International Referred Research Journal, October,2010. ISSN- 0974-2832VoL.

II *ISSUE-21

Research PaperABST

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (A CASE STUDY OF IBM)

*Vishal Gauttam
Assistant Professor, A.B.S.T., Shree Karni College, Jaipur.
A B S T R A C T
Every nation has its own independent historical and cultural background. The quality scenario, therefore, differs from one national setting to the other. The nations are orienting their quality management strategies and systems to meet the requirements of the operating environment though the primary focus remains the same, that is, Total Customer Satisfaction.Many of the present techniques of quality management were developed in Japan. However, U.S.A., European nations and developing nations have also contributed significantly to this development.

October, 2010

Introduction smoothly. Oakland [1989] originated the idea of a 3ISO defines TQM as: TQM is a management cornerstone model. The proposed 4-pillar model approach of an organization, centered on quality, based (Figure.1) brings the customers requirement into the on the participation of all its members and aiming at system. This makes the approach to TQM more long-term success through customer satisfaction, and complete. The additional pillar benefits to all members of the organization and to satisfying customers is vital society. In Japanese, TQM comprises four process because it explicitly addresses steps, namely:1.Kaizen Focuses on Continuous customers requirements. Without it Process Improvement, to make processes visible, TQM would have no objective. repeatable and measurable. 2.Atarimae Hinshitsu Focuses on intangible effects on processes and ways to optimize and reduce their effects. 3.Kansei Examining The Four Pillars of TQM the way the user applies the product leads to The role of top management in implementation of total improvement in the product itself. 4.Miryokuteki quality is crucial and its input on people far-reaching. Hinshitsu Broadens management concern beyond TQM, therefore, should be understood as management of the system through systems thinking, which means the immediate product. TQM requires that the company understanding all the elements in the company and maintain this quality standard in all aspects of its putting them to work together business. This requires ensuring that things are done towards the common goal. The right the first time and that defects and waste are TQMEX Model advocates an eliminated from operations.Total Quality Management integrated approach in order to (TQM) is a management strategy aimed at embedding support the transition to systems awareness of quality in all organizational processes. management which is an ongoing TQM has been widely used in manufacturing, education, process of continuous improvement government, and service industries, as well as NASA that begins when the company space and science programs. commits itself to managing by quality. THETQM MODEL: The Model illuminates the elements To achieve excellence, companies must develop a that form a base to the understanding of TQM corporate culture of treating people as their most philosophy and implementation of the process important asset and provide a consistent level of high company-wide. quality products and services in every market in which The Structure of TQMEX: they operate. Such an environment has supported the The Logic of TQMEX: wide acceptance of Total Quality Management (TQM) In order to have a systematic approach to TQM, it is which 22 emerged recently as a new, challenging, necessary to develop a conceptual model. Generally, a marketable philosophy. It involves three spheres of model is a sequence of steps arranged logically to serve changes in an organization people, technology and as a guideline for implementation of a process in order structure. There is also a need for a systematic approach to achieve the ultimate goal. The model should be simple, so that each element of TQMEX can be bonded together SHODH SAM IKS HA AUR M ULYANKAN 59

International Referred Research Journal, October,2010.ISSN- 0974-2832VoL.II *ISSUE-21

