What Is Total Quality Management Management Essay

Total Quality Management is an essential tool that makes an improvement reaction to firms and companies. It is a technique of managing the future outcomes, and it does consist more features than just ensuring product and service quality, as it is a technique of running people and business processes in order to guarantee customer satisfaction in every phase. With TQM, it helps organizations to do the right thing at the right time from its first attempt. Therefore, we will be introducing the principle of TQM and how it reacts with organizations along with different pros and cons that could affect using of this vital technique.

Definition of Quality

Quality in manufacturing is defined as a measure of excellence or defects free that is taken by the adherence to measurable and provable standards to reach consistency of a specific output that will satisfy a certain customer. Total Quality Management is one of the techniques used to achieve a specific standard to serve customer requirements. A frequent quality description is delighting the customer by fully achieving their desire and expectations; this could include performance, delivery of item, reliability, cost effectiveness, and appearance. Therefore, it is essential for the company to know what are these desire and expectations, as well as identify them, understand, and measure their ability to meet them.

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/quality.html

Quality commences with a detailed market investigation to determine the actual requirements of a certain product and the customer’s need. The main role of quality in organizations is cooperation of everyone, as it is compulsory to achieve a total quality organization.

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What is Total Quality Management (TQM)?

TQM is a customer focused approach program that focuses on customer satisfaction by delivering the best quality product at lowest possible price. It is an organization strategy that involves everybody for contribution. The main aspect is prevention of defects, by working on a target of zero defects. Moreover, TQM is methodical as it depends on the information gained and it is a continuous improvement process.

Throughout the years before, TQM has reached to be an important and outstanding for firm’s process capabilities improvement to lead to a fit and maintained competitive advantages.

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History of TQM

In the present world we hear a lot about quality control and management, which even did not exist in eighteenth and nineteenth century. However there were some quality control actions taken by individuals at a small level. The quality control and management developed and evolved during the entire twentieth century. In early 1900s Fredrick W. Taylor presented the quality concepts, he is known as the ‘father of scientific management’. In 1913, JC Penney became one of the first person to introduce the fundamentals of total quality management by bringing up ideas like “customer satisfaction”, “quality”, “value”, “training” and “rewards for performance” to the managerial bases for the business.

The history of TQM starts through Elton Mayo’s Hawthorne experiments from 1927 to 1932. The Hawthorne experiments showed that the workers involvement in the decision making process actually enhanced the production. In 1930s the Western Electric Company considered lighting levels, work day lengths and rest period length in the Hawthorne plant of to maximize the productivity. And the researchers found that as the lights were brighter, worker’s productivity increased and vice versa. This change of the behavior of the employees is called the Hawthorne effect.

In 1940s US was in World War II. World War II pushed the standardization, quality control and manufacturing practices to a higher level. The idea of TQM grew very slowly in the USA even though many TQM aspects were developed in the USA in the 1950s. Quality was implemented in the American and European industries only in the 1980s because there was no preparedness of the business and governmental organizations to take adequate steps concerning the findings of technical and statistical work. The decision making structures at that period were not ideal to solve the quality control problems. In 1960s, the idea of “Zero-defects” gained favor.Philip Crosby, who was the founder of “Zero defects” idea concentrated on employee motivation and awareness.

In Japan the quality before 1940s was limited to inspection quality. The post war era saw dramatic progress in the Japanese quality and that happened over a small period of time. Actually the quality control was introduced to Japan by few American experts. In 1950s Edward Deming imparted statistical methods and Dr. Juran imparted the quality management methods to the Japanese. Edward Deming is known as the ‘father of modern quality’. It was in 1950s when Armand Feigenbaun wrote Total Quality Control. This was the first work that initiated Total Quality Management theories. The Japanese realized the need and benefits of quality management. A proper effort was initiated in 1956. In 1962 the Japanese had innovated the concept of quality control. In 1968 they had developed their own version of TQM, and presented it as Company Wide Quality Control (CWQC) and the most key features of TQM in Japan was achieved between 1950-1965.

“We have learned to live in a world of mistakes and defective products as if they were necessary to life. It is time to adopt a new philosophy in America.” W. Edwards Deming(1900-1993)

In the 1980s, quality management systems, as given in the ISO standards 9000 series, paved the way for a quality-related business management. Advanced companies today are in a post-ISO-era, in search of business brilliance to meet the tests of the globalization in all market sectors.

