NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
Total Quality Management TQM stands for Total Quality Management, which is a cooperative form of doing business that relies on the talents and capabilities of both labor and management to continually improve quality and productivity using teams. (Joseph R. Jablonski Implementing TQM) The origin of TQM was derived during the 1980 s by Dr. W. Edwards Deming and Dr. Joseph Juran.
Both developed TQM in Japan to revitalize their crumbling economy at the time prior to the end of World War II. Japan began to flourish when Dr. Deming and Dr. Juran introduced Statistical Quality Control (S. Q. C. ) which was a concept of management using statistical theory.
Some of Tqm's concepts were evident early on in the Penny Idea of 1913 developed by J. C. Penny. The Penny Idea consisted of these seven components: (1) To serve the public, as nearly as we can, to its complete satisfaction; (2) To expect for the service we render a fair remuneration and not all the profit the traffic will bear; (3) To do all in our power to pack the customers dollar full of value, quality, and satisfaction; (4) To continue to train ourselves and our associates so that the services we give will be more and more intelligently performed; (5) To improve constantly the human factor in our business; (6) To reward men and women in our organization through participation in what the business produces; (7) To test every policy, method, and act in this way: Does it square with what is just and right? The Penny Idea exercises customer satisfaction, fairness, quality, value, associate training, and rewards for performance.
TQM contains three ingredients necessary for a company to flourish: (1) participative management; (2) continuous process improvement; and (3) the use of teams. Participative management is developed from TQM practice. It is the process of preparing employees with the skills and support to better understand how they do business, make improvements, and make change happen to allow participative management to flourish. Participative management is not immediate. Its momentum builds gradually with trust and feedback.
Continuous process improvement (CPI) means accepting small, incremental gains as a step in the right direction toward Total Quality. Continuous process improvement reinforces long term focus in the company. The third ingredient necessary for a company to flourish is the use of teams. Teams are designed into cross-functional types with the individual employees aligned with the corporations goals for improvement.
With these three ingredients together, successful Total Quality Management can be achieved. There are six main principles of Total Quality Management. These include: (1) Customer Focus; (2) A Focus on Process as Well as the Results; (3) Prevention versus Inspection; (4) Mobilize Expertise of Workforce; (5) Fact-Based Decision Making; (6) Feedback. Customer Focus emphasizes on making improvements so that the customer is completely satisfied. In large organizations, employees are usually surprised to be asked to contribute knowledge and ideas. By getting different employee perspectives, the company can use many different techniques to achieve customer satisfaction.
A Focus on Process as Well as the Results is the second TQM principle. This principle is based on the fact of exceeding customer expectations and needs. Prevention versus Inspection is the third principle of TQM. Here a structured approach to problem solving is applied along with making the necessary investments to understand the process and sources of process variation.
The fourth principle is Mobilizing Expertise of the Workforce. Employees like to be appreciated and monetary rewards arent enough to keep one completely satisfied. Therefore other incentives must exist in the workplace such as social needs and comfortable atmospheres. Fact-Based Decision Making involves u nder standing the process employees work in and around everyday, understanding the cause of their problems, and gathering information, data on which they can base decisions for improving that process.
The last principle, Feedback, allows the other principles to succeed. It is the most important because day to day innovation can be achieved. Another important factor in achieving TQM is Process. Process is a series of operations linked together to provide a result that has increased value.
Employees, customer influence, and resources come together to process company outputs. Company resources include people, equipment, material, money, and time. The results of the inputs are feedback to the employees so they can improve upon work habits. More efficient methods are achieved through this TQM process. Implementation of TQM has a five-phase approach that has its main emphasis on addressing tough issues and describing costs and rewards of implementing change.
The five-phase approach consists of: (1) Preparation; (2) Planning; (3) Assessment; (4) Implementation; (5) Diversification. Preparation Preparation includes the companies mission statement, goals, objectives, and draft policy in direct support of the main strategic plan. Planning provides a foundation for the process of change of change within the organization. Assessment involves of the exchange of information that will be necessary to support the preparation, planning, implementation phase.
Implementation invests in the company so that the pay-off can be achieved and work can progress. This is when objectives to change have been overcome. Goals are being achieved on a regular basis. Preparation, in more detail involves company decision making. Each participant understands that their actions are equally important to the actions of any other employee. Steven Covey describes in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, that it is important to emphasize the fact to all employees involved in the process that quality is the guiding force and that it must me implemented in every stage of the process.
Many companies that imply TQM, require that their employees attend TQM seminars and classes before embarking on a project. Many employers choose to employ those who have a vast knowledge of TQM when embarking on a project so they can advise the entire staff on applying TQM methods to the tasks at hand. Training the employees to apply the methods at all times throughout the process, results in a workforce that seeks the same common goal and applies the same methods to achieve it. Throughout the training process much of the emphasis is placed on decision making. This is important because TQM teaches that its not necessarily the big-wigs of the corporation who are making the decisions. Much of the decision making is decided from outside factors, especially those that are referred by the customers who they are supplying needs to.
