ABSTRACT
John Oakland is Executive Chairman of Oakland Consulting plc and head of its Research and Education Division. Oakland’s early industrial career focused on research and development and production management. The need for quality to be inherent in management thinking is supported by the sixth characteristic of prevention. Oakland suggests that one-third of all organisational efforts are wasted in error-based activity, for example rework, rectification, inspection and so on, with an even higher proportion in service based organisations. Quality must pervade the whole organisational atmosphere. This suggests that Oakland’s approach is systemic. While he makes no direct reference in his work to the systemic approaches to management, there is a systemic as well as systematic attitude reflected in his approach. While Oakland quite rightly capitalises on the many well established methods, tools and techniques for achieving quality, he does offer his own overarching approach for TQM and some new insights.
