ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces readers to barriers which can inhibit the achievement of quality. It will identify the barriers, show how they arise and how they can be identified or recognised. Organisations of all sizes, and especially in the highly regulated business environments now existing, operate through more or less bureaucratic processes, including those now embedded in digital systems. A particular problem arises from the use of procedures in service organisations. The aircraft, a machine, has a defined and limited number of systems each of which has two essential conditions, working or not working. Failure or uncertainty in relation to any control or safety-critical system means that the aircraft cannot depart. The bureaucratic challenge is amplified in the digital economy. Digital devices are ‘bureaucratic’ at one level of consideration. Once programmed they will consistently carry out the same set of reactions to stimuli unless and until the energy is turned off or the programme changed.
