TOTAL QUALITY

MANAGEMENT

(TQM)
 INDEX

Topic:
Page
Definition
2

Objectives
2

Key success elements

3

Tools
4

Approach
5

Comparison between TQM culture and traditional

approach 5

Difficulties
6

Criticism 6
 Definition:

• It is a description of the culture, attitude,

and organization of a company that aims to
provide (and continue to provide) it's
customers with products and services that
satisfy their needs.
• TQM expands the traditional view of
quality which is looking only at the quality of
the final product or services to looking at the
quality of every aspect of the process that
produces the product or service.

• It is originated in Japan in the 1950s and

became steadily more popular in the west since
1980s.

• TQM approach has three main

philosophies:
1- First; Continuous improvement
2- Second; Involvement of everyone
3- Third; Customer satisfaction

Thus, we can define TQM as "A philosophy that

involves everyone in the organization in a continual
effort to improve quality and achieve customer
satisfaction".

A good example is Ford motor company operating

philosophy:
"The operating philosophy of Ford motor company is to meet
customer needs & expectations by establishing and monitoring
an environment which encourages all employees to pursue never
ending improvements in the quality & productivity of products
and services throughout the corporation"

Objectives:
• Speed
• How much time does a customer spend to
get the service or the commodity he asked
for?

• Cost
• How to bring down the costs of offering
services or goods further then proposed?

• Quality
• Where does organization stand in terms of
its service or good?

• Dependability
• How can the organization make its
processes more reliable?

• Flexibility
• Can the organization adjust its processes
to meet customer requirements?

Key success elements:

Recognition
 communication

Training

communication
Team work

Leadership

Integrity & Ethics

Tools:
1- Basic ethics and integrity:
• Recruitment of those complying with
the basic ethics of the organization.
• Enforcing the image of Ethics within
the organization.
• Setting the vision and mission of the
organization clear enough to achieve
integrity, while involving the employees in
this vision.

2- Teamwork and trust:

• Forming teams using the
complementary approach.
• Ensuring the spirit of cooperation and
collaboration to achieve trust among the
team.
 • Stressing the idea of doing things
right the first time, every time.
• Providing suitable teamwork
environment.

3- Leadership:
• Selecting leaders of teams depending
on qualification and leadership skills.
• Running periodical checks and making
employees questionnaires.

4- Training:

• Selecting highly qualified trainers and

better to be from inside the organization.

5- Recognition:

• Awarding those with disciplined

attitude and complying with rules, while
being specialized with their contribution.

Finally, communications through the whole

organization are the determinant of the degree of
successful implementation of the previous tools.

• Other elements:
o Competitive benchmarking.
This involves identifying other organizations
that are the best at something and studying
how they do it to learn how to improve your
operation.

o Supplier quality.
Suppliers must be included in the quality
assurance and quality improvement efforts
so that their processes are capable of
delivering quality parts and materials in a
timely manner.
 o Quality at source.
Making each worker responsible for his/her
work. This accomplishes number of things:
It places direct responsibility for quality on
the persons who directly affect it.
It removes the adversarial relationship
that often exists between quality control
inspectors and production workers.
It motivates workers by giving them
control over their work.

o Champion.
A TQM champion job is to promote the
value and the importance of TQM
principles throughout the company.

TQM approach:

1) Find out what customer needs.

- This might involve the use of surveys, focus
groups interviews, or some other technique that
integrates the customer's voice in the decision
making process. Be sure to include the internal
customer (the next person in the process) as well as
the external customer (final consumer).

2) Design a product or service that will meet or

exceed what customer wants "make it easy to use
and easy to produce".

3) Design the processes to do the job right first

time. Determine when mistakes are likely to occur
again and try to prevent them. When mistakes
occur, find out why so that they are less likely to
occur again.

4) Following up and tracking results and using them

to improve the system. "Never stop trying to
improve"
5) Extend the concept to suppliers and distributors.

Traditional culture vs. TQM culture

Aspect Traditional TQM

culture culture
Overall mission Maximize return Meet or exceed
on investment customer
expectations

Objectives Emphasis on Balance of long

short term term and short
term
Management Not always open; Open;
sometimes encourage
inconsistent employee input;
objectives consistent
objectives
Role of manager Issue orders; Coach; remove
enforce barriers; build
trust
Customer Not highest Highest priority;
requirement priority; may be important to
unclear identify and
understand
problems Assign blame; Identify and
punish resolve
Problem solving Not systematic; Systematic ;
individuals teams
improvement erratic continuous
suppliers adversarial Partners
jobs Narrow, Broad, more
specialized; general; much
much individual team effort
effort
focus Product oriented Process
 oriented
TQM Difficulties

• Lack of management commitment

• Company culture cannot change
• Plans are not well thought out.
• Poor measurement techniques
• Lack of teamwork.
• Focus on short term profits
• High employee turnover
• Lack of training. No one to lead the
company through the process
• Management does not reward success
• Employees are fearful of losing their jobs.

Criticisms of TQM
TQM programs are touted as a way for companies to
improve their competitiveness which is a very
worthwhile objective, Nonetheless, TQM programs
are not without criticism. Some of the major ones
are:-
1. Blind pursuit of TQM programs.

2. Programs may not be linked to the strategies of

the organization in meaningful way.

3. Quality –related decisions may not be tied to

market performance.

4. Failure to carefully plan a program before

embarking on it can lead to false starts,
employee confusion, and meaningless results.

Note that there is nothing inherently wrong with

TQM; the problem is how some individuals or
organizations misuse it.