First Step to the Business World

Report By: Keziah C. Viray

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a business management strategy aimed at embedding awareness of quality in all organizational processes. TQM has been widely used in manufacturing, education, call centers, government, and service industries, as well as NASA space and science programs.

Is the process of instilling quality throughout an organization and its business processes.

Is a comprehensive and structured approach to organizational management that seeks to improve the quality of products and services through ongoing refinements in response to continuous feedback.

Total Quality Management (TQM)

Total = Quality involves everyone and all activities in the company.

Quality = Conformance to Requirements (Meeting Customer Requirements).

Management = Quality can and must be managed.

TQM = A process for managing quality; it must be a continuous way of life; a philosophy of perpetual improvement in everything we do.

 TQM is composed of three paradigms:

• Total: Involving the entire organization, supply chain, and/or product life cycle
• Quality: With its usual definitions, with all its complexities.
• Management: The system of managing with steps like Plan, Organize, Control, Lead, Staff, provisioning and organizing

As defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO):

“TQM is a management approach for an organization, centered on quality, based on the participation of all its members and aiming at long-term success through customer satisfaction, and benefits to all members of the organization and to society.” ISO 8402:1994

One major aim is to reduce variation from every process so that greater consistency of effort is obtained. (Royse, D., Thyer, B., Padgett D., & Logan T., 2006)

In Japan, TQM comprises four process steps, namely:

1. Kaizen – Focuses on “Continuous Process Improvement”, to make processes visible, repeatable and measurable.
2. Atarimae Hinshitsu – The idea that “things will work as they are supposed to” (for example, a pen will write).
3. Kansei – Examining the way the user applies the product leads to improvement in the product itself.
4. Miryokuteki Hinshitsu – The idea that “things should have an aesthetic quality” (for example, a pen will write in a way that is pleasing to the writer).

TQM requires that the company maintain this quality standard in all aspects of its business. This requires ensuring that things are done right the first time and that defects and waste are eliminated from operations.

A comprehensive definition

Total Quality Management is the organization wide management of quality. Management consists of planning, organizing, directing, control, and assurance. Total quality is called total because it consists of two qualities: quality of return to satisfy the needs of the shareholders, and quality of products.

Origins

“Total Quality Control” was the key concept of Armand Feigenbaum’s 1951 book, Quality Control: Principles, Practice, and Administration. In a chapter titled “Total Quality Control” Feigenbaum grabs on to an idea that sparked many scholars’ interest in the following decades that would later be catapulted from Total Quality Control to Total Quality Management. W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran, Philip B. Crosby, and Kaoru Ishikawa, known as the big four, also contributed to the body of knowledge now known as Total Quality Management.

The American Society for Quality says that the term Total Quality Management was used by the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command “to describe its Japanese-style management approach to quality improvement.” This is consistent with the story that the United States Navy Personnel Research and Development Center began researching the use of statistical process control (SPC), the work of Juran, Crosby, and Ishikawa, and the philosophy of W. Edwards Deming to make performance improvements in 1984. This approach was first tested at the North Island Naval Aviation Depot.

A core concept in implementing TQM is Deming’s 14 points

A core concept in implementing TQM is Deming’s 14 points, a set of management practices to help companies increase their quality and productivity:

1. Create constancy of purpose for improving products and services.
2. Adopt the new philosophy.
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality.
4. End the practice of awarding business on price alone; instead, minimize total cost by working with a single supplier.
5. Improve constantly and forever every process for planning, production and service.
6. Institute training on the job.
7. Adopt and institute leadership.
8. Drive out fear.
9. Break down barriers between staff areas.
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets for the workforce.
11. Eliminate numerical quotas for the workforce and numerical goals for management.
12. Remove barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship, and eliminate the annual rating or merit system.
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement for everyone.
14. Put everybody in the company to work accomplishing the transformation.

Ten Steps to Total Quality Management           (TQM)

     The Ten Steps to TQM are as follows:

1. Pursue New Strategic Thinking
2. Know your Customers
3. Set True Customer Requirements
4. Concentrate on Prevention, Not Correction
5. Reduce Chronic Waste
6. Pursue a Continuous Improvement Strategy
7. Use Structured Methodology for Process Improvement
8. Reduce Variation
9. Use a Balanced Approach
10. Apply to All Functions