TQM in P&R - total quality management; parks & recreation

Total Quality Management (TQM), has become the central operating management philosophy for a growing number of businesses and corporations in the private sector. Based on the teachings of W. Edwards Deming, TQM holds that organizational change and improvement is not possible without involving all levels of employees in the decision making process. With a heavy reliance on teamwork and team building, measurement and, most important, focusing on the needs of the customer, TQM has been embraced by companies as diverse as American Express, Coming Glass, Xerox and General Motors.

The story of Total Quality Management begins in Japan just after World War Il. W. Edwards Deming, an American physicist and statistician, was recruited in the effort to help rebuild the Japanese economy. Originally asked to help devise and undertake a national census, his ideas about statistical quality controls in production were eagerly adopted by government and business leaders eager to bring their economy back to life.

At a time when "Made in Japan" was synonymous with shoddy workmanship, Dr. Deming was convinced that the Japanese were capable of producing quality items that the whole world would want. He exhorted them to continually analyze their methods of production and isolate and improve the process. For instance, he recognized that Japanese manufacturers were putting up with poor quality in incoming materials, which resulted in predictably inferior finished products. Dr. Deming urged them to work with vendors and instrumentation. He told them, "You don't need to receive the junk that comes in. You can never produce quality with that stuff. But with process controls that your engineers are learning about--consumer research, redesign of products--you can."

Dr. Deming pushed Japanese mangers to continually analyze their systems, isolate and eliminate errors, reduce variation, and focus on the needs of the customer. Though it certainly didn't happen overnight, his methods were adopted and have helped lead to Japan's ascension in the world economic market. "Made in Japan" is now considered by many to be the trademark of reasonably priced, quality products. It is easy to see why these methods have now been adopted and implemented by a number of leading American corporations. TQM has been promoted by many as the way to get this country's economy back on track.

However, there is little evidence of TQM's influence in the delivery of public sector parks and recreation services. At first glance, it might seem that TQM methods are not compatible with public sector park operations. After all, in the public sector there is no profit motive to measure success, there is little actual production of hard goods to gauge productivity and the bureaucracy itself, with an abundance of rules and regulations, often inhibits the analysis of programs and policies. in short, there is very little incentive to do things faster, better, or more effectively. "We've always done it this way" is considered by many to be the battle cry of government.

Recently though, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation has begun to implement an aggressive TQM approach to manage and maintain its properties and programs. Since early 1991, the agency has trained more than 400 employees in TQM, and currently there are more than 30 Quality Teams working to analyze and improve operations citywide.

Betsy Gotbaum, city parks commissioner, learned of TQM in December 1990. Only six months into her tenure, New York City was hit with its worst fiscal crisis in almost 15 years. The fiscal mess would eventually touch almost every city agency; sanitation services, libraries, after-school programs and infrastructure repairs would all be scaled back. Public school class sizes were increased, and many social service programs downsized or eliminated completely.

However, no city agency would be affected as severely as the parks and recreation department. The department, which maintains facilities and properties totaling more than 26,000 acres, would eventually see its budget and headcount reduced by more than 33 percent. Chronically underfunded to begin with, the department's share of the city's operating budget would shrink to .48 percent, or less than one half of one percent. (By comparison, the city of Los Angeles allocates about two percent of its budget to operate its parks department.) The agency's headcount, through mandated layoffs, attrition and a hiring freeze, would fall to 2,973, the lowest point in 50 years.

Along with the budget and headcount, staff morale plummeted as well. Comprised of more than 230 titles and represented by 25 different unions, much of the remaining staff became disaffected and increasingly uncertain about their future. Relations between agency divisions became extremely fragile as management heatedly discussed which area would take the next hit.

While Gotbaum wondered how she was going to manage the agency effectively and maintain a reasonable level of morale in the face of such draconian cuts, an executive from the Monsanto Corporation suggested that she look into Total Quality Management. She soon learned that the Coming Corporation, headquartered in upstate New York, was one of the more successful practitioners of TQM. Shortly thereafter, quality specialists from the company gave a well-received presentation to 75 agency senior managers. TQM, with its emphasis on customer service, team building, worker empowerment, problem solving and the development of more efficient processes, seemed to have great potential for an agency whose resources and patience had been stretched thin. The managers decided to pursue TQM training on a larger scale.

