Crosby’s 14 Steps

Brin Tracy

Marriott School of Management

What Will Be Covered

1. What are Crosby’s 14 Steps?

2. Brainstorming Exercise: How Can This Tool be Used in Your Organization?

3. Explanation of Crosby’s 14 Steps

4. How Crosby’s 14 Steps Work

5. Real World Example: GM Truck & Bus

6. An Exercise

7. Summary

8. Readings list

What are Crosby’s 14 Steps?

• Adapted from chapter eight of Quality Is

Free: The Art of Making Quality Certain

(1979)

• A fourteen step program for quality

improvement

– Top management involved

– Entire organization involved

What are Crosby’s 14 Steps?

• A “how-to” for management that provides an

organization with a simple and organized

method to initiating the quality improvement

process and beginning the journey to world-

class quality

What are Crosby’s 14 Steps?

• “Focuses on long-term employee

participation, not short-term motivational

tactics.”

- Crosby, Philip (1979) Crosby’s 14 Steps to Improvement

Brainstorming Exercise: How can this

tool be used in your organization?

• Each person in the audience identify an

area in the organization (process, product,

service, etc.) that you feel needs

improvement. (3 min)

– Cycle times

– Delivery times

– Any wasteful or non-value added activities

Foundation for Crosby’s 14 Steps

Crosby’s absolutes of quality management:

• Quality means conformance, not elegance.

• There is no such thing as a quality problem.

• There is no such thing as the economics of quality;

it is always cheaper to do the job right the first

time.

• The only performance measurement is the cost of

quality.

• The only performance standard is Zero Defects.

Nuts and Bolts

1. MANAGEMENT COMMITMENT - Top-level view

on quality shown to all employees.

2. THE QUALITY IMPROVEMENT TEAM - To pursue

the quality regime throughout the business.

Nuts and Bolts

3. QUALITY MEASUREMENT - Analysis of business

quality performance in a meaningful manner.

4. THE COST OF QUALITY - Make sure everyone in the

business understands the need for a quality system, and

the costs to the business if there is no quality system in

place.

Nuts and Bolts

5. QUALITY AWARENESS - Again make everyone in the

business aware of the impact of quality systems.

6. CORRECTIVE ACTION - Ensure a system is in place

for analyzing defects in the system and applying simple

cause and effect analysis, to prevent re-occurrence.

Nuts and Bolts

7. ZERO DEFECTS PLANNING - Look for business

activities to which zero defect logic should be applied.

8. SUPERVISOR TRAINING - Get your supervisors

trained in both quality logic and zero defect appreciation

which they can apply to their business activities.

Nuts and Bolts

9. ZERO DEFECTS DAY - A quality event by which all

members of the effected section become aware that a

change has taken place.

10. GOAL SETTING - Once a change has been

implemented in a section of the business, the next step is

to get the employees and supervisors in that section to set

goals for improvement to bring about continuous

improvement.

Nuts and Bolts

11. ERROR CAUSE REMOVAL - Communication process

by which management are made aware that set goals are

difficult to achieve in order for either the goals to be reset

or help given by management to achieve the goals.

12. RECOGNITION - Management must recognize the

employees who participate in the quality schemes.

Nuts and Bolts

13. QUALITY COUNCILS - Using both specialist

knowledge and employee experiences to bring about a

focused approach to business quality regime.

14. DO IT OVER AGAIN - Continuous improvement means

starting from the beginning again and again.

How It Works1

2

3

4

5

6

78

9

10

11

12

13

14

Real World Example: GM Truck & Bus

Background:

• Responsible for the planning, engineering, manufacturing,

and assembly of General Motors Trucks worldwide

• They needed to develop a common direction for our

quality process

• They wanted the entire workforce to be aware and

involved

- (Hartman, 2002)

Real World Example: GM Truck & Bus

Implementing Crosby’s 14 Steps:

• “In line with Step 2 of Crosby’s 14-step process, Truck &

Bus implemented both a group quality improvement team

and plant and staff quality improvement teams to run the

quality improvement process.”

- (Hartman, 2002)

Real World Example: GM Truck & Bus

Progress:

• The quality improvement teams initially managed the “soft” or

non-product areas covered in Crosby’s 14 steps, such as

awareness and communication, quality education, cost of

quality, and recognition.

• The role of [their] quality improvement teams gradually shifted

from “implementing [their] quality improvement process” to

“being the driving force in improving the quality of all of [their]

business processes.”

- (Hartman, 2002)

Real World Example: GM Truck & Bus

Results:

• “The 14-step process provided The Truck & Bus Group with the

most defined, simple-to-follow road map for the initial legs of

their quality journey.”

• “Helped everyone focus on the quality of their business process

and to understand their internal customer/supplier relationship.

Every individual produces a product and has customers.

Everyone must determine the requirements and satisfaction of

their personal customers.”

- (Hartman, 2002)

An Exercise

• Break into groups of four-six

• The group discusses the identified items from the brainstorming session (6 min)– Choose one area that you feel needs the most

improvement (i.e. causes the most problems, wastes time and resources, will make biggest impact)

• Discuss as a class

An Exercise Cont.

• Split back into your groups and determine the following (8 min):– The costs to the business if there is no quality system

in place

– A corrective action that will prevent re-occurrence

– A goal for improvement that will bring about continuous improvement

• Discuss as a class

Summary

• Crosby’s program is designed to transform the quality

culture of an organization

• Helps involve everyone in the organization in the quality

process

• Crosby 14 Steps to quality improvement is a continuous

process that will bring great rewards and benefits to your

organization

Summary

• “Either you don't accept things that don't meet the

requirements— or you find out whether the

requirement is really what you need, but the

business of ‘that's close enough’ has to go away.”

~Philip Crosby

Readings List• Crosby, Philip (1979). Crosby’s 14 Steps to Improvement. New York: McGraw-

Hill

• Crosby, Philip (1979). Quality is Free: The Art of Making Quality Certain. New

York: McGraw‐Hill.

• Crosby, Philip (1984). Quality Without Tears. New York: McGraw‐Hill.

• Crosby, Philip (1988). The Eternally Successful Organization. New York:

McGraw‐Hill.

• Crosby, Philip (1989). Let’s Talk Quality. New York: McGraw-Hill.

• Crosby, Philip (1994). Completeness: Quality for the 21st Century. Plume.

• Crosby, Philip (1996). Quality is Still Free. New York: McGraw-Hill.

• R W Hoyer, Brooke B Y Hoyer, Philip B Crosby, W Edwards Deming, et al.

(2001) Quality Progress. Milwaukee: Vol. 34, Iss. 7.

• Hartman, Melissa (2002). Fundamental Concepts of Quality Improvement.

Milwaukee: ASQ Quality Press.