For the total quality management philosophy to work, everyone in an organization must buy into the concept. Lane Lordon has been with Boyer Industries for 25 years and is managing one of its JIT work areas. He has just been told that he needs to attend four two-hour training sessions on his company’s new “Quality or Else” approach to operations. His response to the training program was, “Who needs it? I know this operation better than anyone else in the organization. My work area outproduces all other work areas in this division. Give the training to the new people, especially those new M.B.A.s in middle management who are still wet behind the ears.”

You are Lordon’s supervisor. Write a memo to him explaining why every employee of Boyer Industries needs to go through a special training program to learn about TQM.