Annals of Library Science and Documentation 43, 2; 1996; 41-47.

TaM IN LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SERVICES

S.L. JAINSir Padampat Research CentreJaykaynagarKotaRajasthan

Total Ouality Management (TOM) is a new man-agement concept wherein quality is the drivingforce of the entire activity cycle from beginning toend. Various aspects of TOM with particular refer-ence to it's implementation in library and informa-tion services have been discussed.

INTRODUCTION

Every organisation, whether it is a manufacturingorganisation or a service organisation like banks,insurances, libraries and information centres, ex-ists to provide services or products acceptable tocustomers or users to their fullest satisfaction. Thesuccess and failure of an organisation are gauged

DINESH KUMAR GUPTADept. of Library & Information ScienceKota Open UniversityKotaRajasthan

from the extent of customers delight which theyreceive from the service of the organization or ser-vice of a unit or an individual. The customers maybe internal as well as external. For example, theteaching faculty and the students are the externalcustomers of a university library. On the other hand,the people or groups within the library who are de-pendent on the work of/or input from other areaswithin the organisation are the internal customers.In every case whether it is a manufacturingorganisation or a service organisation and whetherit is the internal or external customer, a customeralways expects value for his money or the timespent in getting the desired service. The wholeconcept of customer and his requirements hasbeen summarised in Figure 1.

r---------:::::r:::::---------------lMANUFACTURING SERVICE

CUSTJMERS CUSTJMERScrNTTXT ) UNTTXT )

SERVICE FROM PRODUCT SERVICE FROM PERSON

l_______ VALUE FOR MONEY/TIME JFig.1 : Customers' requirements

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S.L. JAIN and DINESH KUMAR GUPTA

CONCEPT OF QUALITY

Definition of quality varies from person to personand a large number of definitions are available inthe management related literature. All these defi-nitions can be grouped into provider or supplieroriented and the user or customer oriented. Theformer emphasizes on the specifications of a prod-uct or resources available with the serviceorganisation, whereas the later emphasizes on thevalue for the customer in terms of the services fromthe product or services from an individual.

The concept of quality has changed now-a-daysfrom provider oriented to customer oriented, and ithas now been well established that Quality is notwhat producers define but it is what the customersrequire. There was a time when the quality of li-braries or library services were defined in terms ofstock size, available resources and the mere num-ber of services provided by them. These norms nomore form the basis of users' delight now. No doubt,these form an essential criteria for providing qual-ity services, but it is the service itself which theusers Jook for.

Customer judgement of service quality is affectedby both the process and the outcome. "Process" ishow a customer is treated during the service inter-action and "outcome" is the actual end result. Forexample, for a user inquiring about a particular in-formation, receiving the required information isthe outcome and the way the user is treated by thereference librarian is the process. The performanceof the service provider is measured against cus-tomers expectations. If the expectations of cus-tomer exceed, the service is evaluated as high inquality.

Like quality of any other service organisation, thequality of library service is measured in terms ofreliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathyand tangibles. The first two are most important andrelated to these are basic services. Customerswant the basics i.e., they expect fundamentals notfanciness, performance not empty promises. Qual-ity service depends on how well various elementsfunction together in a service system. These ele-ments include the people who provide the specificservices in the service chain, the equipment thatsupports these performances and the physicalenvironment in which the services are provided.

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QUALITY & USER'S NEEDS

Quality is inextricably linked to customers' or us-ers' needs. It is user's requirements that a higherquality library service conforms to; it is a servicethat fits to the user's purpose. But, user's need isnot a universal and static phenomena. It keepschanging from user to user and also, for one userit changes with time. Every user defines quality inhis own way. A library equiped with macro-docu-ments, such as books, may provide excellent ser-vices to a searcher of macro-documents, but it maymiserably fail to satisfy the need of an user lookingfor micro-documents. So, whereas for the formeruser, a library is an excellent one, it is not so forthe later. An academic library, for example, mayserve excellently to the faculty members and thestudents, but it may not be able to satisfy the needsof the general public. Here again, for the first groupof users library services are excellent whereas forthe second group of users these are not so.

