Total Quality Management

Total Quality Management is a philosophy that involves everyone in an organization in a continual

effort to improve quality and achieve customer satisfaction. It has three key philosophies:

continuous improvement, involvement of everyone and goal of customer satisfaction. TQM is

focused on looking at the quality of every aspect of the process that produces the product or

service.

5 Approaches of TQM

1. Find out customer’s wants. It involves using of surveys, focus groups, interviews and other

customer’s voice decision making process.

2. Design product or service that meet customer’s wants which is easy to use and produce.

3. Design processes that facilitate doing the job right the first time. It deals in determining

where mistakes are likely to occur and try to prevent them or so called process of “mistake-

proof”. Sometimes referred as “Fail-safing” means incorporating design elements that

prevent incorrect procedures.

4. Keep track of results. It is use in the improvement of the system.

5. Extension of the other concepts in the supply chain.

Elements of TQM

1. Continuous improvement.

It is the philosophy that seeks to improve all factors related to the process of converting

inputs into outputs on an ongoing basis. Mostly Japanese companies used as their

cornerstone of their approach in production for years. “Kaizen” is the Japanese term for

continuous improvement.

2. Competitive benchmarking.

It involves identifying other organizations that are the best at something and studying how

they do it for the purpose of company’s improvement in opreations.

3. Employee empowerment.

It deals in providing motivation to employees for them to be able to have the responsibility

and decisions for improvements and the authority to make changes.

4. Team approach.

It is using teams for problem solving and to achieve consensus that takes advantage of

group synergy, gets people involved and promotes a spirit of cooperation and shared

values.

5. Decision based on facts.

It is through the management that gathers and analyse data as basis for decision making.

6. Knowledge of tools.

It is in training in using quality tools.

7. Supplier quality.

It is dealing in quality assurance and quality improvement for suppliers.

8. Champion.

The one assign to promote the value and importance of TQM throughout the company.

9. Quality at the source.

It refers to the philosophy of making each worker responsible for the quality of his or her

work. It places direct responsibility for quality on the persons who are directly affect it, it

removes the adversarial relationship that often exists between quality control inspectors

and production workers and it motivates workers by giving them control over their work.

10. Suppliers.

It involves in having a long-term relationships to suppliers in being in the vital stake in

providing quality goods and services.

Obstacles in Implementing TQM

1. Lack of companywide definition of quality.

2. Lack of a strategic plan for change.

3. Lack of customer focus.

4. Poor intraorganizational communication.

5. Lack of employee empowerment.

6. View of quality as a “quick fix”.

7. Emphasis on short-term financial results.

8. Inordinate presence of internal politics and “turf” issues.

9. Lack of strong motivation.

10. Lack of time to devote to quality initiatives.

11. Lack of leadership.

Aspects Traditional TQM

Overall mission Maximize return of investment Meet or exceed customer

expectations

Objectives Emphasis on short term Balance of long term and short term

Management Not always open; sometimes

inconsistent

Open; encourages employees input,

consistent

Role of manager Issue orders; enforce Coach; remove barriers; build trust

Customer

requirements

Not highest priority; may be

unclear

Highest priority; important to

identify and understand

Problems Assign blame; punish Identify and resolve

Problem solving Not systematic; individuals Systematic; teams

Improvement Erratic Continuous

Suppliers Adversarial Partners

Jobs Narrow, specialized; much

individual effort

Broad, more general; much team

effort

Focus Product oriented Process oriented