BUILDING A “RICH PICTURE” AND ASSESSING A “QUALITY MANAGEMENT” PROGRAM AT THORNTON PRINTING COMPANY

This working paper illustrates the use of a variety of systems ideas to explore the problem situation presented by Thornton Printing Company, and to examine its “Quality Management” Program—the major instrument chosen by the Company to address its problems. The method employed to set the proposed solution against the “mess” it was designed to alleviate could be refined to have a very general application, The paper also contains many points of more specific interest. Checkland's guidelines for building a “rich picture” are supplemented by ideas drawn from the organization theory literature and by use of the “cognitive mapping” technique. The legitimacy of such a combination of concepts is therefore raised (but not examined.). The “Quality Management” Program adopted by the Company, and the method of implementation, is revealed to be a much attenuated version of the philosophy set forth in the literature on Quality Management and “Excellence” from which it was drawn. Finally, the assumptions underlying the ...