| Total Quality
Management:
Total Quality Management may be defined as a structured
system designed for the purpose of satisfying
internal and external customers and suppliers
by the integration of the business environment,
continuous improvement, and successes in breakthroughs
with the development, the improvement and the
maintenance cycles and in the process changing
the culture of the organization. (TQM: Definition
of Total Quality Management).
Total Quality Management was the brainchild of
Dr. W Edward Deming, who developed it in the mid
1940’s. His ideas were not acceptable to
the American businessmen, but did meet with success
with the Japanese businessmen. On the cessation
of hostilities connected with the Second World
War, Gen MacArthur took a team of scientists and
specialists to Japan and Dr. Deming happened to
be one of them. Many of the businessmen attended
a lecture of Dr. Deming on the means to achieve
quality at reduced costs with the help of statistics.
These theories of Dr Deming were later adopted
by the Japanese manufacturing companies and succeeded
in producing quality products at reduced costs.
By the 1970s and 1980s several American companies
including Ford, IBM and Xerox started using the
principles of Total Quality Management as developed
by Dr Deming in an attempt to regain some of the
markets they had lost the Japanese and met with
success. This led to the prominence of Total Quality
Management in the private sectors, which has gradually
now crept into the public sector too. (Total Quality
Management. History of TQM).
The use of the principles of Total Quality Management
came into Asia by the Japanese businessmen utilizing
it to develop quality products at lower cost and
gain markets around the world, which was the envy
of the developed Western world. The name of the
Japanese Ishikawa became known around the world
for the successful development and integration
of Total Quality Management and from those days
it has been considered by many that Total Quality
Management was behind the success of the Japanese
business.
This led to the acceptance of the Japanese versions
of Total Quality Management not only in the US
and the Americas but also in Europe with several
of the Japanese models adopted there. The spread
of Total Quality Management in Asia took place
along as massive Japanese investments flowed into
countries like Thailand and Singapore and thus
became popular in the countries of massive Japanese
investment. (Total Quality Management in Asia.
Total Quality Management). The growth of TQM in
the USA was encouraged through the “Baldridge
Award” and in Europe by the European Quality
Award. The principle elements that in use by those
practicing Total Quality Management can be seen
in the principles that are utilized for auditing
the companies. (TQM in practice).
The key principles involved in Total Quality management
may taken as the commitment of the Management
to plan, deploy, monitor and execute necessary
measures such as the training of employees for
employee empowerment along with providing them
the means to make suggestions and a to measure
their productivity and provide the necessary recognition
and create teams of excellence with suitable employees.
Decisions are to be made based on a statistical
process control and making use of DOE and FMEA
and the seven statistical tools and finally TOPS
(Ford 8D – Team Oriented Problem Solving).
The Management needs to strive for Continuous
Improvement by the systematic measurement and
concentration on CONQ, teams of excellence, cross-functional
process management, and attain maintain and improve
the standards set. There should be a focus on
the Customer by a supplier partnership, service
relationship with internal customers, without
any compromise on quality, and standards that
are set to customer requirements. One of the core
concerns of Total Quality management is the continuous
improvement in all areas of work be it at the
highest level in strategic planning and decision
making, to the detailed execution of the elements
of work at the shop floor level.
This is because
there is the belief that errors can be avoided
and defects prevented from occurring. This leads
to continued results that show improvement in
every aspect of work as a result of the improving
levels of capabilities, employees, processes,
technology and capabilities of the machines. It
is not enough that continuous improvement brings
about improved results but more importantly improve
the capabilities to give better results in the
days ahead. There are five important areas of
concentration for the improvement of capabilities
and these are demand generation, supply generation,
technology, operations and people’s capability.
One of the core principles of Total Quality Management
is that people are likely to make mistakes but
most of these happen or are let to happen because
of faulty systems and processes. This in short
means that the rot cause of these mistakes can
be found out and removed and changing the process
involved can eliminate the further occurrence
of such events. (Introduction and Implementation
of Total Quality Management (TQM)).
Employee empowerment as a part of Total Quality
Management has several requirements as prescribed
by Deming. It was the view of Deming that instead
of leading any enterprise management spent more
time in exercising control and thus worrying too
much about results. Concentration on efforts to
improvements by making the company visions the
actual actions of the company. Business leaders
should be concentrating their efforts in identifying
the source of any problems and taking steps to
correct it instead of looking for individual deficiencies
to blame the inefficiencies on. In righting such
wrongs a horizontal focus happens between all
employees, as managers would look for advice from
all sources and give equal weight-age to all these
opinions. This would lead to the focus of management
on the larger picture rather than concentrate
on minute details thus saving time and money in
the long run. Fear is an inherent part of every
individual and the removal of this fear permits
ideas to float around the organization. This does
not mean it will disappear completely from the
organization, since higher management is involved
in the career advancement and salaries of the
employees. This is also am important part of business.
Driving out fear to a large degree between the
levels and within management itself permits the
organization to develop as the exchange of useful
contributions in the organization will be allowed
to bloom. Employees at different levels need to
well with the other levels for the company to
deliver the best as per its potential. This means
that the problems present in the various branches
of the business at every level need to be understood.
