Total Quality Management at Harris

John G. (Jack) Johnson is vice president, Palm Bay Operations Manufacturing, Harris Corporation’s Electronic Systems Sector. Jack is responsible for all manufacturing and material functions supporting four Electronic Systems Sector divisions headquatered in Palm Bay, FL. Jack has served as vice president, Operations Manufacturing for the Government Aerospace Systems Division and as vice president of programs, managing the Electrical Multiplexing System (EMUX) program for the B-1B aircraft.

Jack’s management experience includes assignments as vice president, engineering for Harris Satellite Communications Division and director of operations for the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) program. He was also program manager for the development of a Medium Antenna Terminal for the United States Army Satellite Communications Agency and internal manager of La Faire Vite, a complex electronic system located at 14 interconnected sites in West Germany.

Jack graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a bachelor of science degree in Mechanical Engineering and received his master’s degree in Space Technology from the Florida Institute of Technology.

As our company began a new decade, we at Harris have reflected back on our journey toward a new culture. Although it hasn’t seemed like it at the time, we have changed a lot over those years. We still have much to do, but we have had several important breakthroughs along the way and have created structures which can facilitate breakthroughs in the future. The following will attempt to retrace some of our most important footsteps.

PHASE ZERO - Quality Circles

Like many companies, we attempted in the early ’80s to focus on productivity, rather than quality as a primary business issue. We thought we could increase the productivity of the people doing the work by organizing them into Quality Circles. We found that Quality Circles didn’t improve productivity much. The circles were not sufficiently structured that they could really identify and solve workrelated problems. However, the main reason Quality Circles didn’t work was that Management thought they didn’t have anything to do with Management. Some of the good things about Quality Circles have survived and formed a part of our culture, but for the most part this phase, from 1981 to 1983, has been regarded as a “false start” in our journey.

PHASE ONE - Total Quality Control (TQC)

Our first real breakthrough occurred in October of 1983, when we were first exposed to the University of Tennessee’s Institute for Productivity Through Quality. Although the training program seemed to be about statistics, we began to realize for the first time that it was quality, not productivity, that was the primary driver. (We were also told that the problem with quality was really about the management system, but we didn’t really buy that until a little later.) This breakthrough led to the introduction of a number of new tools we called “TQC Tools.” These tools, including statistical process control, were based on the belief that the person who does the work must be responsible for its quality, not the inspector down the line. TQC tools also helped us understand the statistical nature of work processes and how those processes must be made more capable if higher quality is to be expected. Our TQC phase established employee ownership and the need for doing, things right the first time. It was a very important beginning.

PHASE TWO - Employee Involvement

We weren’t very far into TQC implementation (1984) when we made an important discovery. If employees were to be expected to “own” the quality of their work, then they were going to have to be empowered to do something about the processes they were required to use. This meant that the entire relationship between management and those managed would have to be changed. Quality really was about the management system. The people doing the work, knowing the most about the limitations of their work processes, would have to use new skills in analysis, consensus forming, and decision making, and they would need the authority and communication channels to put their decisions into action.

Also implied here was the need to organize the relationships between the people doing the work into “value-added chains, ” so that each could understand the quality requirements from their internal “customers. ” This breakthrough led to the formation of our cross-functional Employee Involvement Teams and System Improvement Project Team structures in 1984 and led, subsequently, to the formalization of the PEOPLE program in 1985. (PEOPLE is an acronym, standing for “Performance Excellence, Our People Lead the Effort. ) These team structures are continuing to expand and provide the mechanism for further breakthroughs and incremental improvements.

PHASE THREE - Supplier Improvement

Until late 1987, our improvement efforts were focused on cleaning up our act internally. However, we knew that we would eventually need to integrate our supplier base into our own processes. After all, 28 cents of every dollar of our costs flow right through Harris to those suppliers.

The breakthrough came through the development of a Corporate vision statement which mandated strategic partnerships with suppliers who share our commitment to quality and customer focus. Realization of this vision was a Considerable task for the Electronics Systems Sector—our supplier base exceeded 5000 companies. None of those companies knew enough about Harris to begin strategic partnerships, and we could not know enough about them either.

A substantial reduction in the supplier base was essential for both of us. We first had to decide what to expect from our suppliers under such partnerships, and what we could offer in return, Then we had to select, based on those expectations, those key suppliers able to go forward with us. To implement the program, we had to form teams of people sufficiently expert in each technology and product area to be able to represent Harris to subgroups of the supplier base.

This led to the formation of a new team type, the Commodity team. The 17 commodity teams are made up of commodity specialists from all functions. These teams took the commodity types that make up the bulk of our procurements, added those which are difficult to buy, and reduced that part of the supplier base from over 2500 to approximately 300. These 300 companies can now work directly with the 15 commodity teams toward a mutually rewarding future for us both.

PHASE FOUR - Just In Time (JIT)

Whereas TQC and other tools enable many improvements in quality, timeliness and cost, they do not alter the traditional “push” method of processing work. JIT works backward through each workcell, creating demands (by each internal customer) for the next work to be done. Through that system, everyone is required to work on the very thing their internal customer requires. Whereas TQC is about “doing things right the first time, ” JIT is about “doing the right things.”

It took a long time to figure out how to implement JIT in the Government contracting environment. Although TQC does not conflict with any of the Government’s Acquisition Regulations, JIT conflicts with a lot of them, Our JIT breakthrough was delayed until we figured out how to satisfy the regulations and still gain the benefits of JIT. That required a lot of operating system adjustments. We inaugurated our first JIT workcell in 1988.

No doubt we have many more breakthroughs coming and will continue to make evolutionary improvements in between. Breakthroughs are difficult to predict, but there are two that seem to be on the way:

• One already has a name - it is called “Quality Function Deployment” (QFD). QFD introduces some new tools for knowing much more about what our customers really want than we now know. It also requires us to know a lot more about our competitors and what they are doing. QFD’s principles are easily understood in the consumer marketplace, but we have to figure out what QFD really means in Government contracting.
• The other big change for our future concerns our organization. Our cross-functional team structures are already breaking down the “walls” between our functional departments, The teams are focusing on how to improve the added values for which they are responsible, It seems less and less important which department each team member comes from, and less clear that we need departments called “Engineering,” “Manufacturing)” “Product Assurance, ” etc. The day may soon come where the team-managed cell structures can replace the departmental structures altogether. When it does, we will have a much “flatter” organization with few management “levels” from the top to the bottom.

The decade of the ’90s holds much promise for Harris and for those invigorated and challenged by change. We think are are doing well so far, and will maintain our momentum by encouraging continuous evolutionary change and occasional revolutionary breakthroughs.