Total Quality Management

Total Quality Management (TQM) is an integrated system of principles, methods, and best practices that provide a framework for organizations to strive for excellence in everything they do. A model for organization excellence

The roots of Total Quality Management (TQM) go back to the teachings of Drucker, Juran, Deming, Ishikawa, Crosby, Feigenbaum and countless other people that have studied, practiced, and tried to refine the process of organizational management. TQM is a collection of principles, techniques, processes, and best practices that over time have been proven effective. Most all world-class organizations exhibit the majority of behaviors that are typically identified with TQM. No two organizations have the same TQM implementation. There is no recipe for organization success, however, there are a number of great TQM models that organizations can use. These include the Deming Application Prize, the Malcolm Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, the European Foundation for Quality Management, and the ISO quality management standards. Any organization that wants to improve its performance would be well served by selecting one of these models and conducting a self-assessment. The simplest model of TQM is shown in this diagram. The model begins with understanding customer needs. TQM organizations have processes that continuously collect, analyze, and act on customer information. Activities are often extended to understanding competitor's customers. Developing an intimate understanding of customer needs allows TQM organizations to predict future customer behavior.

TQM organizations integrate customer knowledge with other information and use the planning process to orchestrate action throughout the organization to manage day to day activities and achieve future goals. Plans are reviewed at periodic intervals and adjusted as necessary. The planning process is the glue that holds together all TQM activity. TQM organizations understand that customers will only be satisfied if they consistently receive products and services that meet their needs, are delivered when expected, and are priced for value. TQM organizations use the techniques of process management to develop cost-controlled processes that are stable and capable of meeting customer expectations. TQM organizations also understand that exceptional performance today may be unacceptable performance in the future so they use the concepts of process improvement to achieve both breakthrough gains and incremental continuous improvement. Process improvement is even applied to the TQM system itself! The final element of the TQM model is total participation. TQM organizations understand that all work is performed through people. This begins with leadership. In TQM organizations, top management takes personal responsibility for implementing, nurturing, and refining all TQM activities. They make sure people are properly trained, capable, and actively participate in achieving organizational success. Management and employees work together to create an empowered environment where people are valued. All of the TQM model's elements work together to achieve results. So how can TQE help? TQE's core competence is in the areas of Hoshin Kanri, process management, and process improvement. By using TQE's products and training services your organization can begin to implement and use TQM concepts. Hoshin Kanri directly supports the planning portion of the TQM model. Implementing Hoshin Kanri within your organization is usually a first step toward full integration of TQM because the first plan created is to "Implement TQM". Regardless of your organization's TQM maturity, however, implementing the Hoshin Kanri planning process will help your organization identify critical success factors, schedule implementation, define ownership, track progress, and achieve results. TQE's Hoshin Handbook describes the Hoshin Kanri process and provides step by step instructions. The handbook is also used as the text for the on-site Hoshin workshop that will help get you and your team up to speed quickly. To complete your Hoshin implementation, TQE provides both webbased and PC-based software to help reduce the paperwork and provide structure for your planning process. The software will help make your Hoshin plan become the way you manage instead of a document collecting dust on the shelf. Implementing Hoshin Kanri can be a giant step toward becoming a TQM mature organization.

To help organizations implement the concepts of process management and process improvement, TQE provides on-site training workshops. The workshops teach people how to use basic quality tools to manage and improve processes. Once the basic tools are mastered, people are able to determine if their processes are capable of meeting customer requirements. If processes are capable, people will know how to standardize the process to assure stable and capable performance. If processes are found to be not capable, then people will know how to use the PDCA model to begin improving the processes so that they will meet customer requirements. If you want to see if you are proficient with the basic quality tools, take this quiz and find out. Understanding how to use basic quality tools allows people in the organization to take responsibility for the processes they manage. In general, the tools will allow anyone to understand and continuously improve about 80-90% of the processes they manage. For the 10-20% of processes that require more sophisticated tools, TQE also provides training in Design of Experiments. This class teaches engineers and other technical personnel the techniques used by TQM organizations to achieve breakthrough process improvement. TQE's products and training services can help your organization become a TQM role model.

Definition

Total Quality Management (TQM)

Total Quality Management (TQM) 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. TQM requirements may be defined separately for a particular organization or may be in adherence to established standards, such as the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 9000 series. TQM can be applied to any type of organization; it originated in the manufacturing sector and has since been adapted for use in almost every type of organization imaginable, including schools, highway maintenance, hotel management, and churches. As a current focus of e-business, TQM is based on quality management from the customer's point of view. TQM processes are divided into four sequential categories: plan, do, check, and act (the PDCA cycle). In the planning phase, people define the problem to be addressed, collect relevant data, and ascertain the problem's root cause; in the doing phase, people develop and implement a solution, and decide upon a measurement to gauge its effectiveness; in the checking phase, people confirm the results through before-and-after data comparison; in the acting phase, people document their results, inform others about process changes, and make recommendations for the problem to be addressed in the next PDCA cycle.

