Total Quality Management - Term Paper Example

? TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT- WHAT? WHY? HOW? E-MAIL ADDRESS November 28, Total Quality Management (TQM) is a vast domain in the business world and forms an essential feature of the organizational infrastructure presently, since it is potential of profoundly helping an organization in retaining long-term success. What TQM is, why it is considered an important business concept, and how it is implemented within an organizational setup are all very important questions which are explored and addressed in this research paper so that more familiarity could be developed with the crucially important yet crude and complex facts which from the bedrock of the concept of TQM. I. INTRODUCTION History OF TQM Basically, TQM is widely considered to be a management philosophy which revolves around improving the quality of products and myriad processes running within an organization prior to launching a product in the market. The term TQM refers to managing and maximizing quality at every level so that employee engagement could be raised, a wide collection of talented ideas could be formed, costs could be reduced by running processes based on short time periods, and top-quality products could be introduced in the market which would better adapt to the customers’ needs. The concept of TQM operates on the principle that everyone is involved in preparing a certain product and not any product can be considered the result of many efforts made by the top management. It operates on the principle that everyone, from grass-root level to authoritative level, working for an organization should be involved in the product-preparing process, so that everyone could be credited with success and glory and no big feat could be called a one-man’s achievement. Process management, product design, employee engagement, customer satisfaction, sensitive strategic planning, and committed leadership all form the basic essential features of the integrative philosophy of TQM. First, there was only the concept of product quality control in vogue in the business world but this concept primarily remained focused on enhancing and improving the quality and design of the products, as the name implies. It did not address other important issues within an organization and did not lay any stress on improving their quality in contrast to the philosophy of TQM, which lays stress on improving and managing the quality of every single process and relation within an organization. So, it remains a reality that TQM offers a much wider approach for looking at things in order to work upon their quality so that the product quality could be improved consequently. According to (Business Performance Improvement Resource 2011), though the roots of TQM can be traced back to early 1920s when the business focus was shifted more towards product quality control, it was in Japan during 1940s when this huge business concept was nurtured and polished in the more vivacious and realistic way. It was then that the focus shifted from product quality control alone and widened tremendously and ultimately, such a business management philosophy was introduced in the form of TQM which could be applied to every level from employee engagement and committed management to quality products and customer satisfaction. Some critics also suggest that the roots of TQM are found embedded in the statistical theory which was applied to the management of product quality and focused on identifying the quality problems and relied mainly on quality control professionals. It was when the Japanese products began to be perceived as cheap imitations that the industrial leaders in Japan launched a program to produce high-quality products and later titles this program as TQM which ultimately became a whole philosophical domain. In the later years, the concept of quality control and management widened even more and the idea of overall quality control became the front theme of Japanese movement. The idea of the quality never stops at the management level or at the product level when TQM is to be implemented in an organization, rather a whole quality circle envelops an organization when TQM is implemented so that quality problems are identified and presentations containing effective solutions are made by employees. Thus, everyone gets involved in enhancing quality once the rules and conventions of TQM begin to be considered and followed by both managers and employees. II. WHY TQM IS AN IMPORTANT BUSINESS CONCEPT? High Employee Engagement Level And Reduced Cost Level Almost everyone has had bad experiences with some company like experiencing bad voice quality after purchasing a new DVD player or having to sit for hours in the waiting area before the flight. All these problems occur when the concept and priority of quality diminishes from an organizational setup and personal conflicts replace it leading a workplace to face ultimate chaos and pandemonium. This is exactly where TQM comes in to play its profoundly important role of focusing on quality and teamwork. TQM is an important business concept because it lays stress on improving quality and reducing costs for which, it greatly stresses on the need to work in small groups so that people within a workplace would get better able to collaborate with each other and many ideas for improved quality could be exchanged, while taking care to identify the quality problems along the way. Putting quality first, as TQM implies, means putting customer’s needs first. Now, as the customers should be perceived as highly dynamic objects whose choices and preferences keep changing with time, the management team and the employees should also be flexible in their approach and not rigid because rigidity antagonizes the philosophical approach introduced by TQM. While TQM stresses the leaders around the globe to maintain a higher level of commitment for the customers, a rigid approach an inflexible leadership style do just the opposite with the result that such companies becomes less and less popular in the market consequently having not kept up with the customers’ requirements. That is why TQM is considered one of the most important business concepts presently around the globe. Another reason why TQM has gained such immense popularity in the business setups around the globe is that “organizations have gained an understanding of the high cost of poor quality. Quality affects all aspects of the organization and has dramatic cost implications” (Wiley n.d.: 140). This is a fact that costs are naturally increased when one after another problems keeps cropping up and processes have to be repeated many times, which obviously is not possible without investing huge amounts of money. Now, once managers and employees working at every level