Total Quality Management: King Fiasal Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh KSA - Assignment Example

TQM is, by definition, a customer-oriented philosophy and that’s why, first of all, identifying who the customers are is one of the main aspects of the TQM. TQM underlines the importance of involving everyone in the process of ‘‘customer driven’’ continuous improvement, which can only happen if all of the employees are given the space and responsibility to innovate and make new, fresh decisions. (Abrunhosa, A., Moura E Sa, P. 2008, pp. 210). People perform better and achieve better results if they work in a cooperative and friendly environment. The nature of most organisational problems requires a high degree of interfunctional interaction, so the communication and teamwork should be encouraged and developed. (Abrunhosa, A., Moura E Sa, P. 2008, pp. 210). TQM is an approach which is focused on improving the competitiveness, effectiveness and flexibility of a whole organisation. Total quality management is presented as a way of planning, organizing and understanding each activity, and rely on each individual at each level (Oakland, J. S. 2003, p. 30).

Nowadays, the quality is described as a broad concept of corporate success, as business performance excellence with minimum of errors. Business performance is overall viewed as a balanced combination of financial performance, customer satisfaction and value, and internal performance, which depends on internal organizational processes and employees (Anttila, J. 2000, pp.4.). Its intellectual capital rather than its physical assets constitute the value of a company more significantly. This is why mutual understanding and shared mental models are being used to an increasing degree in company leadership. These are also profound bases for the integrated TQM approach (Anttila, J. 2000, pp.3.).

It could be said that the TQM is the mutual co-operation in an organisation and associated business processes to produce value-for-money products and services that shall meet and satisfy the needs and expectations of customers (Dale, B. G. 2003, p. 26). In the literature we found the six key concepts that are related to TQM: customers (internal and external), never-ending improvement, “upstream” preventive management, control of business processes, ongoing preventive actions, leadership and teamwork (Peratec Ltd 1994, p. 11).