In Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Subject

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Present to the Business & Management Department

of STI College – General Santos, Inc.

Submitted to:

MS. FREEDOM BOLIPATA-BIALA, MM

Instructor

Submitted by:

Christine Anne J. Alemania

BSHRM 4-1A

September 19, 2019

 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The case examines the benchmarking initiatives taken by Xerox, one of the
world's leading copier companies, as a part of its 'Leadership through
Quality' program during the early 1980s. The case discusses in detail the
benchmarking concept and its implementation in various processes at
Xerox. It also explores the positive impact of benchmarking practices on
Xerox.
"Benchmarking at Xerox is still very much a matter of competitive
advantage. It is used to keep Xerox's edge razor-sharp, to discover where
something is being done with less time, lower cost,fewer resources and
better technology."

Xerox is a document company serving global document processing and

financial services market. The business exist over 160 countries.

They developed, manufactured and marketed copiers and

duplicators,scanners, computer softwares and other related equipments.

The Success Story From year 1946 to 1973 annual sales growth exceeded
25%. Annual growth of earning exceeds 35%. The above achievements were
in plain paper copier business. In the year 1959 the company introduced 914
plain paper copiers that was early revolution in this business. The copying
equipment business achived the growth from 20 million in 1959 to 9.5 billion
in1965 just within 6 years In 1990 the world copy business was over 900 billion
copies.

Financial Services Operations includes:- insurance. Equipment financing

Investment & Investment banking

Xerox developed a corporate revitalization plan called “Leadership through

quality”. Plan was developed to meet customers requirements. Senior
management drives this LTQ plan with the help of employees to focus on the
process as well as products. LTQ plan was fully integreted business process.
Major components of LTQ are:- 1)Employee involvement 2)Competitive
benchmarking 3)Quality improvement process
 INTRODUCTION

Benchmarking is the practice of comparing business processes

and performance metrics to industry bests and best practices from other

companies. Dimensions typically measured are quality, time and cost. Also

referred to as "best practice benchmarking" or "process benchmarking", this

process is used in management in which organizations evaluate various

aspects of their processes in relation to best-practice companies' processes,

usually within a peer group defined for the purposes of comparison.

Benchmarking is learning experience where the best practices are observed

and measured to create target for future achievements. Benchmarking is a

part of total quality leadership program. It requires competitive data, practices,

performance, decision making and communication at all levels of

organization.

Benchmarking is continuous process of measuring Xerox's products , services

and business practices against the toughest competitors or market leaders.

The goal is superiorities in all areas like-Quality Product, Reliability & cost.
1. Explain the circumstances that led Kearns to adopt the “Leadership Through
Quality” program. In the backdrop of his initiatives to retain Xerox’s global
competitiveness. Comment on the rationale behind the decision to implement
benchmark practices at the company.

David T Kearns, President planned long range quality strategy. He believed that
it can be achieved by the ff:

 Understanding customer value. By thinking that what the customers

perceive as value is important.

 Value stream analysis. Having understood the value for the customers, the
next step is to analyse the business processes to determine which ones
actually add value. If an action does not add value, it should be modified or
eliminated from the process.
 Flow. Focus on organizing a continuous flow through the production or
supply chain rather than moving commodities in large batches.

 Pull. Demand chain management prevents from producing commodities to

stock, i.e. customer demand pulls finished products through the system. No
work is carried out unless the result of it is required downstream.

 Perfection. The elimination of non-value-adding elements (waste) is a

process of continuous improvement. “There is no end to reducing time,
cost, space, mistakes, and effort”.

2. Define benchmarking and discuss the various types of benchmarking.

Explain the steps involved in the implementation of a typical benchmarking
process.

Benchmarking is the process of comparing one's business processes and

performance metrics to industry bests or best practices from other companies.
Dimensions typically measured are quality, time and cost. Business process
reengineering is a management approach aiming at improvements by means
of elevating efficiency and effectiveness of the processes that exist within and
across organizations. The essence of benchmarking is the continuous
process of comparing a company’s strategy, products, processes with those of
the world leaders and best-in-class organizations.