How to implement TQM

There are stages in order to be able to implement total quality to a firm which requires commitment and work to successfully implement total quality where the first step is to start setting goals and achieving them, also the management team should be motivate because it is important for continues improvement. By continues improvement it is important to identify the stages of improvement and create the required responsibility before implementing where it is also important pre-plan every step before the actual implementation. And therefore it would be recommended to assign every employer to be his or her own inspector while working thus increasing productivity and lowering the costs.

Reasons to start implementing

Steps to implement TQM

One of the most crucial and important steps when implementing a TQM is getting the commitment of the CEOs and the upper-level management and maintain that education by training with any new improvements  and establish a commitment to provide the required resources needed to allow the improvements. Then it is required to create a steering committee that would monitor the improvement flow, allocate improvement tasks to groups and teams and insure that the teams has got  the required training for those tasks and how is the communication between the employees progress.

Creating and outlining the vision statement, mission statement and guiding principles such as customer satisfaction or the process on how safety is improved, making sure that everything is done the first time thus the elimination or removal of defects and keeping the reputation to be the best and not lower and the  ability to achieve continues improvement to the company. An important point where a company must create to implement quality processes acting within the company is the flow diagram where it labels all the actions created during the implementation and project where it includes all the factors acting with the company.

Focusing on the customers concern would be required and is one of the important steps that require a lot of work to be done, by learning the customers concerns and how does the customer react to the services given to them by the company, and survey them about different categories such as the safety operation procedures, the condition of equipment or even administrative procedures, to achieve customer satisfaction. An example on what a survey would look like:

Also considering an employee to an internal customer where it allow to conduct an analysis of the processes made in the company, where there are some steps that should be applied to the internal processes of the company.

1. First of all it is important to list some of the internal customers/owner inside the company.
2. Then choosing one of the customer/owner to focus on the application of the technique chosen.
3. Conclude with the outputs that are going to be granted to the internal customer/owner.
4. Then  figure out the processes needed to create those outputs
5. Furthermore it is crucial to learn the customers’ expectations and how can their satisfaction be measured.

Step 8 or providing quality training program is one of the most vital steps when implementing total quality to a firm, where it teaches and provides information that the employees may not acquire and understand unless the training was conducted. Previous successful TQM implementation has proven that there should be a sequence on where to start the training program where it was proven that if the upper management did not get the right training programs the implementation may not survive.

Also establishing Quality Improvement teams where in small companies, one team would be enough whereas in larger companies more teams are created with one team leader to guide other groups where this leader should be able to investigate improvements such as technical training and quality training, with participation from the employees and managers, also taking suggestions from employees. Team leaders should have these qualities in order to be able to complete team establishment. They should be committed to quality and customer satisfaction with one main goal which to achieve success for the organization and to have great communication skills.

When implementing process improvement it is important that the leaders must show the problems to the steering committee which is then examined to create the necessary recommendations for improvements, then training the team in order to meet with the requirements of the improvement made. Then a meeting is done often to analyse the solution, which are then examined and implemented to fit the company’s needs.

Case Study

GNY Building Materials is company with multi-location ready mix concrete and gravel supplier, employing over 350 employees at a meeting was conducted that the company requires some changes using TQM in order to increase or raise the profit margin by reducing costs and following TQM steps to do so. The company hired a consultant to begin work on implementing TQM and found out that company did not have any history of participation from the management or slow participation, there was poor internal communication between the employees and their managers also one of the major reasons why the company decided to implement TQM was to eliminate the waste in delivery and improve the its reliability.

After three months of implementation GNY Building Material was able to reduce cost initiatives that were worth £600,000 and implemented over £300,000 worth of cost savings, they found that they got a 25:1 payback on its investment in TQM. Their reputation was restored which later became one of the preferred companies to contractors.

Reason behind TQM Failures and its Prevention

TQM is basically meant to bring an overall improvement in quality of the company but sometimes due to various reasons implementing TQM fails.

The following are the few reasons behind the failure of TQM:

No proper planning: Some companies implement TQM without any proper research and planning. They get their requirements and needs wrong and eventually failing to attain proper benefits of a TQM system.

Short term orientation: when companies take TQM as a short term investment it usually fails to achieve the target. TQM should be always looked up as a long term investment that involves every process and everybody in the organization.

Over/under relying on Statistical Process Control (SPC): SPC plays an important role in the implementation of TQM. It is only one of the key components, so relying too much or too less can lead to the failure of achieving the TQM goals.

Lack of support from top management: On implementing TQM into an organization it needs full support and commitment from the top management officials to change the current system. The top management officials can help the team and the company to tackle all the problems and implement TQM successfully.