start collaborating with each other and teamwork starts being practiced, many quality problems are already identified to be avoided, so that certain processes do not have to be repeated many times, resulting in increased costs. Maintaining Customer-defined Quality Helps Retaining Success As mentioned before, TQM lays stress on the concept of customer-driven quality due to which a company gets better able to maintain long-term success and popularity in the market as modifying and adapting to the changing customer demands should be the main theme of any company’s philosophy. Once TQM starts being followed by both mangers and employees, achieving customer satisfaction becomes the critically most important objective for any organization. TQM can never be practiced without engaging the leaders also. Only by increasing the level of employee engagement, the main objectives of TQM can never be fulfilled. This is another reason TQM is considered such an important business concept because it lays stress on involving the leaders also in the quality control processes, thus reducing the distances between leaders and employees which otherwise get big enough to be covered many times. TQM induces the leaders to communicate more often with their employees so that many hidden quality problems could be identified. If leaders do not get involved, the chances of conflicts among workers get tremendously increased because no leader involvement means no authoritative control. In the present world where cultural diversity has become a huge phenomenon, managing cross-cultural conflicts should be the foremost concern of any business leader because conflicts also lead to poor quality products since not much attention is paid to the quality control processes when there are already many conflicts in function within an organizational setup. Engaging everyone within a workplace for fulfilling common purposes, achieving common goals, and keeping up to the standards of the customer-defined quality is what TQM is all about and this also explains why this business concept has bagged so much success since it got introduced for the first time. “Employees have to be made to feel that they are responsible for customer satisfaction. They are not going to feel this if they are excluded from the development of visions” (Stark 1998). III. HOW TQM IS IMPLEMENTED WITHIN AN ORGANIZATION? Organizational Assessment And Interactive Relationships Are Essential Before implementing TQM, an organizations’ state has to be critically assessed for identifying the major levels at which most quality-related deficiencies may be present. This helps in portraying a picture of the organization’s real state, how the problems should be addressed, and in what way TQM should be implemented so as to rectifying most of the quality problems in minimum possible time. “One of the ways to evaluate the TQM success is to adopt a holistic approach of assessing your organization” (Foong 2001). While implementing TQM can prove to be a highly challenging process, making indefinite efforts to keep up with its momentum is another story. Implementing TQM within an organization is not a one-day story obviously, it involves indefinite efforts which definitely have to be made by everyone from leaders and top management team to the employees working at the lowest level, even the HR department has to be involved in this process since HR executives can seriously help in building constructive and bias-free relationships between employers and employees. Now, TQM cannot be implemented without the leaders and employees not interacting with each other first. That is why, maintaining close communication and holding weekly meetings with employees holds immense importance. TQM lays huge stress on effective interaction between leaders, managers, and employees because there is no other way quality problems can ever be brought up and worked upon. TQM compels the leaders to adopt a ceaseless and continuous improvement approach, which can prove to be too much of a pressure for many leaders due to which they quit the TQM philosophy and any idea of implementing it. Such organizations obviously fail to garner some distinguished success in the market and then, what success or big feat has ever been achieved without having to deal with indefinite pressures first. Developing Familiarity With The Quality Tools Helps In Implementing TQM According to Kanri (cited in Total Quality Engineering Inc. 2010), there are many on-site training workshops presently which can hugely help the leaders in implementing the philosophical approach of TQM. Such workshops have reportedly remained successful in helping many organizations around the globe develop familiarity with the concepts of process management and product improvement, which is of huge importance because only after developing familiarity with any concept can it be implemented within an organization. Not many people and even leaders are aware of how to use the basic quality tools for improving and managing quality control processes due to which TQM never gets implemented the way it should be. The aim of such useful workshops is to teach the public about the way to employ those basic quality tools. “Once the basic tools are mastered, people are able to determine if their processes are capable of meeting customer requirements” (Kanri, cited in Total Quality Engineering Inc. 2010). Once the basic quality basic tools are mastered by both leaders and employees, things set off for a smooth run and quality improves consequently. Developing understanding with the quality tools also helps the people working within an organization acknowledge their own shortcomings in addition to enabling them to take more responsibility for the processes they manage in order to prepare high-quality products. “In general, the tools will allow anyone to understand and continuously improve about 80-90% of the processes they manage” (Kanri, cited in Total Quality Engineering Inc. 2010). Hence, raising educational awareness regarding TQM implementation among the people working for an organization holds huge importance. REFERENCES Business Performance Improvement Resource. 2011. History of Quality. < http://www.bpir.com/total-quality-management-history-of-tqm-and-business- excellence-bpir.com.html> (Accessed 28 November 2011). Foong, L.M. 2001. Total Quality Management (TQM). < http://tqmcasestudies.com/> (Accessed 28 November 2011). Stark, J. 1998. A FEW WORDS ABOUT TQM. < http://www.johnstark.com/fwtqm.html> (Accessed 28 November 2011). Total Quality Engineering Inc. 2010. Helping organizations improve effectiveness. < http://www.tqe.com/TQM.html> (Accessed 28 November 2011). Wiley. n.d. Total Quality Management. < http://www.wiley.com/college/sc/reid/chap5.pdf> (35pages, accessed 28 November 2011). Read More