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The Total Quality Corporation: 0How 10 Major Companies Turned Quality... to Competitive Advantage in the 19

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The book consists of 3 main parts. Part 1 shows how 10 growing & successful companies improved their market share and lowered costs by eliminating waste and targetting zero emission. In all cases, these companies went beyond the regulatory requirements. The authors showed the common thread among these companies: clear connection between waste elimination & quality; using waste to quality relationship to drive management decisions; constant waste reduction effort; focus on customer needs as a way to eliminate valueless business processes; using the environment as catalyst to force organizational issues to surface and; using environmental measures to increase shareholder value. CEOs and managers of these companies played key roles in identifying possible savings, putting care in the little details, setting higher and higher standards, empowering employees, eliminating waste at source than recycling later and getting their suppliers to tow the line. Part 2 then illustrates how different countries' action or inaction can encourage or discourage environmental efforts. The book then concludes with Part 3 relating the concern for the environment with the pervasive information technology revolution.

A big portion of the book dwells on how environmental cost reduction efforts reduce business costs and avoid layoffs & restructuring common to many companies nowadays. It shows how operational inefficiencies were eliminated in the effort to target zero waste. In the process, these companies realized what they really do best and what their customers value.

The authors illustrated how some of these companies are riding the green wave. In the car market arena, Nissan showed how eliminating waste led to lasting advantage to reduce costs permanently and concentrate on producing better cars. Initially it was seen as a poor investment but in the end it pays. Nissan designed plastic tanks that can be recycled on site; switch to water-based paints with electrostatic application and through it all empowered its employees. Exxon was used as the model for the oil industry. The drop in oil prices produced a big demand for new investments in environmental controls & programs as way to increase the bottom line. Exxon placed its bet on the sector it has the biggest impact-energy. It showed how to simultaneously cut costs and pollution and how increased revenues can be a result of cutting waste. The authors gave reference to how Exxon handled the Valdez oil spill accident. Praising Exxon for not concentrating on this one accident alone but conducted business-as-usual attitude in its other concerns. Exxon pursued relentlessly how to put more knowledge content and value to its products. Wal-Mart as an example for the retail industry, showed how eliminating what the customers don't value can cut their costs. They recognized the endless truck trips as the major environmental area for improvement. In the process, Wal-Mart revolutionized how goods are delivered to market via smarter management & better IT infrastructure. It pared its costs to the bone, targeting distribution & not the retail stores. In the customer satisfaction area, Luftansa Airlines was the authors' model. Luftansa showed that passenger satisfaction is first and foremost as a result of improving leadership and efficiency while boosting quality & service. It started looking at the waste stream microscopically. Technology was harnessed in various ways: using new aircraft (the youngest in the industry); acquisition of new IT software process and; design of better reservation & flight planning systems. The current environmental laws was seen more as opportunities rather that additional burden. It was clear to Luftansa that to reduce operating costs requires eliminating the waste or activity at the source rather that recycling it later on. Moving on a national & regional perspective, the authors examine how Europe, Japan, Singapore & Hongkong are trying to ride the green wave. Europe is clearly ahead with its tough regulatory measures and high gasoline taxes. Some countries like Denmark and Germany, the authors would call, are the most "environmetally correct" in the world. But for all these successes, they have not improved the competitive performance and efficiency requirement of Europe. Japan's approach is very different. The authors could have not graphically expressed it better--riding the big green tsunami. Environmentalism was a by-product of efficiency. The government pressured the industries to be more efficient and thus reduce energy use during the 2 decades after 1975. Shifting now to the younger countries Singapore & Hong Kong, the authors praised them for their single-minded focus to economic development. Their policy makers recognized that stringent pollution standards attract rather than dissuade foreign investments. They used environmental pressure as catalyst and to use it to maintain economic momentum in the face of competition from other Third World countries.

In the last part of the book, the authors elaborate & analyze how IT will remake the green corporation of the future. More and more, the work of machines and natural resources is being replaced by knowledge. Corporations achieve unheard-of quality and productivity improvements. Production processes are "dematerialized" making them "greener". A clarion call was addressed to the US-- it can no longer rely on its cheap natural resources as its competitive advantage. The competition requires harnessing all the other resources--environmental, financial or human. The effect of information revolution is very similar to the revolution brought about by the railways in the mid-19th century. Then as now, there will be winners & losers.

The book's conclusion is rather simple: zero waste equals zero defects. Pollution is nothing but poor management in action. Green productivity doesn't have to be a herculian or massive operation but in allowing the green bug to bite us in the little details. The opportunities abound in riding the green wave and eliminating waste at the source itself. Environmental pressure has to be turned into our favor helping us lower costs and improve efficiencies.