User's changing needs lead to the change in strat-egy towards achieving the goals of user satisfac-tion. That is why it is said that the quality is a jour-ney, not the destination; and it can be built upononly through the continuous improvement pro-cesses. Meeting changing requirements of theusers with time requires updating of libraries con-tinuously in terms of its resources, equipments andfacilities. A library may function under certain con-straints like finance, personnel, management poli-cies, etc., and for a library it is never possible tosatisfy all the users. Therefore, it is essential tosegment the users on the basis of their literature/information needs and to decide upon the group ofusers to whom the library wants to provide qualityservices, though to satisfy everyone is ideal.

QUALITY COST

One misconception about quality is that providingquality services increases the cost of products orservices. That is, if 100 xerox copies of a paperare needed, 100 plus papers are given to the op-erator. But, an in-depth analysis will reveal that thecost of quality in terms of additional papers is themoney paid for doing wrong. In technical terms, itis called Price of Non-Conformance (PONC). Ifman, machine, method and material - all are rightthen definitely quality is not expensive. For 100good quality xerox copies, exactly 100 papers will

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serve the purpose. Cost definitely varies for differ-ent product grades but not for the quality productof the similar grade.

While looking for a pin-pointed information throughon-line or CD-ROM databases, price of the outputwill depend on formulation of search strategy. Ifsearch strategy is faulty, then it will cost more tothe searcher, and even then, there is no guaran-tee of getting the required information. Here again,the extra cost involved in satisfying user's throughquality services is by virtue of the PONC. Thus,reducing the PONC to its minimum ensures qual-ity which is not costly. Conclusively, it is the poorquality that costs money and not the quality itself.

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

A comparison of the old concept of quality man-agement (q) with the new concept (Q) is provided

TOM IN LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SERVICES

in Table 1. The objective of the new concept ofquality management is to meet and exceed cus-tomer expectations by developing a leadership-driven process for providing a product or servicewith built-in quality. It also asserts that quality is afirst person's job and not of some one else. Thenew concept of quality management is called To-tal Quality Management (TQM). TQM stands for

T - Everyone has a role to play;Q - Doing right thing first time, every time, all

the time; andM - Art of making it happen.

TQM is a customer-need driven management pro-cess. It is prevention-oriented and believes in de-lighting customers first time, everytime, all the time.All the functions of an organisation and each em-ployee in every function are involved to attain ex-cellence in their own areas of activity. TQM em-

Table 1

Quality paradigms

OLD NEW

INSPECT-IN QUALITY BUILT-IN QUALITY

INCREASED QUALITY INCREASED QUALITY

INCREASES COST DECREASES COST

RESULT ORIENTED PROCESS ORIENTED

DEPARTMENTALLY DRIVEN LEADERSHIP DRIVEN

MEET CUSTOMER MEET AND EXCEED CUSTOMERSPECIFICATIONS EXPECTATIONS

FOCUS ON SHOP FLOOR! HOLISTIC FOCUS ONMANUFACTURING ENTIRE ORGANISATION

SECOND PERSON FIRST PERSON(QUALITY IS SOMEONE ELSE'S JOB) (QUALITY IS MY JOB)

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S.L. JAIN and DINESH KUMAR GUPTA

phasizes on identifying customer ne,eds expressedin customers' own words and then linking custom-ers' perceived quality to internal managerial pro-cesses and measuring the impact of quality im-provement at the workplace.

The orientation of TQM is towards process devel-opment rather than attaining the results. A processis the transformation of a set of inputs which caninclude actions, methods and operations into de-sired outputs. Each process in every departmentor functional area can be analysed by examina-tion of its inputs and outputs. This will determinethe actions which will be necessary to improve thequality.

WHATTQMIS

1. TQM means shifting away from control-drivento culturally-driven quality, meaning that, qual-ity becoming the driving force of the activitycycle, starting and ending with customer.

2. Shifting away from controlling-in to manag-ing-in quality, that means flexibility to (i) reactto changes, (ii) ability to innovate, and (iii)commitment to continuous improvement ofquality.

