In Quest of Quality

A well-run factory is like a ballet. It should be planned with zealous attention to detail and supervised with no tolerance for mistakes. This year some 7,000 executives from such firms as IBM, Borg-Warner and PPG Industries will travel to Winter Park, Fla., to hear that message from Philip B. Crosby, 57, perhaps the leading evangelist of quality in the U.S. and author of Quality Is Free. Cost of a five-day seminar: $1,650. Crosby tells the executives that if they follow his strict rules and manufacture a product right the first time, their companies could increase profits substantially.

Crosby maintains that a major problem with U.S. industry is that supervisors consider occasional errors, such as ill-fitting car doors and blemished paint jobs, to be normal and acceptable. As a result, companies spend too much time and money correcting mistakes. He puts the blame mostly on managers who are inaccessible or vague in giving instructions to workers. Says Crosby: "Quality is a process like raising children. You never get done."

Crosby acquired his management insights on the factory floor. Though trained as a podiatrist, he never practiced and began work in 1953 as a $75-a-week inspector of radar equipment. He soon questioned the prevailing wisdom that preventing errors was a hopeless goal. By 1961, while a quality manager of the Pershing missile program at Martin Marietta, he conceived the Zero Defects policy, which persuaded workers to sign no-flaw pledges and recognized those with perfect performances.

Crosby later became director of quality at ITT, and one day he got to put forth his ideas to Chairman Harold Geneen during an elevator ride. Geneen was intrigued and agreed to support an in-house "cultural revolution." Under the banner of slogans like "Make Certain" and "Buck a Day," Crosby created a system of quality managers throughout the company that has been adopted by other large corporations.

In 1979 Crosby left his $200,000-a-year job at ITT to start his own firm, which now has more than 100 employees and projected revenues of $22 million for 1984. One of his early clients was Mostek, a Texas-based microchip maker. The firm came to Crosby after it started losing its market to Japanese electronics firms because they were turning out superior chips. Mostek sent 115 of its managers to Crosby seminars and launched a campaign exhorting workers to "Do It Right the First Time." Result: Mostek cut costs by some $40 million annually. Says Quality Director Robert Donnelly: "It was dramatic. Changes occurred almost overnight."

The Crosby philosophy is spelled out fully in Quality Is Free (McGraw-Hill; $21.95), which has attracted almost a cult following among managers since its publication in 1979. Crosby has written four other books, including one that offers advice on family management, called The Art of Getting Your Own Sweet Way. Next month Crosby will publish Quality Without Tears, the Art Hassle-Free Management.