The next step was to select an agency manager to serve full-time as the director of quality. This person's responsibilities would include working with agency executives to refine the mission of the agency in relation to TQM; teaching TQM principles to employees; and soliciting and reviewing proposals from corporations and consultants eager to work with the agency.

Next, the department conducted a training session, funded by a private contribution and using outside consultants. One hundred and fifty employees in a variety of titles and from diverse functional areas were trained in quality methods such as problem solving, team building, team management and benchmarking. This resulted in the formation of a number of enthusiastic teams, all hoping to make improvements in their own divisions. Some of these teams were successful. A team working on preventive maintenance inspections for vehicles increased the percentage of on-time inspections from less than 50 percent to nearly 100 percent; another team of employees reconfigured the garage compound in the Bronx to provide markedly easier access to the mechanics bays, thus decreasing waiting time and increasing productivity.

Unfortunately, a larger number of the early teams were unsuccessful. In the rush to make improvements, many teams pursued very nebulous problems, or problems which were just too big to solve in a reasonable period of time, or problems which might very well be unsolvable. For instance, one team set out to restore local playgrounds as a "quality of life center" for neighborhoods. After several meetings, the team had come up with many reasons for the decline of city neighborhoods, including drugs, homelessness and the decline of the two-parent family.

Unfortunately, the team realized that there was very little they could actually do to solve these problems.

Another team set out with the lofty goal of "improving communications between the Operations and Capital divisions," an area which had been a sore point for as long as anyone could remember. This team, as well, came to realize that the stated goal was just too vague to make any meaningful, or measurable, progress.

All the while, training for the agency continued. Generous corporations donated time and materials, and others, including the non-profit City Parks Foundation, provided seed money to engage outside consultants. Besides Corning, training or consulting services were provided by the New School for Social Research, Xerox, American Express and New York Telephone.

Quickly, every problem facing the agency became a candidate for a Quality Team. Responding to the commissioner's desire to get things rolling, well-intentioned managers hastily assembled teams. Unfortunately, these enthusiastic efforts had little planning or oversight. Some teams sought to review very similar problems, duplicating work begun elsewhere. Other teams, disappointed with their lack of progress, simply disbanded. One manager privately expressed the opinion that the "whole TQM/ Empowerment thing is just a gimmick to keep our minds off the real problems."

Despite this, senior management continued to praise TQM and push their staff to develop new proposals and start teams. Meetings were peppered with all the right phrases, and everyone buzzed about empowerment, team building and consensus. But, as Ernest Hemingway once said, "Don't mistake motion for action."

In May 1992, the agency began to work with three consultants from the Columbia University Graduate School of International and Public Affairs. "Right from the start, there was a surprising level of awareness about TQM theory and technique," said Bill Eimicke, one of the consultants. "Unfortunately, there was not a great deal of progress in implementing."

"Our feeling was to move the agency ahead by beginning some |learn by doing' team projects. Using this technique, you see that TQM is not a cure-all, not everybody buys in, not everybody is adaptable," said Mr. Eimicke.

In an attempt to get a handle on the number and type of teams that were operating, the agency chose eight managers to act as "quality advisors" for different functional areas. One advisor was selected for each of the city's five boroughs, and one each for the Capital Projects Division, administration, and Central Park. The advisors would continue to fulfill their regular duties and responsibilities in addition to sheparding new teams through the quality process. As explained, the role of the Advisors would be to:

* Work closely with senior management to develop new proposals.

* Ensure that new teams were working on appropriate problems.

* Explain TQM principles to teams.

* Help facilitate group processes and planning.

* Run "interference" to expedite the approval of new policies and procedures recommended by teams.

The department held an intensive three-day training session, attended by the commissioner, her executive staff and the quality advisors. The focus of this training was to define, very specifically, what criteria should be applied to selecting teams and projects. The training emphasized the importance of analyzing each problem before putting a team together, and, equally important, analyzing the requirements of the project to be sure the right people were on the team.

Shortly, the director of quality, working with the consultants, audiorized the quality advisors to each pursue three carefully chosen projects. Each of these 24 projects were framed in the context of the specific problem the team was going to work on. They applied equal scrutiny selecting the team leaders. These teams worked on problems such as:

* Reducing the number of incorrectly filled out timecards.

* Improving the performance of mobile work crews in Brooklyn.

* Improving ballfield maintenance in the Bronx.

* Improving the response time to public inquiries regarding street tree maintenance in Queens.

* Upgrading telecommunications in the Staten Island Borough office.

