Putting strategy to work - Tools for cost and quality management

A fundamental change is taking place in the way organizations, including nuclear utilities, are managed and approach the marketplace. For utilities and nonutilities alike, changing market conditions and increased competition are forcing organizations to implement cost and quality management approaches that will bring tangible, bottom-line results. Utilities are shifting from simply managing costs to more broadly managing resources. Astute managers are realizing that cost and quality need not be viewed as trade-offs; rather, they mutually reinforce each other. The following seven characteristics describe an environment in which a company can implement one or more cost and quality approaches with a higher probability of success: (1) successful implementation of cost and quality approaches are based on a well-thought-out plan for cost and quality management; (2) communication is broad and consistent throughout the organization and leads to a shared understanding of the cost and quality strategy; (3) employees understand and believe in the need to change and thus are motivated to act toward achieving stated objectives; (4) management is committed to continuous improvement; (5) the relationship between management and workers is fundamentally changed; this enables those previously without formal authority to assume unprecedented decision-making responsibility; (6) the necessary infrastructure is created to support and sustain continual improvement efforts; (7) lastly, cost and quality management efforts are seen not as one or more programs with distinct beginning and end dates but rather as a process of continuous improvement