Quality Improvement through Team Goal Setting, Feedback, and Problem Solving : A Field Experiment

Describes a field experiment conducted in a US automotive parts manufacturing plant to explore the impact of team goal setting, feedback and problem‐solving activities on product defect rates. Two manufacturing cells were randomly selected, with one cell serving as the treatment group and the other as the control group. The treatment group employed a team defect‐reduction goal‐setting approach, received daily performance feedback, and developed a group problem‐solving mechanism as part of the experimental treatment. The control group was physically isolated from the treatment group and performed their work under the organization’s traditional operating structure. The treatment group achieved a statistically significant reduction in product defect rates compared to the control group over the 15‐month period of this study. Discusses the implications of this study and suggests that a combination of team goal setting, feedback and problem‐solving practices can improve product quality and can be used as a starting point for an overall quality improvement effort.