone has embraced Total Quality Management? What will be the next frontier for gaining market share - and the competitive edge? In this bold challenge to mainstream thinking on Total Quality Management and related turnaround strategies, Steve Levit argues that product quality and customer satisfaction - although praiseworthy initiatives - are insufficient as corporate goals. To achieve the kind of wide-ranging business transformation that will make your company competitive through the 1990s and beyond, you need to focus on improved responsiveness both inside and outside the organization. In this thought-provoking guide, you'll learn how to adopt a new responsiveness paradigm that encompasses not just quality, but also cycle time, teams, reengineering, and other key variables - all in proper proportion.Written by one of America's leading consultants on improvement strategies and world-class operating methods, Quality Is Just the Beginning offers a collection of new concepts and viewpoints that will simplify and clarify your thinking on how to proceed in the creation, selection, and implementation of productivity-enhancing initiatives. It outlines five breakthrough concepts that will help you critically examine all of the productivity enhancement options open to you - including TQM, JIT, and QFD - and to ultimately build and implement a responsiveness-based program that's right for your company.You'll also be given a fresh slant on designing new products ... on fostering teamwork ... on rebuilding ... and on overcoming "techno-babble." With several case studies included to provide real-world examples of Levit's theories in action, here's the dynamic, outspoken guide you need to reengineer your company beyond simple quality management and into the new responsiveness paradigm that will be required to stay competitive in the twenty-first century.