What is TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT?

What is TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT?

Total Quality Management is a management approach that originated in the 1950s and has steadily become more popular since the early 1980s. Total Quality is a description of the culture, attitude and organization of a company that strives to provide customers with products and services that satisfy their needs. The culture requires quality in all aspects of the company’s operations, with processes being done right the first time and defects and waste eradicated from operations.

Total Quality Management, TQM, is a method by which management and employees can become involved in the continuous improvement of the production of goods and services. It is a combination of quality and management tools aimed at increasing business and reducing losses due to wasteful practices.

Some of the companies who have implemented TQM include Ford Motor Company, Phillips Semiconductor, SGL Carbon, Motorola and Toyota Motor Company.

TQM Defined

TQM is a system of management based on the principle that every member of staff must be committed to maintaining high standards of work in every aspect of a company's operations. In a TQM effort, all members of an organization participate in improving processes, products, services, and the culture in which they work.

TQM is a management philosophy that seeks to integrate all organizational functions (marketing, finance, design, engineering, and production, customer service, etc.) to focus on meeting customer needs and organizational objectives.

TQM views an organization as a collection of processes. It maintains that organizations must strive to continuously improve these processes by incorporating the knowledge and experiences of workers. The simple objective of TQM is “Do the right things, right the first time, every time.” TQM is infinitely variable and adaptable. Although originally applied to manufacturing operations, and for a number of years only used in that area, TQM is now becoming recognized as a generic management tool, just as applicable in service and public sector organizations. There are a number of evolutionary strands, with different sectors creating their own versions from the common ancestor. TQM is the foundation for activities, which include:

• Commitment by senior management and all employees
• Meeting customer requirements
• Reducing development cycle times
• Just in time/demand flow manufacturing
• Improvement teams
• Reducing product and service costs
• Systems to facilitate improvement
• Line management ownership
• Employee involvement and empowerment
• Recognition and celebration
• Challenging quantified goals and bench-marking
• Focus on processes / improvement plans
• Specific incorporation in strategic planning

This shows that TQM must be practiced in all activities, by all personnel, in manufacturing, marketing, engineering, R&D, sales, purchasing, HR, etc.

Why should a company adopt TQM?

Adopting the TQM philosophy will:

• make an organization more competitive
• establish a new culture which will enable growth and longevity
• provide a working environment in which everyone can succeed
• reduce stress, waste and friction
• build teams, partnerships and co-operation

Principles of TQM

The key principles of TQM are as following:

Management Commitment

• Plan (drive, direct)
• Do (deploy, support, participate)
• Check (review)
• Act (recognize, communicate, revise)

Employee Empowerment

• Training
• Suggestion scheme
• Measurement and recognition
• Excellence teams

Fact Based Decision Making

• SPC (statistical process control)
• DOE, FMEA
• The 7 statistical tools
• TOPS (Ford 8D – team-oriented problem solving)

Continuous Improvement

• Systematic measurement and focus on CONQ
• Excellence teams
• Cross-functional process management
• Attain, maintain, improve standards

Customer Focus

• Supplier partnership
• Service relationship with internal customers
• Never compromise quality
• Customer driven standards

The Concept of Continuous Improvement by TQM

TQM is mainly concerned with continuous improvement in all work, from high level strategic planning and decision-making, to detailed execution of work elements on the shop floor. It stems from the belief that mistakes can be avoided and defects can be prevented. It leads to continuously improving results, in all aspects of work, as a result of continuously improving capabilities, people, processes, technology and machine capabilities.

Continuous improvement must deal not only with improving results, but more importantly with improving capabilities to produce better results in the future. The five major areas of focus for capability improvement are demand generation, supply generation, technology, operations and people capability.

A central principle of TQM is that mistakes may be made by people, but most of them are caused, or at least permitted, by faulty systems and processes. This means that the root cause of such mistakes can be identified and eliminated, and repetition can be prevented by changing the process.

There are three major mechanisms of prevention:

1. Preventing mistakes (defects) from occurring (mistake-proofing or poka-yoke).
2. Where mistakes can’t be absolutely prevented, detecting them early to prevent them being passed down the value-added chain (inspection at source or by the next operation).
3. Where mistakes recur, stopping production until the process can be corrected, to prevent the production of more defects. (stop in time).