TecSmart Electronics
1
TecSmart Electronics designs, manufactures, and repairs electronic power supplies for a variety
of original equipment manufacturers in the computer, medical, and office products field. The
company’s focus is summed up by three simple words: quality, service, and value. The top
management team started its quality journey in the mid-1980s, basing it on Deming’s 14 Points.
They established a Deming Steering Committee to guide the process and champion each of the
14 Points, and trained most of the employees by sending them to Deming seminars. Although the
As a first preparatory step, the executive team spent a day off site to think about its
management practices and create an initial list of its strengths, which are summarized here.
• Senior leaders set company objectives and guide cross-functional teams to review and
develop individual plans for presentation to employees. Each department manager develops a
supporting objective for each company objective, and nearly every employee works on a team to
support these objectives.
• All employees are trained in a five-step problem-solving process based on defining
problems, collecting data, analyzing the cause of the problem, developing a solution, and
implementing change.
• Inputs to the strategic planning process include customer feedback, market research, and
benchmarking information from customers, suppliers, competitors, and industry leaders. Team
analyses are evaluated at an off-site planning meeting by all managers, resulting in long-range
• Customer satisfaction data is acquired from sales representatives, executive phone calls
and visits, and satisfaction surveys. These data are reviewed and compared by the executive team
during the strategic planning process.
• TecSmart uses self-managed work groups in which employees make most day-to-day
decisions while managers focus on coaching and process improvement. Hourly workers can
make process changes with the agreement of only one other person, and salespeople are
authorized to travel whenever they feel it necessary for customer service.
• The average employee receives 72 hours of internal quality/service-related training, and
quality training is mandatory for all salespeople, engineers, office staff, and managers.
• New product introduction teams work with design engineers and customers to ensure that
design requirements are met during manufacturing and testing. All processes are formally
documented, using statistical process control to monitor variation and provide a basis for
corrective action. Statistical methods are used to optimize processes.
• Quality is assessed through internal audits, employee opinion surveys, and customer
feedback.
• Suppliers are involved in early stages of a product development program. Quality