logical and yet comprehensive enough for TQM implementation. It also has to sustain the changes in business environment of the new era. The Model also reflects teachings of the contemporary quality gurus. The idea was to develop a universally applicable stepby-step guideline by including recognized practices in TQM: Japanese 5-S Practice (5-S) Business Process Reengineering (BPR) Quality Control Circles (QCCs) ISO 9001/2 Quality Management System (ISO) Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) As Osada pointed out, 5-S is the key to total quality environment. Therefore, it should be the Step 1. BPR is concerned with redefining and designing your business process in order to meet the needs of your customers effectively. It is more concerned with the business objectives and systems, and should follow as Step 2. QCCs are concerned with encouraging the employees to participate in continuous improvement and guide them through. They improve human resources capability to achieve the business objectives. Therefore, this should be Step 3. ISO 9000 is to develop a quality management system based on the good practices in the previous three steps. TPM is a result of applying 5-S to equipment based on a sound quality management system. In fact ISO 9001 requires procedures for process control and inspection and testing equipment which are part of TPM. Therefore TPM should be implemented in Step 5.If the above five steps have been implemented successfully, the organization is already very close towards achieving TQM. TQMEX is a sequential model which is easy to remember and simple to implement. This is in line with the quality principle of Keep It Short CASE STUDY and Simple (KISS), although it is not simple to make a model simple!Companies starting to implement TQM should follow TQMEX step-by-step. Companies which have already gone through some degree of improvement using some of the steps should review what have not been done and do it as their next step of improvement. In order to maximize your benefits from TQMEX, you have to start early too. Overview: Automating information technology and business processes is helping organizations worldwide realize enormous savings. Consider, for example, Tivoli Development Labs, the IBM team responsible for testing Tivoli software prior to its release. Tivoli Development Labs develops enterprise-class software that supports numerous 65 heterogeneous operating system platforms. Why Become an On Demand Business? Tivoli Development Labs, the IBM team responsible for testing Tivoli software prior to its release. Tivoli Development Labs develops enterprise-class software that supports numerous heterogeneous operating system platforms. Each product undergoes extensive, mandatory testing across the supported platforms. We have to test every software product in a multiplicity of environments to mitigate the risk of problems for our customers, explains Phil Buckellew, program director, IBM Tivoli Development Labs. In 2004, the organization launched an initiative to improve the quality and efficiency of its software release management process. Of greatest concern was the time and skill required to build each test environment, from bare metal to full installation. With more than 5,500 heterogeneous servers spread across the lab in Austin, Texas, there are times when some teams are not using servers and other teams are scrambling to meet deadlines and could be aided by more resources. A typical operating system deployment required between 1.5 to 2.5 hours. And because this process was manual, the quality and consistency of systems could vary depending on how closely each tester followed the installation instructions. Manually configuring test environments resulted in testing delays and an inefficient use of both our staff and our system resources, says Buckellew. We needed to find a way to shrink the timeframe for testing so that our product groups could go to market faster with highquality software. Automating provisioning processes using best practices This would help testers ensure consistency in the test environment and enable them to spend more time testing the software to improve product quality.To achieve this goal, the organization implemented IBM Tivoli Provisioning Manager software, an IBM IT Operational Management Product that is an integral part of IBM IT Service Management. Tivoli Provisioning Manager software is installed on the IBM System x platform running Red Hat Linux, chosen because it offers a costeffective platform with proven flexibility, scalability and security. Through the use of Automation Packages, Tivoli Provisioning Manager software provided the dynamic workflows the team required to automatically drive provisioning operations based on best practices and procedures. Due to the softwares flexibility, lab staff was able to integrate Tivoli Provisioning Manager software with several homegrown test environment tools.This integration enables the organization to effectively and efficiently install the vast number of operating system environments each software product must be tested on.The openness of Tivoli Provisioning Manager makes it ideal for companies that have a finite

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International Referred Research Journal, October,2010. ISSN- 0974-2832VoL.II *ISSUE-21

list of technologies in their environments, as well as processes improves operational efficiency, driving software development firms that may not know what expected savings of more than $2 million a year theyllneed to install next, say Buckellew.Additionally, Leveraging best practices drive greater consistency to Tivoli Provisioning Manager software provided the help minimize human errors and speed the execution security-rich features the organization needed to ensure and accuracy of the testing process Improving the that changes to servers were made by only authorized reliability of the testing environment helps testers users. We didnt want test teams provisioning servers identify the source of code defects more quickly and that were in use by other teams, adds Buckellew. Tivoli retest with confidence Provisioning Manager helped us control who had access Quality through standards -What is Quality? to which servers. Quality is defined by the customer. A quality product or Consistent, cost-effective software deployment service is one that meets customer requirements. Not all Using Tivoli Provisioning Manager software, Tivoli customers have the same requirements so two Development Labs has automated more than 800 tasks contrasting products may both be seen as quality that were once performed manually across 415 systems. products by their users.There are three main ways in This includes tasks for allocating and removing servers which a business can create quality: from the test environment; configuring servers; Market research involves a installing and uninstalling software and patches; and business in finding out what performing bare-metal builds. Doing so has helped the its customers want andn team minimize human errors, such as incorrectly setting expect. It can be carried out a registry value or forgetting to remove an old file that with a small group of may cause software conflict, and increase the accuracy customers, asking them to of the testing environment.By employing IBM IT provide detailed information Service Management software, weve been able to easily about products and services. The research should reveal implement best practices for software provisioning, what the customer view of quality is and whether they says Buckellew. This, in turn, is helping us better align are getting it. Obtaining lots of information from a small our testing processes with business goals and panel of customers is called qualitative research. Market significantly improve operational efficiency. research can also be carried out with large numbers of Savings to reach several million dollars customers through questionnaires.This is called The benefits realized through automation of quantitative research. Working to best practice standards provisioning testing processes and uses of Tivoli is another way an organization can create quality. IBM Provisioning Manager software have been enormous. works with industry specialists to create these standards. The Tivoli Development Labs team reports that Phase For example, it delivers the confidence of customers in a 1 of the project resulted in a 94 percent reduction in business through BS 7799.This is the standard for a attended time to provision software, with more than companys management of information security. IBM 1,200 person-hours saved over the first seven months developed this standard in 1995 to establish best practice of the project.Tasks that once required several hours to for capturing, storing and handling data.This British perform under constant supervision can now be Standard became the basis for the International Standard completed in just five minutes.And by freeing up ISO/IEC17799. Todaycompanies worldwide are seeking resources from mundane tasks, testers have more time certification for their security management systems. to focus on product innovation and code quality. Why is quality important? Ultimately, the organization estimates that the savings The most successful organizations are those that give associated with maintaining the test infrastructure will customers what they want. Satisfied customers are loyal reach more than $2 million a year as it expands use of the to those suppliers they feel best understand their solution to more labs. Faster, unattended installs allow requirements. As a result they will make repeat purchases our existing test teams to complete more tests in less and will recommend a business to their friends. There time, says Buckellew.We can better utilize our are two main types of customers for a business: resources and cost-effectively deliver high-quality end customers - people like you and me, looking to buy solutions to our customers as a result an iPod or plasma screen television organizational Key Components - Software IBM Tivoli Provisioning customers - for example, a company recording audio Manager CDs would buy in blank CDs, record music to them and Server sell them on as a finished product. When you buy a IBM System x running Red Hat Linux piece of electrical equipment, you will want to know a On Demand Business Benefits Automating manual lot of information about its specification.Obvious SHODH SAM IKS HA AUR M ULYANKAN 61

