TQM STRATEGY AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

TQM Strategy and Operations Management

TQM Strategy and Operations Management

Introduction

Strategic quality management (SQM) is not new; the term and concept discussed by Garvin (1988) led to the strategic approach to quality as the fourth era of quality after: inspection, statistical quality control, and quality assurance. However, research (Mehra et al., 2001; Brown, 1998) into the relationship of total quality management (TQM) and strategy has shown that the relationship between TQM, strategy and resultant operations is not well documented in the literature and confusing to many managers involved in organisational improvement.

TQM Strategy and Operations Management: Case Study

This paper will utilize the example of IBM and will discuss its example throughout the paper. TQM is a management approach to long-term success, through achieving complete customer satisfaction. TQM is the complete approach to improve organisational performance and effectiveness. The management of IBM considers TQM as a way of life for an organisation as a whole, committed to total customer satisfaction through continuous process of improvement, and the contribution and involvement of people. This paper discusses TQM and Operation strategies in the context of the practices of International Business Machine (IBM).

Discussion

Kaye and Dyson (1995) found that continuous improvement did not permeate the strategic process in the majority of cases in their research. There was a lack of focus on strategic goals and, where there were signs of data collection, these were not systematically linked to improvement strategies. Wilcox (1994) found that TQM was perceived as a second- or third-order strategy at IBM .Although SQM has existed for some time, companies are still missing the full potential of TQM by failing to link it directly to the corporate strategy and the development of resultant operational plans as opposed to viewing TQM solely from an operational perspective (Lau and Anderson, 1998; Kanji et al., 1992).

Thus many questions and issues remain. For example, as shown by Ghobadian and Woo (1996), existing TQM models, such as the business excellence model (BEM) and Baldrige model, do not adequately represent the dynamics of TQM, being more suited to “static” audits. How can models be developed which show both the dynamics and complexity of TQM applications in organisations? Furthermore, how can the potential of TQM as both a strategic and operational influence be realised, rather than being restricted to that of a low-level improvement tool?

The aim of this paper is to explore and represent the dynamic relationship between total quality management (TQM), corporate strategy and resultant business operations at IBM. In particular, the paper seeks to determine the impact of TQM at the strategic level and how business operations are consequently developed and deployed. The objectives are:

to determine the nature and extent of the application of TQM at the strategic level and its impact; and

to gain an understanding of the dynamics and complexity of the relationship between TQM, strategy and resultant business operations.

Following a short literature review, an inductive research methodology is described, followed by results and ...