Evolution of Quality at Xerox

Evolution of Quality at Xerox

Cheryl King

December 13, 2016

Grantham University

Evolution of Quality at Xerox

Xerox was a major organization in the copiers business from the late 1950s to the end of the 1970s with most its products doing well in that area. Unfortunately, in the 1970s, Xerox faced a crisis because of IBM and Kodak entering the industry by the early 1980s.  Xerox had been focused on their products by realizing that there was some reorganizing and reconstruction that needed to be done. They had to address the issues that jeopardized their competiveness. It cost Xerox almost $2 billion due to loss of business, excessive inspection, rework and scrap. While all of this was transpiring Kodak and IBM were focused on quality and high volume copiers. Xerox also had to contend with Japanese competitors as their market share dropped to less than 50 percent.

In comparison to its competitors, the production, and quality indicators showed that Xerox trailed behind competitors such as IBM and Kodak with a larger workforce, high manufacturing defects rates, a significant number of suppliers, and complex and redundant business processes (Evans, & Lindsay, 2016 p.31). By 1983, it was realized that Xerox need to create a long term strategy focused on quality and the culture of management. The president of Xerox David Kearns was informed that Fuji Xerox was successful in implementing effective quality management practices. A team was put together to outline the strategy necessary to implement these changes. It was revealed that there would need to be and change in behaviors and attitudes all over the organization. The business practices needed to be addressed in order to make some operational changes as well. Armed with the information from the reports and knowing what was necessary Kearns implemented a total quality management approach that would involve all employees. He wanted to ensure that the plan was designed right the first time.  Xerox’s 25 top managers and David Kearns (1983) created the Xerox Quality Policy that stated:

        Xerox is a quality company. Quality is the basic business principle for Xerox. Quality         means         providing our external and internal customers with innovative products and         services that fully satisfy their requirements. Quality improvement is the job of every         Xerox employee.

This Xerox policy led to the creation of the process known as Leadership Through Quality.  This leadership process main objectives was to embed quality as the basic business principle and assure that quality improvement gets to be the job of every employee at Xerox.  Making sure that all employees whether it be individually or a team give internal and external customers original goods and services that will gratify their current and dormant requirements. There were also goals that were focused on Xerox activities such as, customer, employee, business and process goals. These goals encompassed the ideas that customers would be eager to do business while the employees created an environment where everyone took pride in what was being done and contributed to the organizations success. The goal was to use Leadership Through quality process which would increase profits at a fast pace in comparison to Xerox competitors.