Lack of quality culture: TQM involves all sides of the production process and thus requires each and everyone in the organization to involve in the change. It is not an individual effort rather it’s teamwork.

One of the key ideas to prevent the failure is to assess the difference between a traditional organization and TQM organization. Following are the few differences:

Customer-Driven vs. Company-Driven: Traditional organizations tend to make their decisions based on what is most convenient for them, rather than what is wanted and expected by their customers. Being customer-based means gathering information from customers and other interested clients and modifying services and processes to meet those needs.

High Employee Participation vs. Top-Down Hierarchy: Traditional organizations tend to have very restricted communication and decision- making patterns. Employees are told what to do, rather than being included in figuring out what to do. Information tends to flow from top to bottom. In TQM organizations, employees are much more actively involved in both the decision-making and communication processes. Information flows both top to bottom and bottom to top. For that matter, information also flows sideways.

Problem-Solving vs. Blame: Traditional organizations tend to look to affix blame for things that go wrong. TQM organizations attack the problems in their organizations rather than the people. They fix things.

What do you believe is the future of TQM and why?

With the increasing demand on quality from organizations and its increased acceptance by customers, such that some customer make it a condition that a company has a quality certification to deal with it, the future will witness increased demand on TQM.

Organizations will tend to go for TQM as well, as it, in addition to attracting customers, reduces cost. With time competition between companies will increase, which would lead that all major and most medium organizations would have a quality system.

As this global economy reaches out to world businesses, it becomes clear that quality is becoming not only the international business language for worldwide trade networks but also that worldwide economic and social forces are fundamentally changing quality concepts and management. Understanding and speaking this new quality language is a principal goal of successful companies that are becoming sales growth and earnings profitability leaders in the new global economy.

The current economic situation with increasing costs and products being available by competitors at lower prices is pushing each and every organization to go for TQM as it is the ultimate solution for both problems.

TQM will have more acceptance as a management approach in the future taking a top-down approach, where every single person in the organization is involved in the decision taking, and would extend to involve customers and suppliers too, encouraging an atmosphere of intimidation with suppliers instead of partnership. “Feigenbaum, (1998)”

Advantages of TQM

• It involves customer-focused organization that enforces employees to provide an improved quality
• Offers high revenue on investment by improving efficiency.
• Works regularly well within manufacturing sectors.
• Support Organizations take advantage and benefits from the developments that assist in managing operations as cross-functional processes.
• Allows and urges the management to create a strategic approach by including different sectors to improve the company and creating systematic innovations.
• One of the main advantages that makes the management implement TQM would be that it gathers employees, flexibility, and allow them to share their ideas and experiences that would help with the gradual improvement of the company by the efforts made by the employees thus allowing them to work together. Where an employee can refer to his previous experience and share it with the team to solve problems that maybe faced.
• Produces an orientation to strategic and inter-organizational associations by establishing a culture of association from different sectors in organizations.

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The disadvantages of TQM

Cost of implementation of total quality:

The implementation of total quality management is a high cost investment. These cost can be divided into four main categories: “Total Quality Management System, (2009)”

1. Product requirements: this could involve change of processes, materials and may also require massive changes such as change of production lines.
2. Quality planning: planning is a time consuming tool, and planning for quality requires a huge amount of time and other resources.
3. Quality assurance: quality is an ongoing process thus quality assurance is required to maintain the functioning of the system.
4. Training: introducing quality system requires extensive training from high management level down to normal employee level. Training is a time and money consuming process.

It is a long term investment

The results of applying total quality management take long time to be seen. Long-term investments are less preferable to higher management and investors if no enough guarantees are given. Even though in most cases implementation of quality has been proved to be more profitable to the organisation where it is implemented, at the same time due to the large investment involved the organisation might run out of cash and thus might end up bankrupting. “Total Quality Management System, (2009)”

Less flexibility

Total quality requires uniform processes which allows for less amount of flexibility. This may lead to less ability to meet customer demand. “Total Quality Management System, (2009)”

Resistance to change from employees

An employee might feel that his job at the organization is at risk due to the introduction of the new total quality management program and so oppose or resist the process of implementing the TQM program. Also more skilled workers might not like to adhere to the new processes which lead to increasing costs, or might even decide to leave the leave their jobs. “Total Quality Management System, (2009)”

Inhibits creativity

By implementing a total quality program most processes within an organization will be standardized and workers are no longer required to put any intellectual efforts into their work. This will lead to less creativity, where workers assume that those standard processes are the best way to do the job, and the organization would lose chances for more creative ideas. “Total Quality Management System, (2009)”