Xerox's Role In Total Quality Management

4. LEADERSHIP

In Total Quality Management, leadership is a very significant principle that helps in the development of an organization strategy. Basically, if a leader can uphold an organizational environment that yields and encourages employee responsibility, that organization is likely to meet its quality output targets. Leading by example and micro managing subordinates whilst also encouraging participation from employees has often times shown success in yielding greater quality outcomes.

In 1983 when Xerox was failing due to internal and external competition, it had 9 times the suppliers, 2 times the employees and 2 times the circulation range in comparison to its competitors, but the down side is that it had 10 times the product reject

This is triple the number of supplier as compared to their Japanese competitors who typically had about 1000 suppliers. (Morrissey & Tuttle, 2011) Therefore, Xerox is using in it’s strive for TQM is to reduce its supplier base. Xerox has gone from individual suppliers for each of the diverse assembling offices to a combined gathering of suppliers for the majority of the assembling offices. This has radically cut the measure of suppliers required which expands responsibility of the suppliers to get the materials to Xerox on time and it diminishes some overhead costs as a result of transportation decreases and economies of scale rebates. There is a diminished measure of individuals required in supervising the ordering process from the suppliers which takes into account a decrease in positions and to a lesser degree a chance for mistake. In doing so, Xerox the number of suppliers fell to 300 certified vendors, there was a 13-times improvement in the proportion of defective parts, a 40% decrease in un-scheduled maintenance and a 27% drop in service response time. (Implementation of TQM, 2013)

Apart from supplier management, inventory management was another key and interrelated aspect of Xerox. Traditionally, technical representatives decided the level of spare parts inventory was to carry but there was little information available on the actual usage pattern of these spare parts. By

In mid 2002 the decision was made to integrate lean and six sigma as a corporate-wide strategy, commit the resources required to enable a robust deployment, identify projects based on value creation/ EP impact, and engage every function and value chain across Xerox. The process proved to have merit because in 2010, Xerox was named to iSixSigma’s list of “Best Places to Work for Six Sigma Professionals.” Xerox ranked 3rd – up from 7th in 2009 – and was noted for its supportive culture for Lean Six Sigma, talent and training (Suppliers: Xerox,