The differences between the two improvement practices

However, according to previous research, the approach adopted for implementing these two practices is different in many ways. QCCs (or just QCs) comprise group-based activities that include a small number of volunteer employees. The group is small enough to allow face-to-face communication (Lillrank and Kano, 1989), i.e., between 5 to 15 members (Ma et al., 2010). They meet regularly (e.g., once per week) (Greenbaum et al., 1988; Lillrank and Kano, 1989; Sillince et al., 1996; Bacdayan, 2001) to share ideas and expertise for improvement (e.g., quality or costs of manufacture, and health and safety of shop floor) (Terziovski and Sohal, 2000; Charantimath, 2003, pp., p293).

They rely on cross-functional team (Bessant et al., 1994), support from line supervisors and top management (Prado, 2001; Milakovich, 2006) and focus on group decisions to develop improvement themes with specific and measurable goals (Landsbergis and Cahill, 1999; Doolen et al., 2008). In contrast, Teians offer a procedure for collecting and evaluating individual personal suggestions (Akaoka, 1983; Neagoe and Marascu_Klein, 2009). They are based on individuals’ willingness to make implementable (hands-on) improvement ideas (van Dijk and van Den Ende, 2002) which involves the completion of a Teian sheets (i.e., paper-based or electronic, Japan Human Relations Association, 1997a; Schuring and Luijten, 2001).

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Figure 2.13 A QC story by Honda Motor Europe (1998, p14-15)

Figure 2.14 An example of a Teian Sheet from one of the case company archives

QCCs develop improvement plans that are approved by management. They must follow an implementation procedure or standard pattern approach (i.e., QC story or QCC guide

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book) (Figure 2.13) (Akaoka, 1983; Inoue, 1985; Ho, 1999, pp., p161; Farris, 2006).

Whereas Teians collect personal improvement sheets which relate to previously implemented solutions and outcomes (Figure 2.14) (Akaoka, 1983; Nihon HR Kyōkai, 1995).

Although both QCCs and Teians can be employed for producing work-related improvements, they have different scale. QCCs are formal improvement bodies (Lillrank and Kano, 1989) and mainly implement improvement on a department-wide/company-wide basis (Inoue, 1985; Terziovski and Sohal, 2000; Harrington, 2006), as these changes are part of/linked with the company’s long-term total quality control activities (Ishikawa, 1990; Charantimath, 2003). Some of the QCC themes are designed for problem solving (i.e., improving the quality of goods), others are intended to make innovative changes to shop floor/workplaces on a continuous basis (i.e., to introduce new machinery or production techniques to increase productivity) (Ishikawa, 1990;

Milakovich, 2006). On the other hand, Teians are intended to resolve local problems within the proposers’ immediate working area (i.e., production shop floor) (Nihon HR Kyōkai, 1995, pp., p5). Most of these problems are small-scale and thus any improvement made is simple (Marin-Garcia et al., 2008) and commonly based on hands-on knowledge (Yasuda, 1989).

Figure 2.15 Ishikawa's 7 QC Tools, adopted from Pescod (1994, p12)

The different degrees of change, thus, require different knowledge and skills for implementation. The group-based QCCs require members to have a good knowledge of

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improvement (Toshiko and Shook, 2007) and use Ishikawa’s QC statistical tools (Figure 2.15) for the development of the improvement themes (Ishikawa, 1980; JUSE, 2010), whilst Teians are highly dependent on participants’ shop floor experience and production skills.

QCCs and Teians also differ in their implementation time-frames. Although the implementation follows Deming’s PDCA cycle continuously (Figure 2.16), most of the QCC projects have defined time limits (Harrington, 2006, pp., p14). They have pre-set targets and expected outcomes (Ishikawa, 1990; Terziovski and Sohal, 2000), and aim to be finished within predetermined duration (Kerrin and Oliver, 2002; Rapp and Eklund, 2002); e.g., 6 months, or no more than a year (Honda Motor, 1998), as a new QCC project will probably need to be started afterwards (Ma et al., 2010). More importantly, the end result of a QCC is not an actual improvement, but an action plan for change which is then presented to management for approval (Crocker et al., 1984;

Cohen and Bailey, 1997). The Teians, in contrast to QCCs, are normally applied immediately to make gradual changes. Only after that the change details are recorded for evaluation. Each of the changes may be small, but they can be exceptionally well managed (Rapp and Eklund, 2002) and implemented on a continuous basis (Nihon HR Kyōkai, 1995).

Figure 2.16 Team-based improvement (e.g., QCC) implementation follows Deming’s PDCA cycle continuously (Wood and Munshi, 1991, p220)

QCCs and Teians use different reward methods to motivate participation (Recht and Wilderom, 1998; Kerrin and Oliver, 2002; Milakovich, 2006) (Table 2.3), and are evaluated differently by a committee of mangers (Yasuda, 1989; Frese et al., 1999). On

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the one hand, rewards for Teians are based on improvement participation (Nihon HR Kyōkai, 1995; Fairbank and Williams, 2001). A Teian suggestion is based upon improvements that record what has been done on the proposers’ (Imai, 1986; Tamura, 2006) “immediate work area” (Nihon HR Kyōkai, 1995, p5). Accordingly, the emphasis of Teians should be on “proposing ideas that workers could implement themselves”, not just “suggesting for improvement” (Nihon HR Kyōkai, 1995, p18), as “Kaizen [Teians]

is doing, not proposing [suggestions]” (Laraia et al., 1999, p6). In this sense, rewards for Teians are given to motivate participation (Bessant and Francis, 1999). Some Teians may have bigger rewards, but the majority are given at a fixed-rate to the individual proposer (Japan Human Relations Association, 1997a; Milakovich, 2006). On the other hand, although the volunteer participation in QCCs is also critical (Crocker et al., 1984), rewards are not directly offered to the meetings but based on the utility of the end results (Ma, 2008; Marin-Garcia et al., 2008; Ma et al., 2010). QCCs aim to make relatively larger changes that are based on specified improvement goals (i.e. themes) (Ishikawa, 1990; Milakovich, 2006). As such, the actual improvement outcomes are compared against the specified goals (Lillrank and Kano, 1989), with rewards given to the accepted themes (Recht and Wilderom, 1998), and based on the improvement achieved (Allen and Kilmann, 2001). Rewards for QCCs are given to the group (Kerrin and Oliver, 2002), rather than to individuals (Crocker et al., 1984).

QCCs Teians

Results Improvement outcomes Participation

Objects Group Individuals

Forms Monetary and non-monetary reward Fixed-rate money reward

Table 2.3 Differences between the rewards given to QCCs and Teians, concluded from Milakovich (2006), Yasuda (1989), Lillrank and Kano (1989) and Ma et al. (2010)

Based on the above comparisons, these two types of improvement practices have different modes of conduct and could result in different outcomes. The improvements made by QCCs could result in dramatic and innovative changes. They are implemented with clear and measurable department/company-wide improvement targets and are normally implemented on a one-off basis. In comparison, the improvements made by Teians are always small. They focus on proposers’ immediate surrounding area, and are intended to be implemented continuously.

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2.4 The Different Perspectives on the Relationship between the Two Improvement