Keywords: Excellence, Continuous Improvement, Total Quality, Employee participation, Kaizen.

Numerous incremental gains achieved through employee participation in Continuous Improvement can reduce the Costs of Quality. The basic principles of Total Quality are explained. Tools and techniques for problem solving and gaining employee involvement are outlined. The author focuses on the lessons learned by a major fertilizer company as it introduced and managed Total Quality. In particular, the importance of attention to culture and Policy Deployment as a prerequisite to introducing systems and tools is emphasised.

Geoff Freeman, Hydro Agri (UK) Ltd, Immingham, UK

25 pages, 16 figures.