International Referred Research Journal, October,2010.ISSN- 0974-2832VoL.II *ISSUE-21

information that you will be looking for include: Is it safe? Does it do what I want? Does it meet the required standards? Businesses therefore benefit from working with IBM to meet standards, because: Standards protect consumers fundamental right to safety, the right to be informed and the right to choose. These rights relate to products, services, processes and materials.Standardization promotes effective research and development, and makes products easier to use. Standardization relies on all sections of society being involved in standards, providing an opportunity for everyone to share knowledge and make their voice heard.Businesses that do not focus on quality will quickly find that there are costs to be paid. Examples of these costs include waste due to products being badly made and therefore not being able to sell them. The reputation of a business will quickly deteriorate as a result of poor quality work. It is very important for UK businesses to be associated with quality. Today, there is greater competition from abroad. Standards are continually changing so it is important for businesses to keep up. Implementing a quality system internal A system is a group of interrelated parts that make up a whole. A quality system therefore consists of parts (such as policies and processes) designed to ensure quality. A variety of organizations work with IBM to create standards for QMS. The standard specifies requirements for a QMS where an organization: i. needs to show that it can consistently provide products that: a) meet customer requirements b) meet any legal requirements.ii. aims to improve customer satisfaction as a result of applying the system. This includes continually improving the system. ISO 9001 sets out eight quality management principles. These include: customer focusleadership a commitment to quality by the leaders of the organization involvement of people everyone in the organization having a part to play making sure that those processes which create quality are i den ti fi ed con ti n ua l improvement of the system. In practical terms, organizations wishing to apply QMS take the following steps: 1. Read and understand the standard. They read through the literature and discuss any issues with IBM.2. Use supporting literature and software tools to help understand, develop and implement QMS.3.Involve top management (heavily) in developing a quality management plan. Typically a Quality Manager will be responsible for the initiative.4. The Quality Manager can be trained in ways of implementing the standard.5.The QMS is then created and put into practice.6.When the organization feels confident it is meeting the standard, it informs an assessor, who will assess the effectiveness of the QMS. If it meets the standard a certificate will be awarded. This is subject to regular reviews. Implementing a quality system external Internal systems are ones that are built inside an organization. However, in addition, modern businesses need to build external systems. External systems are those that involve people outside the organization e.g. suppliers.Today, many businesses have long supply chains in which they source materials, parts and finished goods from across the globe. Take, for example, a modern plasma screen television. Some of the components may come from India, others from China, or Eastern European countries. These separate components will then be assembled into a sub-assembly i.e. part of the finished television. This sub-assembly may take place in India, whilst a number of parts may then be transported and delivered to a final assembly plant in Wales.This has led to a change in attitude. Conclusion of Case Study Standards meet changing market needs and are customer driven. Businesses benefit from standards because they establish ground rules that help to guarantee quality.Achieving certification to a standard might add reassurance for its customers and enables a business to boost its sales performance.Consumers benefit because their safety and their satisfaction are both greatly enhanced. Governments benefit because such measures contribute to greater productivity and economic growth, and safer work, leisure and home environments.IBM was the worlds first national standards making body. Today it is the most prestigious international standards institution. It works with the British government,manufacturers and other stakeholders to create quality standards. These guarantee fitness for purpose, and help British manufacturers to gain a competitive edge both in the UK and internationally. IBM assists British businesses in all markets to grow and to concentrate on meeting customers requirements.

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1. HANDBOOK OF TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT, R.P.MOHANTY 2. TQM TOOLS AND TOOL KITS, J.ReVelle 3. www.isixsigma.com 4. www.wikepedia.com 5. www.360-ibm.com 6. www.yeadoninc.com/diagram.gif 7. www.qaproject.org/ images/scatterdiagram.gif

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