Total quality management

Total Quality Management / TQM is an integrative philosophy of management for continuously improving the quality of products and processes.[1] TQM is based on the premise that the quality of products and processes is the responsibility of everyone involved with the creation or consumption of the products or services which are offered by an organization, requiring the involvement of management, workforce, suppliers, and customers, to meet or exceed customer expectations. Cua, McKone, and Schroeder (2001) identified nine common TQM practices:[2] 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. cross-functional product design process management supplier quality management customer involvement information and feedback committed leadership strategic planning cross-functional training employee involvement

Formal definition
Total Quality Management is formally defined in BS 7850-1, paragraph 3.1, as management philosophy and company practices that aim to harness the human and material resources of an organization in the most effective way to achieve the objectives of the organization. [3] Total quality management can be summarized as a management system for a customerfocused organization that involves all employees in continual improvement. It uses strategy, data, effective communications and involvment of all level employeess to integrate the quality discipline into the culture and activities of the organization.

Customer-focused. The customer ultimately determines the level of quality. No matter what an organization does to foster quality improvementtraining employees, integrating quality into the design process, upgrading computers or software, or buying new measuring toolsthe customer determines whether the efforts were worthwhile or not. Total employee involvement. All employees participate in working toward common goals. Total employee commitment can only be obtained after fear has been driven from the workplace, when empowerment has occurred, and management has provided the proper environment. High-performance work

systems integrate continuous improvement efforts with normal business operations. Self-managed work teams are one form of empowerment.

Process-centered. A fundamental part of TQM is a focus on process thinking. A process is a series of steps that take inputs from suppliers (internal or external) and transforms them into outputs that are delivered to customers (again, either internal or external). The steps required to carry out the process are defined, and performance measures are continuously monitored in order to detect unexpected variations in the process. Integrated system. Although an organization may consist of many different functional specialties often organized into vertically structured departments, it is the horizontal processes interconnecting these functions that are the focus of TQM. o Basic processes add up to larger processes, and all processes aggregate into the business processes required for defining and implementing strategy. Everyone must understand the vision, mission, and guiding principles as well as the quality policies, objectives, and critical processes of the organization. Business performance must be monitored and communicated continuously. o An integrated business system may be modeled after the Baldrige National Quality Program criteria and/or incorporate the ISO 9000 standards. Every organization has a unique work culture, and it is virtually impossible to achieve excellence in its products and services unless a good quality culture has been fostered where everyone works for the quality. Thus, an integrated system connects business improvement elements in an attempt to continually improve and exceed the expectations of customers, employees, and all other stakeholders. o Strategic and systematic approach. A critical part of the management of quality is the strategic and systematic approach to achieving an organizations vision, mission, and goals. This process, called strategic planning or strategic management, includes the formulation of a strategic plan that integrates quality as a core component. Continual improvement. A major thrust of TQM is continual process improvement. Continual improvement drives an organization to be both analytical and creative in finding ways to become more competitive and more effective at meeting stakeholder requirements and expectations. Fact-based decision making. In order to know how well an organization is performing, data on performance measures are necessary. TQM requires that an organization continually collect and analyze data in order to improve decision making accuracy, achieve consensus, and allow prediction based on past history. Communications. During times of organizational change, as well as part of dayto-day operation, effective communications plays a large part in maintaining

morale and in motivating employees at all levels. Communications involve strategies, method, and timeliness. These elements are considered so essential to TQM that many organizations define them, in some format, as a set of core values and principles on which the organization is to operate.

TQM and Six Sigma

The TQM concept was developed based on the teachings of American management consultants, including W. Edwards Deming, Joseph M. Juran, and Armand V. Feigenbaum.[4] Originally, these consultants had short-term success in the United States. Managers in Japan, however, embraced their ideas enthusiastically and even named their premier annual prize for manufacturing excellence after Dr. Deming. Based on Statisticial Process Control (SPC) techniques, the Six Sigma management strategy was developed in 1986 to support Motorolas drive towards reducing defects by minimizing variation in processes.[5] The main difference between TQM and Six Sigma is the approach.[6] At its core, Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management approach to long-term success through continuous process improvement and customer satisfaction. In a TQM effort, all members of an organization participate in improving processes, products, services and the culture in which they work. The methods for implementing this approach come from people such as Philip B. Crosby, W. Edwards Deming, Armand V. Feigenbaum, Kaoru Ishikawa and Joseph M. Juran.

TQM and Performance for SMEs: Research Project

The concept of quality in general and Total Quality Management (TQM) in particular has been the subject of several marketing and management research insofar as it is considered as a means to understand and meet the expectations of consumers.[7] For Chin, TQM is an inclusive approach whose aim is to pursue customer satisfaction [8]. This purpose has generated a growing interest in various sectors of economy such as manufacturing, services, Government and education in different countries around the world.

Redundancy
In TQM, redundancy in quality or redundant quality means quality which exceeds the required quality level. Tolerances may not be too accurate, for example, creating unnecessarily high costs of production.