Measurement of Successful Total Quality Management - Essay Example

Total quality management Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code: Date of Submission: Executive Summary Many organizations are applying various techniques to improve the quality of their products so that they can remain competitive in the market. This report identified the ways in which to implement TQM and they include cooperation from employees and top management, develop a culture in the organization which enables employees to work towards improving quality, the organization should practice continues improvement process and give priority to customer requirements. This report also discussed effective control system which is also needed to manage quality effectively; qualified team to head the quality management department and employees should be trained. Increased sales prove that the TQM was implemented successfully together with improved competitiveness of the organization. The report finally gave the recommendations on how to improve to improve total quality management. The recommendations are to hire qualified employees and motivate employees through rewards which will encourage them to implement the policies without resistance. Table of Contents Executive Summary 2 Table of Contents 3 Introduction 4 Implementing Total Quality Management 4 Measurement of Successful Total Quality Management 7 Action Plan 8 Recommendations 10 Conclusion 11 Introduction Total quality management comprises of all aspects and efforts implemented by an organization to improve the quality of products and services it offers to customers. Total quality management is conducting operations of the organization according to the laid down standards to ensure there is an effective customer feedback as a sign of satisfaction (Alira et al 2005). Due to high competition in the market, many organizations are contemplating on how they can gain competitive advantage and one of the strategies applied is the implementation of total quality management. Through quality management, an organization can offer quality products to meet the customers’ demands hence will be able to attract and retain many customers. This report will focus on Crusty Bakeries Pty Ltd in Sydney which has been the leading supplier of baked products. The company was established in the year 1995 and since then the company has been growing tremendously. However in the recent years since 2006, the organization has been facing challenges in offering quality products and services to customers. In this regard therefore as the new manager, I will research and write the report on how to implement total quality management, how I will prove to the owner of the organization that I have successfully implemented total quality management and an action plan for implementing total quality management. Implementing Total Quality Management In order for the organization to effectively achieve the implementation of total quality management, there are some aspects which need to be tackled. The first issue to consider is to ensure there is a commitment from the employees. As the manager, I will develop strategies and policies of TQM which will ensure that the employees are committed to the management of quality in the organization. First, there will be a policy to encourage each employee to work hard towards improving the quality (Lassâad et al 2006). This can be achieved through learning and development of the employees to improve their skills hence they will be committed to improve their performance at all aspects. There will be a culture of quality improvement in the organization. There should be a culture in the organization to encourage the employees to work towards improving the quality of the organization. There should be regular meetings in the organization to get the employees’ feedback concerning the progress of the implementation of TQM. This will develop a culture of improving quality management at all processes thus all the employees are aware of the need to improve quality. On the other hand, there should be continues processes in improving quality management. Total quality management is a continues process which needs to be observed at all levels of production and management. There should be a policy which enables the quality management team to monitor all the procedures at every level of production (van de 2000). This will help to correct any errors which might come at any process and affect quality management in the organization. Research and development should be done always to ensure that the organization comes up with better ways of achieving tasks and serving customers best. There should be cooperation from the employees. Total quality management is in direct relation with the employees and cannot succeed if there is no cooperation from the employees. The employees should be involved in decision making concerning quality so that they will understand that their opinions are considered (Stefan 2007). In this regard, the employees will cooperate in implementing the strategies of total quality management hence the implementation process will succeed because there will be less resistance from the employees. Furthermore, the organization should focus on the requirements of the customers. Total quality management can only be achieved if the organization is able to focus on the customer demands. The organization will collect feedback from the customers before deciding on what strategies to adopt which will help the organization to meet the customers’ needs (Yusof & Aspinall 2000). For instance, the information collected should focus if the customers are satisfied with the supply arrangements of the organization. If the customers are not satisfied with the supply chain of the company’s baked products and services, the organization will opt to use middlemen in the supply of the products so that they reach the customers’ disposal at the right time and the right manner. This will enable the company to gain a competitive advantage because of the quality of services offers. There should be an effective control system within the organization. The organization should be able to monitor and measure the success of the total quality management. This system will enable the organization’s quality management team to rectify any deviations from the designed strategies to improve quality (Stefan & Yvonne2003). Through effective control, the organization will be able to improve on the strategies that will ensure maximum total quality management. For instance if the organization is not manufacturing right quantity and quality of the products, the organization will increase the quantity and train the employees to offer best skills to improve quality of the baked products of the organization. There should be a team which will implement the total quality management. The total quality management team consists of experts who specifically trained to manage the quality of the whole organization (Yusof & Aspinall 2000). This committee of experts should review the processes of improving quality and recommend various strategies that can enable the organization to improve quality management in the organization. The quality management team will also be concerned with assessing all the processes and procedures employed by the organization in managing quality and make adjustments where necessary to ensure there is maximum quality management at each level of manufacturing. The employees should undergo training to improve their skills on how they can implement total quality management policies. Through training, the employees will improve their skills on how they can achieve their tasks with ease but maintain quality (Yusof & Aspinall 2000). They will be innovative and creative so that they make decisions on behalf of the organization which will help to improve the quality of the products and services offered to the organization. Through these skills the organization will be bale to implement successfully the total quality management strategies because they are motivated hence they could not resist the policies for implementing quality. Moreover, the total quality management team should evaluate and review the success of the quality management systems. The quality management of the organization should be evaluated in terms of the feedback the organization receives from the customers (Yusof & Aspinall 2000). If the feedback is positive then the TQM policies are successful but if the feedback from the customers