3. TQM demands to know what is right. To dothings the right way every time; and to con-tinuously look for ways to improve every pro-cess in the organisation.

4. Customer satisfaction through continuous im-provement is the heart of TQM.

5. Management commitment and Top-Downleadership are must for TQM success.

6. TQM is not a short-term solution to problems,rather a long-term perspective for improve-ment.

IMPLEMENTATION OF TQM IN LIBRARY SER-VICES

Implementation of TQM in library services requireschange in the mental frame of the employees aswell as the executives of the library; customer seg-mentation in terms of their needs; service strategyto each user segment within library constraints; and

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the last but not the least, support from the top man-agement of the library.

Thus, implementation of TQM requires a changedattitude of employees towards their work. Eachemployee has to contribute his or her best forachieving the objectives of the department which,in turn, are driven by the objectives of the library.Every one has to work to meet and exceed theuser's requirements for literature and information.The whole philosophy of work has to be changed.

A circulation clerk is expected, in the TQM frame-work, not just to issue and receive back the docu-ments, but to satisfy all the circulation related de-mands of the users in terms of the process andthe outcome. An information officer is expected todelight the information searchers by providing spe-cific information in the least possible time in theform, most appropriate to the user's requirement.It requires a whole set of mentality Change of theemployees. Each employee has to be familiarisedwith the concepts of TQM and problem solvingtechniques and has to be provided opportunitiesto actively participate in activities like QualityCircles, Suggestion Schemes, Cross-functionalTeams and the like.

Successful implementation of TQM requires de-ciding on the customers to which a library aims toserve, assessing their needs, and deciding on theservices, the library has to provide to each seg-ment of user's, keeping in mind it's limitations interms of finance, staff, documents and databases.For example, a university library can segment theirusers as faculty members, research scholars, postgraduate students, undergraduates and support-ing staff. Then, the library management commit-tee should decide on the document access as wellas promotional services to be provided to eachsegment of users. Once strategy is decided, itshould t;?epercolated down and each employee hasto strive for it's effective and efficient implementa-tion. Support from top management is a must forthe successful implementation of TQM. Top man-agement may include the members of the librarycommittee as well as head of the library or the in-formation unit in the management process. Theirrole is to formulate quality policy based on the mis-sions and objectives of the library and to commu-nicate the policy to all the members of the library.They have to arrange for the education and train-

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ing of the shop floor workers as well as the middlemanagement and also, to promote and support par-ticipative activities. Management have to ensurethat the individuality of the employees are suffi-ciently respected and that, the people find theirwork worthwhile and meaningful. People shouldhave sufficient autonomy to be able to work freelyon their own initiative. A person who works strictlyaccording to orders and directions from the top re-sembles a machine. Thus, the people should beable to exercise their intelligence and think abouttheir work. This will ensure improvement of thequality of work and their creativity. Searching forthe type of management in which all employeesare able to fulfill their human potential and performworthwhile work is a vital concept of TOM.

LEADERSHIP

Management's role in a Total Quality environmentis different than the traditional role. Managementhave to be provided with the leadership skills nec-essary to adopt the new role. As a leader, one musthave the initiative and commitment to

i) include the pursuit of quality in the perfor-mance expectations of all units of the busi-ness in which he is in;

ii) break-down inter departmental barriers;

iii) influence people to embrace the quality move-ment; and

iv) anchor the transformation, protecting it frominternal and external pressures.

Essential elements of strong leadership are

i) vision ability to conceptualize andexecute through effectivecommunication;

ii) experience ability to grow with experi-ence and learn from previ-ous mistakes;

iii) making thingshappen

ability to bring the best outof others and make themimprove their standards allthe time;

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TOM IN LIBRARY AND INFORMA TlON SERVICES

iv) intuition ability to sense that a prob-lem exists, to react to it inthe right way, to make ex-perience work and use dataanalysis effectively;

v) problemmanagement

ability to manage seriesof problems in orderly andmost effective manner; and

vi) leading byexample

making others feel wantedand important, helping themfulfil their goals and expec-tations and facilitating cli-mate of individual growthand development.