 Strategic :- Long term strategies, not industry specific.

 Competitive :- compare product and services, same sector.

 Process :- identifying and observing the best practices, objective is to

benchmark cost and efficiency, similar work or service.

 Functional : Comparing specific business function, same of different sector.

 Internal : benchmarking against its own units, different group, teams or

branches. External: comparing performance with companies in a specific
industry or across industries.

3. Describe Xerox’s benchmarking model. How did Xerox go about

implementing benchmarking practices in the company?

The 'Leadership through Quality' program encouraged Xerox to find ways to

reduce their manufacturing costs. Benchmarking against Japanese competitors
helped Xerox to find the following issue:

a. Time taken to bring product to market.

b. Number of engineers required.

c. Number of design changes.

d. Design costs.

e. Total cost.

f. Defects as compared to competitors.

g. Required productivity growth rate to catch up with the Japanese.

Xerox defined benchmarking as 'the process of measuring its products,

Services, and practices against its toughest competitors, identifying the gaps
and establishing goals. Our goal is always to achieve superiority in quality,
product reliability and cost. Xerox developed its own Benchmarking model
which involved tens steps categorized under five stages - planning, analysis,
integration, action and maturity. The five-stage process involved the following
activities:

 Planning: Determine the subject to be benchmarked, identify the relevant

best practice organizations and select/develop the most appropriate data
collection technique. Analysis: Assess the strengths of competitors (best
practice companies) and compare Xerox's performance with that of its
competitors. This stage determines the current competitive gap and the
projected competitive gap.

 Integration: Establish necessary goals, on the basis of the data collected,

to attain best performance; integrate these goals into the company's formal
planning processes. This stage determines the new goals or targets of the
company and the way in which these will be communicated across the
organization

 Action: Implement action plans established and assess them periodically to

determine whether the company is achieving its objectives. Deviations from
the plan are also tackled at this stage.

 Maturity: Determine whether the company has attained a superior

performance level. This stage also helps the company determine whether
benchmarking process has become an integral part of the organization's
formal management process.

4. What benefits did Xerox derive from the implementation of benchmarking

practices? Why do you think benchmarking initiatives sometimes fail to give
companies the expected benefits? Explain how you would go about ensuring
the success of the benchmarking initiatives undertaken by the company.

Customer complaints declined by more than 60%.

Customer satisfaction with Xerox's Sales processes improved by 40%.
Service processes by 18%.
Administrative processes by 21%.
Overall customer satisfaction was rated at more than 90% in 1991.
Number of defects reduced by 78 per 100 machines.
Service response time reduced by 27%.
Inspection of incoming components reduced to below 5%.
Defects in incoming parts reduced to 150ppm.
Inventory costs reduced by two-thirds.
Marketing productivity increased by one-third.
Distribution productivity increased by 8-10 %.
Notable decrease in labour costs.
Errors in billing reduced from 8.3 % to 3.5% .
CONCLUSION

Benchmarking enables decision-makers to understand exactly how much

improvement they will need to accomplish in order to achieve superior
performance. Frequent and regular benchmarking helps us to create specific
and measurable short-term plans that are based on current reality rather than
historical performance, and which can support step- by-step improvements in
performance over time. The objective is to overtake the top performers, turning
a performance deficit into performance leadership.

REFERENCES

Benchmarking. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benchmarking

Kolk, A. (2010, January). Retrieved from https://www.slideshare.net/openinnovation/visions-

missions-of-fortune-global-100/72-Nissan_MotorVisionEnriching_peoples_lives_building

Nissan Motor Corporation. Retrieved from

http://www.nissanmotor.jobs/amie/eu/locations.html

Nissan Motor Corporation. Retrieved from https://www.nissan-

global.com/EN/QUALITY/PRODUCTS/FQC/

Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK. Retrieved from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Motor_Manufacturing_UK