The concept of a corporate "culture" is not new. While there is some debate on who coined the term, many give credit to Elliot Jacques, a noted corporate psychologist. Jacques identified it in his 1951 book, The Changing Culture of a Factory. Today, many management consultants use it as a buzz word, with many not really understanding the concept. Simply put, a corporate culture is the values, beliefs, and behavioral expectations that are shared between employees and management. This is very different than the common understanding of processes that are part of most continuous/continual quality programs. Quality Programs such as ISO-9001 are primarily task specific. Consider this example: The electrode manufacturing department supervisor realizes that they are running low on tooling pallets. The supervisor informs the person who does procurement to order more pallets. Several weeks pass and all of the pallets are gone. The supervisor checks with procurement on when the new pallets will be received. After getting a "deer in the headlights" look, the procurement person says, "I emailed the supplier a request for a quote five weeks ago. I am waiting for them to reply." The truth is that, after sending an RFQ for more pallets, the procurement person believed that their job was done. If not for the supervisor's intervention, the pallets would never be ordered.
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