is negative then the implementation of the TQM is not successful and there is need to design better strategies to meet the customers’ needs and satisfy them and maintain the competitive advantage. Measurement of Successful Total Quality Management Total quality management can be measured by conducting TQM audit. Through this audit, the owner of the organization will realize that the TQM was implemented successfully because of the improvement in weak areas of the productions process (Yusof & Aspinall 2000). TQM model can also be used to prove the success of the total quality management. High level of employees’ commitment and cooperation shows the successful implementation of TQM. The success of TQM can also be measured through benchmarking. The performance of the organization before the implementation of TQM and after the implementation is compared to see if the performance of the organization has improved (Yusof & Aspinall 2000). Better performance after the implementation of TQM indicates success while low performance will indicate a failure in the implementation of the total quality management. After implementing the total quality management, I will have to prove to the owner of the organization that I have successfully implemented it. The following are the proves of the successful implementation of TQM; to start with, the customers are satisfied with products and services of the organization (Yusof & Aspinall 2000). When the customers ‘needs are met, they will provide a positive feedback which shows that the total quality management policies were achieved unlike when they are not satisfied which will imply that total quality management has not been achieved. Total quality management can also be measured in terms of competitiveness of the organization. Through total quality management, the organization has managed to improve its competitiveness by attracting more customers because they are satisfied with the quality of products and services they receive from the organization (Goetsch & Davis 2010). Through effective management of total quality management, the products of the organization will meet the customer requirements of desiring high quality products thus they are buying more of the company’s products. Increase in sales is another indicator that the total quality management succeeded. The organization has increased its sales because the employees are motivated and have managed to improve the quality of the products and services offered to the customers (Yusof & Aspinall 2000. This is a clear indication that improved quality enabled the organization to attract and maintain more customers hence increased sales. Finally, another prove that the total quality management succeeded is that the employees have better skills than before the total quality management was implemented. The employees underwent some learning and development which improved their skills in accomplishing their tasks (Yusof & Aspinall 2000). This is because the employees had to be trained so that they can be creative and offer best skills in order to improve the quality of the products and services of the organization. Action Plan The first step to be done is to select goals which the organization wants to achieve. This will be done because it will help the management and total quality management team to know what they want to achieve so that they may conduct tasks aimlessly (Lassâad et al 2006). Some of the goals include increasing the productivity of the organization and ensuring customer satisfaction as well as competitiveness of the organization. This will be done by the quality compliance officer in conjunction with the management. The next step is to identify the key customers of the organization. This is important because it will enable the organization to collect relevant data concerning the satisfaction of the customers. This task will be done by the total quality management committee. After identifying the key customers of the organization, their key needs will be noted. This is done by collecting feedback from the customers. This will enable the organization to know which areas to improve its quality. It will be done by the marketing team because they are directly in contact with the customers (Lassâad et al 2006). There is also the identification of processes and performance measures involved. This will help the organization to know the competitiveness of the processes being in place and if they are performing well, there will be a need to improve on them. This process will be done by quality compliance officer. After identifying the performance measurements, the next step is to identify possibility of any opportunities for improving the quality management. The organization will develop strategies to improve on quality like training the employees and developing a culture of quality improvement and this is the responsibility of the quality management team (Lassâad et al 2006). After developing the strategies, the next step is to implement the action plan. This is the actual implementation of the plan and is done by the quality management committee. Successful implementation will improve the total quality management in the organization (Lassâad et al 2006). Finally, it is monitoring and evaluating the performance of the action plan. This is done by the quality management team and production managers and in any case there are deviations in the implementation process, they recommend a quick adjustment to correct any deviations from the objectives. The above action plane steps are shown in the diagram below: Setting goals Identify key customers Identify requirements Identify processes Performance measurements Implement action plan Figure 1: Action plan Recommendations In order to ensure that total quality management is successful, the top management should ensure that the employees are motivated (Alira et al 2005). This is because through motivation, the employees will be encouraged to offer their best skills hence improve the quality of products and services they offer to customers. Another way in which the organization will improve the total quality management is through employing a marketing team which is more professional. The marketing team plays a great role in the success of total quality management because they provide the feedback to the organization concerning the customers’ satisfaction (Alira et al 2005). If they don’t provide appropriate feedback, the quality management team may not project well on the changes to make to improve quality management. Conclusion Total quality management is the process which ensures that the products and services offered to customers are of high quality and can satisfy the customers’ needs. In order to implement effective TQM effectively, there has to be commitment and cooperation from employees, create a culture of quality improvement, effective control system, training the employees and developing effective team to manage the quality. Successful total quality management shows increase in sales, increased competitiveness of the organization, improved customers’ satisfaction and better employee development. An action plan is used to implement the TQM by establishing the objectives and ends with an evaluation of the success of the action plan. References Alira, S. Alojzij, S & Ivan, B 2005, A quality management model based on the “deep Quality concept”, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 22, No. 3, pp.278 - 302. Goetsch, D & Davis, S 2010, Introduction to Quality management for SMEs, London, Prentice Hall. Lassâad, L. Federico, P & Mohamed, L 2006, “Quality management practices and their impact On performance”, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 23, No. 6, pp.647 - 669. Stefan, L 2007, “Quality management and environment: exploring the Connections”, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 24, No. 4, p. 347-365 Stefan, L & Yvonne, L 2003, “Quality configurations contingency approach to Quality management”, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 20, No 7, pp. 49-62. Van de, H 2000, “A maintenance model for quality Management”, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 17, No. 7, pp.730 - 755. Yusof, S.M & Aspinall, E 2000, ‘Total quality management implementation Frameworks: comparison and review’, Total Quality Management, Vol.11, No.3, p. 281-294 Yusof S.M & Aspinall, E 2000, ‘A conceptual framework for TQM implementation for SMEs’, The TQM Magazine, Vol.12, No. 1, pp. 31-36. Read More