TOTAL QUALITY MANAGMEMT

Total Quality Management: What? Why? How?



Total Quality Management: What? Why? How?

Introduction

Total quality management (TQM) is an organizational activity that has received many labels since its widespread introduction to the American workplace in the early 1980s. It has been labeled as a comprehensive approach to management, a managerial philosophy, a set of tools for improving quality and customer focus, and an organizational development (OD) intervention that can affect both the business and the people side of operations. In words of Deming (2004) it is practiced by statisticians and engineers, psychologists and other behavioral scientists, and by CEOs, general managers, and HR professionals. Total quality management has been praised as the panacea for business competitiveness and survival, and it has been maligned as nothing more than a passing fad that has failed to deliver (Deming, 2004). Clearly, it is difficult to provide a comprehensive, unified definition of TQM that would inspire consensus from the wide range of academics, managers, and consultants who are invested in such a definition.

Total Quality Management: What? Why? How?

It is possible to identify the primary architects of TQM and to summarize the principles and assumptions that can be extracted from their work. It is widely agreed that the founders of TQM are W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran, and Kaoru Ishikawa. The assumptions of their collective work have been summarized as follows: (a) Quality (of goods and services) is essential for organizational survival; (b) the key to quality is through people, who inherently want to contribute to quality and will do so when trained and supported; (c) because organizations are systems comprising interdependent parts, quality improvement efforts should focus on cross-functional processes; and (d) quality must be driven from the top (Deming, 2004), by senior managers who are committed to and responsible for quality.

From these assumptions flow several important principles, including the use of structured problem solving, data-driven decision making (Boaden, 1997), SPC (statistical process control) tools, and employee involvement and development. From this, the essence of TQM can be distilled as a top-down commitment to quality, achieved through employee involvement in continuous process improvement (Boaden, 1997).

Although implementation steps and timetables will be unique to each organization, the following steps are considered essential to a successful program (Douglas and Judge, 2001).

1. Senior management commitment and training. Total quality management is a top-down approach that depends on the commitment and knowledge of senior-level leaders, who must champion the program and lead the culture change that it requires. Thus, they must receive formal training in quality principles and tools, allocate adequate resources to its successful implementation (Douglas and Judge, 2001), and demonstrate their commitment to quality.

2. Employee training. Total quality management depends on employee involvement in quality improvement and requires extensive training to prepare employees for their role. Although training formats and time frames vary (ranging from two weeks to two years), all employees are expected to receive some minimal level of formal classroom training. Training content includes structured problem solving (using such tools as Six Sigma's DMAIC), ...