[The following article appears in the October 1994 edition of
_Public_Sector_Quality_Report_, pages 5 and 6.]

                     AIR FORCE COLONEL'S FIERY WORDS
                     SPARK HEATED DISCUSSION ON-LINE

     In the lexicon of the Internet there is what is known as a
"flame." An emotional, even angry electronic mail message
intended to personally attack or demean another, or to
spontaneously combust via inflammatory rhetoric an otherwise
calm, reasoned e-mail discussion.

     Although retired Col. Dennis M. Drew did not intend to start
an e-mail bonfire with his opinions on TQM in the U.S. Air Force,
it turned out that way all the same.

     Drew wrote an article headlined "Air Force Should Pull The
Plug On Its TQM," published in the Sept. 26 Air Force Times.
Drew's article later was posted to the QUALITY "list serve," an
electronic mailing list and discussion group focused on TQM. Over
the next several days the article drew dozens of strongly worded,
sometimes indignant e-mail messages from QUALITY subscribers,
many of them experienced quality practitioners.

     PSQR brings you excerpts from this on-line discussion for
two reasons:   

-- One, Drew's comments and the responses it generated offer
insight into the issues, challenges, and opportunities attending
TQM implementation in any government organization, including the
armed forces.

-- Two, if you've not had the opportunity or the inclination to
investigate some of the on-line lists and bulletin boards which
focus on organizational change and improvement issues, this
electronic exchange might give you a feel for the kinds of
idea-sharing and discussion which occasionally take place there.

****
                            
     First, a summary of Drew's tempestuous article. Drew is the
former dean, School of Advanced Air Power Studies, Air
University, Maxwell Air Force Base, AL.

     "It is high time somebody pulled the plug on the total
quality management program in the Air Force," his article begins.
He goes on to describe the Quality Air Force, or QAF, as a "pig
in the poke" sold to the Defense Department "by the fad-prone
mavens of management." 

     He dismisses as "drivel" and "intellectual dishonesty" the
notion that TQM was the main reason for Japan's economic
resurgence after World War II. He argues that "TQM gurus
conveniently ignored the advantage conveyed to the Japanese by a
totally new, heavy industrial base equipped with the latest
technology-purchased, I might add, with a good deal of U.S.
post-World War II largess."

     Among several reasons to be skeptical of TQM, Drew argues,
is that "it is little more than common management techniques
renamed, repackaged and sold to the gullible." Drew's primary
rationale for jettisoning TQM? "Culture and cost." While
conceding that certain functions within the military (including
acquisitions) resemble a business, "for most of the military,
building a business or 'quality' culture is counterproductive. An
effective military requires a warrior culture that understands
that warfare involves killing people and breaking things. It does
not involve 'process action teams' or other such affectations of
a 'quality culture.'

     "Finally, the bottom-line reason for dumping the TQM program
is that we can't afford it. The gurus already have built an
enormous bureaucracy within the military--specialized 'quality'
organizations...innumerable 'quality' classes...endless streams
of 'quality' literature...and quality advisors at every level of
command."

     "All of this foolishness," Drew concludes, "is going on at
the same time we face severely strained budgets. We are forced to
throw good people out, close bases, close combat wings, retire
aircraft and reduce services to personnel. In short, our
priorities have gone askew-knocked off course by TQM gurus blind
to the obvious problems and the real needs of a fighting
military."

                                  ****

     Whew ! Now excerpts from e-mail reaction, including several
from Air Force and other military personnel.

     -- "Any organization that has accumulated billions of
dollars of obsolete and useless inventory has room for TQM!...
One of the problems with the military, and all governmental
agencies for that matter, is that they aren't run like a
business."

     -- "From what I've seen the past few years as the USAF
started on its quality path, we may have chosen the wrong
approach to implementing quality....the hardest route to adoption
of a cultural change is a blunt, heads-first approach. Often the
most successful appears to me to be an approach where you steer
the ship a little at a time in the desired direction. Add the
heads-first, "you will" approach to the other significant changes
(drawdown) going on in the USAF at the same time, and it's easy
to see that TQM could appear threatening to a lot of
individuals."

     -- "We have had TQM in (a public university) for two years
now and it is simply not designed for this kind of
organization... TQM is about centralization of power.
What we see for the most part are groups of administrators
meeting, putting out 20-page mission statements, then creating a
huge 'parallel organization' to monitor whether or not we (the
faculty and staff) are meeting the objectives..."

     -- "Many of the TQM principles directly support the infantry
squad mission. Empowerment of individual soldiers to recommend
and implement changes to procedures; continuous improvement;
measurement at user level; driving out fear (of making
suggestions to improve); respect for the opinions of the "doer"
who knows best the what and how of a given process, continuous
feedback. Infantry squads with these qualities perform better in
combat..."

     -- "The article did raise valid objections to TQM (the
separate quality bureaucracy, the onerous paperwork and data
collection, the burden of meetings on busy people, etc.)..."

     -- "I fully understand why a highly successful senior
officer (or just as easily a corporate CEO) sees TQM as a waste
of time. 'I did pretty darn good without TQM, so why change?'...
However, the key thought left out of the article was that
although we are a 'warrior' organization, we still have tons of
processes, both in the rear and on the front line, that are just
as ripe for process improvement as a factory line at GM..."

     -- "As a former Air Force team member, I can honestly say
TQM is working wonders on some organizations and will have an
affect on others if senior leadership will let it... The Air
Force is still a little caught up in instantaneous results... The
idea of empowerment alone will cause change. The guys and gals in
the trenches have many good ideas of how to make things better
and ultimately save the taxpayers money."

     -- "Drew's article stated many flaws, however...I don't see
these as TQM flaws, but rather flaws in the implementation...
Bureaucracy with no added value is not TQM. Paperwork with no
added value is not TQM. Data collection with no purpose...is of
no value and therefore a misapplication of TQM..."

CONTACT: James Reese, QUALITY editor, University of South
Carolina-Spartanburg, (803) 472-4527, r50504@univscvm.csd
.scarolina.edu 

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