Ability to manage and ability to lead complementsone another. For organisation to deal with the vari-ous complexities and frequent Changes, there hasto be a strong leadership to direct the organisationforward and strong management to pull the stringstogether.

PEOPLE'S INVOLVEMENT

To develop a strong customer orientation and dis-cover ways to create more effective service,organisation requires involving all employees in theprocess of improving customer service. The ser-vice provided to an external customer is the directresult of a series of interactions between internalcustomers and providers. By improving these in-ternal interactions, service quality can be improved.As the employees live with the process everydayand know the details, they are powerful source ofimprovemental ideas.

Once quality is defined, a system is in place, andpolicies, procedures and standards are stabilised.It is incumbent upon everyone in the organisationto assume his role in establishing quality. Eachperson must realise that he must know what hisquality standards are for every job he performs,and he must strive to meet those standards on adaily basis.

The basic fact about people is that they work justto run their services and they have to be motivatedto work harder. Most common three forms of moti-vation are: lure of incentive, fear of punishment andjoy of work. The first two methods are either be-

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S.L. JAIN and DINESH KUMAR GUPTA

yond the control of leader or are counter-produc-tive. It is the last one which is recommended to beadopted in TOM framework. People work hardwhen they found pleasure in doing their work. Thispsychological aspect of human behaviour is usedin involving people for getting the desired results.People feel pleasure in work when they are in-volved in the work. Involvement is a mental pro-cess, not a physical one.

The highest level of motivation is achieved whenemployees feel that they are a part of theorganisation. Effective implementation of TOM re-

quires that employees should be given limited au-tonomy, i.e., they should be made free to decide intheir work area. When they are involved in deci-sion-making, only then they will feel a sense ofinvolvement. Sense of involvement will lead to afeeling that it is "their job", otherwise they won'tinvolve themselves in the job.

Once, a job becomes their job, they will do it bet-ter, resulting in quality and productivity improve-ment. This cycle will lead to continuous improve-ment in the process of providing a higher and higher

SENSE OF INVOLVEMENT ------------~

1JOY OF AfHIEVEMENT

INCREASEf PRODUCTIVITY

IMPROVED QUALITY ~--------------

DO JOB BETTER

1IDENTIFY PROBLEM

1PROBLEM SOLVING

1PROBLEM AVOIDANCE

Fig.2: Impact of people's involment in quality improvement

quality services. How people's involvement leadsto continuous improvement is shown in Figure 2 .

CONCLUSION

TOM is a management concept to achieve excel-lence. It does not demand to do different thingsbut, simply demands to do things differently. In alibrary with TOM, the employees have to do the

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same job as they were doing previously, but in thenew environment, the ways will be different. Im-proving quality does not mean work-addition, it issimply improvement in the ways of work on con-tinuous basis. Excellence can never be achievedby accident; it can only be achieved by intelligentefforts. The only way to achieve excellence in ev-ery walk of life, whether it is industry, serviceorganisation, society or family, is "no matter what

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you do, do it thoroughly. Doing your very best untillthe very end, is not only important, it is essential".

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1. ANON. Facilitating organisational change:leadership in a total quality environment.Quality Times. 1994, August; 1-7.

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3. ANON. How to give and receive good inter-nal customer service. Quality Times. 5, 4;1995; 11.

4. ANON. Making empowerment happen. In-dian Management. 1995, May; 35-39.

5. ANON. Take charge! revise your servicestrategy. Quality Times. 5, 3; 1995; 12-13.

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7. ANON. Towards effective TQM implemen-tation: identifying hurdles & overcomingthem. In Quality Times. 1994, September;1-8.

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10. BURNS (G). The trouble with empowerment.Quality Digest. 1994, February; 47-49.

11. COCHEU (T). Building a leadership founda-tion through improvement. Quality Progress.1995, April; 41-46.

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TaM IN LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SERVICES

12. CONTI (Tito). Building total quality. 1993.Chapman & Hall; London.

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