Mohammad Al-Droubi

Total Quality Management

Ames Rubber Corporation

Introduction:
Ames Rubber is a medium company in terms of size, big in terms of quality area; it produces rubber
rollers for machines & vehicles. During its corporate life, Ames was very successful but because of
emerging of local companies with foreign ones and because of changing in customers demands
(high quality for low cost products) challenges had increased, this pushes Ames to analyze its
internal operations, and as a result its CEO decide to improve its product quality in a cost effective
manner; to do that, the CEO of Ames through Xerox training program called Excellence through
Quality Program consisting of the following initiatives: involvement groups, cost of quality & reject
tracking, yield improvement, strategy review/operations review, and extensive training... Cultural
changes also made to stimulate the program, at which sharing customers to redesign the
organizational chart is established. Benefits accomplished by the Quality Program were too many
and exceeded Ames original objectives in which cultural change, employee involvement, morale &
commitment, increasing in communication is accomplished successfully...

Questions:
1. Discuss the manner in which Ames implemented its Excellence through Quality program. Did
the company place its emphasis in the right areas? Explain your answer.
Ames implemented its Excellence through Quality program through a quality training
program, at which its process is designed to involve all Teammates in achieving a common goal
which is establishing full satisfaction of both internal and external customers through total quality.
The program content many different keys:
1- Involvement Groups were started in all work units, and they became a primary communications
and training vehicle. The groups meet at least once a month, and everyone at Ames Rubber is a
member.
2- Every teammate receives 24 hours of basic training in quality principles, techniques, and tools,
and each is able to contribute to quality and performance improvement by using the nine-step QIP
or six-step PSP.
3- Systems were established to track rejects and cost of quality. Reject tracking immediately led to
"Pareto thinking" and helped to isolate parts that were causing the firm's greatest problems.
4- Yield Improvement Teams were launched to examine rejects by cause and to eliminate them.
As a result, Ames Company places its emphasis in the right areas.

Mohammad Al-Droubi

Total Quality Management

2. In developing its Excellence through Quality program, Ames initially benchmarked against
Xerox. Is benchmarking against another companys quality program a good idea? What are the
potential hazards and benefits involved?
First of all, benchmarking is a way to go backstage and watch another companys performance
(Xerox in this case) from the beginning, where all stages and process guidelines are visible; at which,
the comparison of one company's practices and performance against another one in the practice of
benchmarking is a good idea because it provides a chance to identify standards, or "best practices,"
to apply in measuring and improving performance. By benchmarking, the company can provide a
direction of what it is doing, how you are doing it, how others do it, how well you're doing it in
reference to measures, & what and how to improve. Thus, this direction will facilitate the quality
improvement in the company.

Benchmarking
Benefits
Enable organization to outperform competitors
Draws attention on unexpected details &
eliminate costs of R&D
Is a cost-effective and time-efficient way of
establishing a pool of innovative ideas
Ready guidelines to implement
Document reasons as to why these differences
exist

Potential Hazards
Worthless if not accompanied by a plan to
change
Difference in operational processes may vary
from one company to another
Not suitable for every organization
Encourages management to focus on increasing
the efficiency of their existing business instead of
developing new lines of business
Poorly defined benchmark may lead to wasting
efforts & meaningless effort

3. Discuss the benefits that Ames Rubber achieved from its quality program. Are these benefits
more encompassing than you would have expected? Why or why not?
From the title of the case Ames Rubber Corporation: Realizing Multiple Benefits through Improved
Quality, in addition to the benefits achieved by Ames quality program which are characterized by:
transcending (rise above or go beyond) the original objectives, positive cultural change, flourishing
employee involvement, improvement of communication and financial results, defects decreased by
50%; by which at minimum, the company became more disciplined, knows its customers &
employees better and produces better products, in addition to applying to Malcolm Baldrige
National Quality Awardetc, this means that benefits encompasses more than expected.