It is when a high level of awareness and commitment
is there between the levels can change start to
happen since cooperation requires this earnest
basic transition. Having pointless signs around
the organization to try and promote cooperation
is just a waste of money. Letting the employees
know the company policies and purposes is really
required, but it is more tactful and less insulting
and likely to be less ignored if by using memos
and letters. The removal of numerical achievement
quotas for the staff and numerical goals for the
management raises quality, as every employee is
no longer based on the average statistical worker
but rather on their own performance not looking
at the achievements of others and thus allowing
for the advance of individuals who work to the
highest potential. This will also encourage the
above half of employees to deliver to their full
potential without just working to achieve numerical
targets set. The removal of annual appraisal reports
advances self worth and pride in the employees
as it creates better methods for individual to
receive pay raises. The pay increase is no longer
based on the results achieved by the employee,
without taking into account the possible difficulties
not under the control of the employee or supervision
of their work, but rather on what would the cost
be to hire a new employee with similar skills
to do the same job. Finally deeming suggests that
organizations should create the facilities for
the employees at all levels to enhance their education
and self-improvement. Employees with a career
option in a particular organization are more likely
to change positions owing to newly created vacancies
or the decline of outdated ones rather than for
a salary hike. (TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT).
Benchmarking is a process in establishing the
best in the field of activity and who is responsible
for setting the standards in that particular field
of activity and what that standard is. For example
one could say that in baseball winning the World
Series Championship seven consecutive times is
a benchmark that has been set by the New York
Yankee. Again as an example if we look for a benchmark
in conquests around the world what is the measure
that we need to use to compare some of the leaders
in this field like Julius Caesar to Adolph Hitler,
and Genghis Khan to Napoleon. Who was greater
and why? A similar activity is done in business
and some examples are who the leading sales organization
is? Which company has the most responsive customer
care division? Where can we find the leanest manufacturing
organization and what standards are to be used
for these assessments? Once the parameters for
benchmarking have been decided on the next and
most important step is to find out what has to
be done to reach that level. Benchmarking happens
to be normally a part of a larger effort again
normally a part of process re-engineering or a
quality improvement effort. Sometimes organizations
tend to ignore benchmarking because they are caught
with other activities they believe have higher
priorities. What they fail to realize is that
this negligence could drive the organization out
of business and they will be left to rue it. (Benchmarking).
The principle behind just in Just in time is
to remove any source of waste in manufacturing
by getting the proper amount of raw materials
and producing just the right quantity of products
in the appropriate place at the right time. This
manufacturing method came from the Japanese, who
developed it in the 1970s. Taiichi Ohno was the
person to use it and he did so in the Toyota manufacturing
plants, where the primary concern at that period
in time was to meet consumer demands. The success
achieved by Taiichi Ohno in using this manufacturing
principle has given him the name of father of
Just in Time. The success of Just in Time principles
at Toyota made many companies follow the lead
and it now has wide support among organizations
and is widely used around the world. (INFORMATION
ABOUT JUST IN TIME).
The manufacturing method wherein the aim is
to minimize the waste in the manufacturing of
a product and the removal of high failure rates
and marts that do not match is known as variability
reduction. This manufacturing method stems from
the approach proposed by Genichi Taguchi in Japan.
Genichi Taguchi’s ideas were different from
the attempts of other managers to either eliminate
wasted time or inefficient effort among the workers
or by tightening up requirements all of which
did not help much. Therefore this method is also
known as Taguchi approach and proposes a method
and attitude of doing things in such a way that
a target is sought as against allowing for a margin
of error. When manufacturing something the aim
should be to seek a target size as against allowing
for tolerances. It is similar to attempting to
go somewhere at a targeted time and reaching there
at that time. Method and attitude move simultaneously.
(Variability Reduction and the Taguchi Approach
in Manufacturing).
Though Total Quality management is the predecessor
method for a company to increase its profits and
repeat business following the ISO standards may
be a good first alternative to the way a company
could improve its business. The ISO 9000 consists
of a group of standards that are international
set for running an organization in an effective
way. This set of standards insists that a business
document their plans, specifications methods of
operation, various activities and so on and so
forth. The use of ISO 9000 is very similar to
the planning done at the household level wherein
records are maintained properly for the payment
of bills and takes. Thus keeping the records in
a proper manner is the initial step to effectiveness
in an organization as recommended by ISO 9000
standards. Companies that have chosen to use both
the concepts of ISO 9000 and Total Quality Management
have shown dramatic increase in profits and customer
loyalty. (Comparing ISO 9000 and TQM)
The resources of this world are limited and conserving
them and using them properly is a worldwide concern.
ISO 14000 is an international set of standards
that gives the way that organizations can set
up an environmental management system that provides
satisfaction to the people, the company and society.
This set of standards lays the foundation for
the elements of the Environmental Management System.
Till this time most measures attempted were mandatory
whereas these standards are voluntary. These standards
also take into consideration the commercial as
well as the benefits derived by the community
in the use of such a system. Implementation of
the ISO 14000 standards go hand in glove with
the ISO 9000 management system as they are complementary.
(UNDERSTANDING THE ISO 14000 SERIES - ENVIRONMENTAL
MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS)
Six Sigma system of management was taken up by
Motorola in the mid-eighties. The success story
of this implementation and growth is well known
in business circles. By 1994 Motorola had brought
down its manufacturing costs by as much as $1.5
billion.
(What is Six Sigma?). The quality movement in
health care and family planning come from different
basis. Medicine as such from the past has taken
the role of a watch dog relying on the government
licensure, credentials of the professionals, in
house audits and external inspections to keep
up to required standards and remove bad performers.
Industry on the other hand has over the past fifty
years used methods of training employees and strengthening
organizational systems to improve their performance.
It is only since 1980 that health care has gradually
started adopting the total quality management
approach of the industry and it is now spreading
to other areas like family planning and primary
care. (The Quality Movement in Health Care).
In conclusion the analysis shows us that the implementation
of Total Quality Management along with the other
aspects of quality management goes along way in
improving the performance of an organization irrespective
of the sphere in which it operates. This ensures
its growth and productivity, thereby increasing
its profitability and benefits to its shareholders.
This ensures economic prosperity to the community,
country and the world as a whole.
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