Introduction of Quality-Driven Team-Based Systems: Issues at the Boundary Ofoperations Management and Industrial Relations

In order to improve the quality of their products many American corporations have begun to shift the emphasis of the organization of production from detection of defects to improvement of the production process. Most quality improvement programs emphasize employee involvement and team work in problem-solving and execution of day-to-day tasks. Based on the experiences of a set of companies, we explore the impact of teams on process improvements. Potential benefits from introducing team-based systems lie in the productive use of workers’ knowledge and expertise. The introduction of teams also has the effect of partitioning the tasks of an organization: the proper partitioning of tasks can enhance organizational control and reduce coordination and monitoring costs.