* Improving packer (garbage collection) operations in Manhattan.

* Reducing waiting time for tennis players in Central Park.

* Expediting payments to contractors from the Capital Projects division.

By design, these projects were not overly ambitious. It was hoped that by selecting reasonably simple projects the teams would get a quick win under their belts, and learn about quality by being on a closely monitored team, rather than by listening to a consultant in a conference room.

As it turned out, most of the original teams were able to achieve at least part of their stated goals, in addition to enhancing their knowledge of TQM. For instance, the timecard team first developed a simple chart to track timecards submitted to the time office. Over a two-month period, they recorded the nature of every error appearing on the cards. By identifying and categorizing the errors, they were able to recognize a clear pattern. Most of the errors, it was discovered, appeared at the spot on the card where employees record their work location, tour of duty and social security number. If any of this information is wrong, missing or illegible, the timekeepers cannot process that person's paycheck.

Based on these findings, the timekeeping unit now provides preprinted labels with the correct information for timecards, eliminating a raft of errors and potential rework. To further reduce the amount of errors, the team also produced and distributed an updated booklet on timekeeping regulations and organized training sessions for each borough. Ultimately, the average error rate for timecards submitted weekly dropped from more than 30 percent to around 13 percent.

The mobile crew team in Brooklyn first started by flow charting the work, from the time the driver gets in the cab of the truck, through the route followed during the day, to the end of the shift when the crew is dismissed and the truck returned to the garage. By analyzing the work in this way, it became apparent to the team how much slack was built into their findings. The team proposed several pilot projects wherein the trucks were left overnight at secure sites around the borough which were closer to the target sites than the garage. By doing this, and taking advantage of a city program which allows them to get fuel at a number of satellite locations, they have increased their productive working hours on every shift, thus providing a higher level of service to their constituents. Management estimates that these "found hours" are the equivalent of $27,000 in yearly personnel costs.

The Capital Projects team, working to expedite payments to contractors, also started with a flow chart. By describing and defining the twisted trail every invoice follows before it is paid, the team was able to identify several steps in the process which were not mandated or even necessary. The team was able to recommend a new payment process which reduced the number of steps from 12 to only eight. This change effectively freed up one full-time employee to work on other matters.

We hope that all the active teams will spin off additional ideas for projects. Teams are encouraged to keep "futures lists"; that is, to record related issues that are outside the scope of the project they are working on, but deserve future attention as part of the larger initiative to improve the agency. indeed, this has already happened, and there are a number of second-generation teams in progress.

When viewed individually, many of the solutions recommended by the teams do not appear particularly original or innovative. What is noteworthy however, is that there is now activity where there once was only inertia. Stated differently, the agency is beginning to ask "How can we improve this?," rather than "Who's responsible?"

There are still potential obstacles to prevent the agency from achieving its goal of institutionalizing a culture of TQM. For instance, the agency's relationship with some of the unions has been extremely fragile since the layoffs in 1991. Many of them remain skeptical of initiatives aimed at increasing productivity. In an editorial lauding the TQM approach at the Department of Parks, the newspaper NEWSDAY reported, ". . . unions fear the P-word and automatically assume that it only means fewer jobs."

Or, as one agency executive bluntly put it, "The unions think that it's management's role to make the workers miserable, and only the unions should be concerned with things like morale." However, there has been some encouraging progress on this front; at least two different union locals have expressed an interest in "getting involved" with TQM.

"If the agency is successful," said Columbia's Bill Eimicke, "it will be in large part because Commissioner Gotbaum has bought in and stayed in." In case after case, the importance of executive-level commitment is cited as crucial to implementing TQM. There is an often-told story about Dr. Deming and the Ford ("Quality is Job 1") Motor Company. Apparently, the president of the company called Dr. Deming and asked him to help them move toward Total Quality Management. Dr. Deming's response was that he was only interested in working with them if the head of the corporation, in this case the chief executive officer, showed an equal level of commitment. For Dr. Deming, this was not an issue of ego, but an article of faith. You're either on the bus or off the bus; there is no middle ground.

The prospect of trying to change the organization and culture of any city agency is an intimidating one. However, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation is attempting to do just this. There has been a collective realization that business as usual is no longer good enough, and "we've always done it this way" cannot be the norm. The strategy is to proceed in exactly the same way you eat an elephant: one bite at a time.

COPYRIGHT 1993 National Recreation and Park Association
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group