TQM methods imply the importance of outside factors upon decision making. Thus, they find it important to gain the opinion of those who are directly affected by outside factors. Surveys are one major way of doing this. Companies send out numerous surveys to their customers in order to get a feel of what the customers want. By understanding what the customers want, the company can better understand what decisions they need to make in order to please those who they are servicing. By understanding the needs of the customers, the company allows itself to make its own decisions through needs not speculation.
Understanding immediately what the general public considers quality, allows an individual company to comprehend the needs of the customer and make changes to what the general public deems unacceptable within the process, thus, locating the problem. By locating the problem they can therefore fix it and present its customers with a quality product. Planning The second phase is planning systematic planning is a basic requirement for effective quality management in all organizations. For quality to be effective however it must be a part of a continuous review process which has as its objective zero errors or defectives, through a strategy of never ending improvement. The resources required will be made available, and that the various assignments will be carried out. The answers to the questions will generate the appropriate action plans.
In quality planning it is always necessary to review existing programs with in the organizations functional areas and these may be compared with the results of the preliminary analysis to appraise the strengths and the weaknesses in quality throughout the business or operation. The plan should include references to any: Purchased material specifications; Quality control procedures; Product formulation or service type; Process control; Sampling and inspection procedures; Packaging specifications Miscellaneous, relevant procedures. For projects relating to new products or services, or to new processes, written quality plans should be prepared to define: Specific allocation of responsibility and authority during the different stages of project; Specific procedures, methods and instructions to be applied throughout the project; Appropriate inspection, testing, checking or audit programs required at various defined stages; Methods for changes or modifications in the plan as the project proceeds. The quality plan should focus on providing action to prevent profits leaking away through waste. If the quality management system does not achieve this, then there is something wrong with the plan and it has been set up or operated not with the principle. The whole approach should be methodical, systematic and designed to function irrespective of changes in management or personnel.
Control The task of inspection or checking is taken by many to be the passive one of sorting out the good from the bad, when it should be an active device to prevent errors, defects, or nonconformance. In human control it requires more care because it is frequently found that every item, every word, every number, or every element of service is examined in an attempt to stop errors or defects reaching or being seen by the customer. Any control system based on detection of poor quality by poor quality by postproduction inspection is unreliable, costly, wasteful, and uneconomical. The measurement of inputs, outputs, and processes themselves is a vital component of Total Quality Management. Numbers and measurements are necessary for the processes to be known. If inputs and the outputs can be measured and expressed in numbers, then something is known about the process, and control is possible.
The first stage in using measurement as part of process control is to identify precisely the activities, materials, equipment, etc. , which will be measured. The size of measurement task must be managed so that a reasonable parameter can be obtained. For example, some companies measure the supplier performance or the growth rate of the company. The presentation of this data is as important as getting the data because if you do not know how to use the data then you should not bother to have it.
Decisions regarding the actual measurement process and the people who will carry out the measurement must be made consciously if the activity is to lead to improvements in quality. For the measurements to be used for quality improvement, they must be accepted by the people involved with the process being measured. The simple self measurement and plotting, or how am I doing chart will gain far more ground in this respect than a policing type of observation and reporting system which is imposed on the process and those who operate it. To conclude we do need measurement in order to control the TQM and we need to make the right decisions after the results of the measurements. We should chart the results in order to keep the control steady all the time. Implementation Implementation is where we begin to see results from planning and control of resources and simply after the plan its training of the relevant people and start the implementation it self.
When we talk about training it seems like a lot of training but actually it is important to review the magnitude of training realized by each level within the organization. While specifics differ for each company, I believe the allocation of training to be widely applicable. Note that the majority of the time, hence the majority of training resources, is allocated to specific skills training. Again, this emphasizes the need for analyzing and interpreting the results from the assessment Phase to spend pounds most effectively.
The implementation consists of AWARNESS, ORIENTATION, and SKILLS AWARENESS WHAT IS TQM? HOW CAN IT HELP US? OTHERS WHO HAVE SUCCEEDED ORIENTATION WHAT IS OUR PLAN? WHAT IS MY ROLE? WHAT WILL BE EXPECTED OF ME? SKILLS TEAM BUILDING CUSTOMER SERVICE EMPOWERMENT CONCLUSION The motives for pursuing quality differ from company to company.
In my opinion quality is changing the way we do business obviously improving it. In an extremely competitive, price-conscious industry, an organizations need for TQM becomes readily apparent. TQM can be called change as well but obviously it is not like changing your hairstyle or dress code. It is changing the way a whole organization works. The world it self is changing rapidly. A successful business must be able to change with the world as well.
Sir Winston Churchill once said, there is nothing wrong with change if its in the right direction to improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often. Bibliography Jablonski, Joseph. Implementing TQM. United States: Pfeiffer, 1992.
Bank, John. The Essence of Total Quality Management. UK: Prentice Hall Int. , 1992. Oakland, John. Total Quality Management.
United States: Nichols Publishing Co, 1989. Covey, Steven. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. US: Prentice Hall, 1995
Free research essays on topics related to: highly effective, process improvement, prentice hall, decision making, total quality management
Research essay sample on Total Quality Management Decision Making
