Available:*
Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... | 33000000011457 | HD9710.U54 W44 1996 | Open Access Book | Gift Book | Searching... |
On Order
Summary
Summary
This account profiles a creative approach to Total Quality Management, detailing how labour and management joined forces at General Motors. The work should appeal to all business readers interested in TQM and turn-around strategies, providing models for: implementing quality initiatives in a unionized workplace; removing barriers to union-management communication; and forging successful co-operative efforts between labour and big business.
Reviews 1
Choice Review
Contrary to the title and the descriptions on the book's jacket cover, this is not the real story of the efforts of General Motors and the United Autoworkers Union to dramatically improve the quality of the automobiles they produce. Rather, it is a compendium of organizational plans and charts that describes how the GM-UAW Quality Network is supposed to operate in practice. It contains all the appropriate concepts and phrases that are generic to the popular literature on total quality management and high-performance work systems. With the exception of a few very short vignettes, the authors do not explore how the increased emphasis on quality has affected day-to-day operations on the shop floor. They also fail to analyze the real reactions of both hourly and salaried employees to this fundamental change in the way the world's number one auto maker conducts its operations. The two authors were instrumental in establishing the Quality Network, and the brief accounts of how they reached their current roles makes for interesting reading. Had they followed the same approach in telling the rest of the story, they would have produced a study of significant value to scholars and practitioners alike. Upper-division undergraduate through professional. H. Harris Pennsylvania State University, New Kensington Campus
