Total Quality Management
- Total - made up of whole
- Quality - degree of execellence a product or service provides
- Management - act, art or manner of planning, controlling, directing, etc.
- There, TQM is the art of managing the whole to achieve execellence.
- Definition: TQM has been defined as an integrated organizational effort designed to improve quality at
every level.
- The process to produce a perfect product by a series of measures require an organized effort by
the entire company to prevent or eliminate errors at every stage in production is called TQM.
Characteristics of TQM
- Committed management
- Adopting and communicating about total quality management.
- Closer customer relations.
- Closer provider relations.
- Increased training.
- Open organization
- Flexible production
- Process improvements
- Process measuring.
Principles of TQM
- Produce quality of work the first time and every time.
- Focus on the customer.
- Have a strategic approach to improvement.
- Improve continuously.
- Encourage mutual respect and teamwork.
Focus on the customer
- It is important to identify the organization's customers.
- External customers consume the organization's product or service.
- Internal customers are employees who receive the output of other employees.
Employee involvement
- Since the quality is considered the job of all employees, employees should be involved in
quality intitiatives.
- Front line employees are likely to have the closest contact with externl customers and thus can
make the most valuable contribution to quality.
- Therefore, employees must have the authority to innovate and improve quality.
Continous improvement
- The quest for quality is a never ending process in which people are continously working to
improve the performance, speed and number of features of the product or service.
- Continous improvement means that small, incremental improvement that occurs on a regular basis
will eventually add up to vast improvement in quality.
Benefits of TQM
- Improved quality
- Employee participation
- Team work
- Working relationships
- Customer satisfaction
- Productivity
- Communication
- Profitability
- Market share.
Advantages of TQM
- Improves reputation: faults and problems are spotted and sorted quicker.
- Higher employee morale: workers motivated by extra responsibility, team work and involvement
indecisions of TQM.
- Lower cost
- Decrease waste as fewer defective products and no need for separate.
Disadvantages of TQM
- Intial introduction cost.
- Benefits may not be seen for several years
- Workers may be resistant to change