Quality Circle – A Tool for Employee Participation in Management.
In the current world, industry’s search for improved quality and productivity several factors play major roles. In the product sector of the economy, international competitive pressures and demands for higher quality are currently the major forces affecting management's search for greater efficiency. In the service sector, high cost, decreasing profit margins, inconsistent quality of delivery and competitors in local markets are the primary forces of change. These factors have encouraged many organizations to focus on ways to increase the contribution of employees to improvements in quality and productivity. This need led to the development of Quality Circles. Quality Circle is a small group of both employees and workers, doing similar work who voluntarily meet together on a regular basis to identify improvements in their respective work areas using proven techniques for analysing and solving work related problems coming in the way of achieving and sustaining excellence leading to mutual upliftment of employees as well as the organisation. It is "a way of capturing the creative and innovative power that lies within the work force".Quality Circles concept has three major attributes:
- Quality Circle is a form of participation management.
- Quality Circle is a human resource development technique.
- Quality Circle is a problem solving technique.
The concept of Quality Circle is primarily based upon recognition of the value of the worker as a human being, as someone who willingly activates on his job, his wisdom, intelligence, experience, attitude and feelings. It is based upon the human resource management considered as one of the key factors in the improvement of product quality & productivity.
Although most commonly found in manufacturing environments, quality circles are applicable to a wide variety of business situations and problems. They are based on two ideas: that employees can often make better suggestions for improving work processes than management; and that employees are motivated by their participation in making such improvements. Thus, implemented correctly, quality circles can help a small business reduce costs, increase productivity, and improve employee morale. Other potential benefits that may be realized by a small business include greater operational efficiency, reduced absenteeism, improved employee health and safety, and an overall better working climate. Quality Circles when used along with Benchmarking produce excellent results. By comparing your performance to other competitors and researching their circles of successful activity improves your companies overall quality or worth. There is also a concept of Student quality circles which work on the philosophy of Total Quality Management. A standard was developed for business quality system which is ISO 9000.
The philosophy of Quality Circles preaches to attain self motivation & happiness by improving the products through quality excellence in each of the functional areas.
