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Total Quality Management 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 devotion to established standards, such as the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 9000 series. Every organization, both for profit and non-profit, can benefit from Total Quality Management (TQM). One definition for TQM is a management strategy aimed at embedding awareness of quality in all organizational processes. It has been widely used in education, government, manufacturing, and service industries. TQM processes are divided into four chronological categories: plan, do, check, and act (the PDCA cycle).
In the planning phase, people define the problem to be addressed, collect relevant data, and discover the problem's root cause. Next in the doing phase, people develop and implement a solution, and decide upon a measurement to gauge its effectiveness. Third is the checking phase, where people prove the results through before-and-after data comparison. The final phase acting is where, people document their results, inform others about process changes, and make recommendations for the problem to be addressed in the next PDCA cycle (Green 2003). The large and growing importance of world trade is a major phenomenon of our time. This trend has been increasing from the merger of Europe into the European Union and by the rapid growth of a few of the less developed countries of Latin America, South America, and Asia.
A customer needs assurance that quality products will be supplied while dealing assertively with any supplier. This assurance is principally important when customer and supplier are on a global basis, entailing separate legal systems and grievance procedures. Thus, the growth in world trade has been a major stimulus for developing successful ways for customers to feel certain about the quality of the goods supplied to them, since their customer could be thousands of miles across the ocean. A more appropriate approach would be to have certainty in the quality systems of the various suppliers around the world.
There are two methods that can be used to gain this assurance. The first one is for the customer to evaluate each supplier's system before conducting any business. This method is costly and very time-consuming for both the customer and the supplier. An additional, more practical system for gaining confidence is to insist that the supplier meet criteria that is suitable to the customer. This is the more accepted way to be sure that quality is acceptable for global business partners. Traditional management was normally an autocratic style with all product & process decisions starting with the managers proceeding down to the various employees.
Traditional management was created through a clear-cut hierarchy where employees do his / her individual job. First financial management revolves around the traditional management style, where quality is thought of as a supplement. Traditional management does see quality as an important factor and will follow quality guidelines and standards. Suppliers compete against each other to provide the lowest price in traditional management, not thinking as much about the quality of their product. TQM on the other hand uses the mutual team approach to doing business. TQM is counting on the skills and potential of both employees and employers to constantly improve quality and productivity.
Quality is a major focus for the TQM style; so strategic planning is an essential part of quality-focused management. This allows all parties involved with the product / service to have an interest in assuring the quality of the final product where the traditional management styles were a bit different. (Doing MY Homework, 2003 - 2005) In the Healthcare field, TQM is very important. We deal not only with our residents, in which at Oak Hammock at the University of Florida, we refer to as members, but we also have many vendors and suppliers. We are always seeking new innovative ways to attend to the needs and many of the wants of our members as well as maintaining good business relations with our vendors.
The type of services we provide to our members is outlined from start to finish in what is known as a life care contract. We have three areas available for our members, independent living, assisted living and skilled nursing. Members that are of sound mind and good health begin in their own homes or what is known as an independent living style, as faculties begin to fail and health deteriorates, they move into the assisted living units or skilled nursing units. Regardless of what unit or stage you are living in we still provide the highest quality service and care for our members. This includes a full scale fitness center with personal trainers, the fitness center pool, concierge service, transportation, and many others things. Our members expect the absolute best in all areas of service, for example, if the fitness center always has a broken machine or the air conditioner in the apartment home is always breaking and several inquires have been made regarding these issues without resolution, that means we are not providing our members with a quality services.
TQM also means having the best staff in administrative areas as well as in maintenance. TQM is very important to my organization. In conclusion I feel TQM is a very assertive approach to management. All parties involved in the business should be happy with final outcome.
TQM has definitely come along way from many of the traditional management styles that have been used in the past. References Burrill, C. W. , & Ledolter, J. (1999). Achieving Quality Through Continual Improvement. : John Wiley's and Son's Inc. Doing MY Homework (2003 - 2005). Total Quality Management.
Retrieved 16 December 2006 from web Green, L. (2003, May, 2003). A Simplified TQM Diagnostic Model. Retrieved 18 December 2006 from, web
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Research essay sample on Total Quality Management Quality Management Tqm
