TQM (Total Quality Management)

TQM (Total Quality Management)

“TQM refers to the total involvement of staff in an organization together, which includes suppliers, distributors and even customers in bringing about quality satisfaction about quality about satisfaction by promoting quality cultures through quality circles, job enrichment and effective purchasing. Workers and supervisors have to be trained to solve the problems in product/ process variations”.

• Total Quality Management (TQM) is an enhancement to the traditional way of doing business. 
• It is a proven technique to guarantee survival in world-class competition.
• Only by changing the actions of management will the culture and actions of an entire organization be transformed. 
• TQM is for the most part common sense.

Total — made up of the whole 

Quality — Degree of Excellence a Product  or Service provides 

Management — Act, art or manner of handling, controlling, directing etc.

Principle Objective of TQM

• Meeting the customer’s requirements. 
• Continuous improvement of quality at every level, at every place and at every stage. 
• To develop participative and integrated problem solving process (employee involvement). 
• Bring about a total cultural change in every facet of the organization. 
• Focused, continuous and relentless cost reduction. 
• Interlink and integrate various sub-systems of the organization (which strives for excellence).

History of Total Quality Management (TQM)

Long before TQM was formalised, its traces were seen in the early 1920’s when statistical theory was effectively applied to quality control. In the 1940’s, Japanese goods had a reputation for being cheap imitations and illiterate workforce. American statistician W. Edwards Deming was invited to Japan to help improve the Japanese industrial system, to solve these problems. The Japanese were open to quality improvement with a view to increasing their export market. Deming taught them concepts that went beyond traditional statistical control courses. He encouraged the improvement of processes.  Thus, the Japanese management started to focus on quality control and management. In time, Japan started producing goods at lower costs and better qualities as compared to their American counterparts.

Definition

Total quality management is the management philosophy that focuses on producing quality service to meet customer needs. It is the management of quality in all functions like finance, customer service, marketing, production, manufacturing, design, etc. to achieve continuous process improvement. Although TQM was originally applied to manufacturing operations, it was later recognized as a generic management tool applicable in all the functions of an organization.

TQM is applicable to all industries from small-scale businesses to big companies, government organizations, hospitals, schools, etc. It can be applied to any field where quality is a matter of importance. It aims at things being done right the first time, and gradual eradication of defects from processes. It is a management style used successfully for decades in companies the world over. As quality is the key to gaining competitive advantage in the market, TQM is gaining increasing importance for setting up a quality system within an organization.

Principles of Total Quality Management

TQM should not be the goal of an organization; it is simply a means to reach the goals. It is the foundation for activities such as:

• Fulfilling customer requirements: The key objective of TQM is 100% customer satisfaction. This can be achieved only if the customer requirements are fulfilled.
• Continuous Improvement: Businesses must always seek to improve processes to achieve better quality. By examining the source of a problem, the problem can be eradicated. Use different quality tools for quality improvement.
• Total Employee Involvement: TQM must be adopted by an organization at all levels, from the highest-level senior management to the lowest level of employees. All employees must be kept happy satisfied with their work. In this way, they will be motivated to deliver quality work. Employees should be encouraged to make decisions that will help their organization.
• Fact Based Decision making: Decisions must be made on data available, based on facts. Use different decision-making tools for this purpose.
• Prevention of Defects: It is the aim of TQM to do things rightly the first time itself. The cost of prevention of a defect is lesser than finding and solving the defect.
• Process Centred: Focus on processes and not on people for process improvement.

TQM implementation approach

•  Plan
  • Identify a problem – Identify a problem that must be addressed. This can be done using Pareto charts or simply brainstorming.
  •  Identify the causes – Identify the causes of the problem using a Pareto chart, or by other means.
  •  Analyse the causes – Determine the cause and effect relationship using various tools such as scatter diagrams, control charts, etc.

•  Do
  •  Implement a change that can help the problem – Identify an action that can help solve the problem and implement it.

•  Study
  • Observe the effects of the change – Simply implementing a solution will not help. The solution must be effective and long lasting. To make sure of this, the process must be monitored after the implemented changes using tools like histograms, control charts, scatter diagrams, etc.

•  Act
  •  Fix this change into the system permanently – Ensure that the problem is permanently solved, and embedded it in the system.

This model is cyclical and must be followed continually to achieve process improvement.