Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to define the quality and productivity problems, and improvement opportunities that face the construction industry today. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted interviews and surveys plus they researched pertinent literature to come to...

The complexity of today’s business environment has made it ecessary to evaluate all the alternatives before committing resources to an improvement process. Combines total business management, total cost management, total productivity management, total quality management, and total technology...

Performance evaluations (appraisals) have been blamed for everything from team destruction to personal demoralization. The problem is not the concept of performance evaluation but the way they have been implemented. This technical report provides a sound path to effect constructive appraisals.

Points out that we have accepted on faith many of our improvement tools without really understanding their impact on the performance of the organization. Challenges some of the basic principles on which total quality management was founded. Presents data from the International Quality Study...

Quality cost systems have evolved from a purely manufacturing defect related cost reporting system that reflected the limited quality thinking of the 1940s to a poor‐quality cost system that reflects the total process quality orientation of the 1990s. The new poor‐quality cost system...