Total Quality Management (TQM) is a philosophy of management that emphasizes the use of statistical techniques and analysis to improve all aspects of an organization to satisfy dissatisfied customers.
The TQM model’s three major components are quality planning, quality control, and quality improvement. These three primary aspects ensure that products or services meet customer needs and expectations regarding features, price, warranty, reliability, and performance.
Before diving deeper into TQM, we should note the importance of project descriptions. It is a well-structured document that explains the project’s purpose, timeframe, and method. All of these facts are included in project descriptions, including the problem to be tackled, what the project’s overall objective is, and what the project’s specific goals are.
Contents
Objectives of TQM
To improve products and services so that they meet customer requirements. To improve the system for producing products or delivering services to achieve management’s objectives for quality to foster a positive working environment and raise the productivity of employees. Through Total Quality Management, an organization can improve customer satisfaction and higher profits.
These benefits can be achieved by implementing the following two goals:
Quality improvement: Improving current performance to reach desired service levels, features, reliability, and cost.
Quality control: Determine the current performance and make improvements that lead to desired improvements, either by increasing or decreasing current amounts of service, features, reliability, and cost.
What Are the Principles of TQM?
Quality is everyone’s responsibility: No one is exempt from being part of a quality organization. Every employee must be concerned with maintaining and improving the quality standards of the company and their particular job, as well as the productivity of the department or teams to which they belong.
Customer satisfaction is crucial: Every employee must work towards satisfying the customer. A customer is anyone involved with the company’s operations. This includes employees, customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders.
Freedom to make decisions: It is essential for quality improvement. The best solutions will be found by giving employees the freedom to make decisions. Research has shown that organizations that practice this principle are generally successful in reaching their quality goals.
What Does Total Quality Management Do?
TQM oversees all activities and tasks needed to take care of a desired level of excellence within a business and its operations. This includes the determination of a top-quality policy, creating and implementing quality planning and assurance, and internal control and quality improvement measures.
What Is an Example of TQM in Practice?
Starbucks Coffee is a good example of TQM in practice. Although the company has grown from a small Seattle-based coffee retailer to the global company it is today, quality standards have remained high. These standards are among the reasons for its success.
Starbucks trains all its employees on making quality coffee and how to serve customers in a customer-friendly manner. It also offers job satisfaction and opportunities for career advancement, even for entry-level workers.
How Is TQM Used in Practice?
Businesses use TQM strategies to determine the best way to produce or deliver. The business determines the end-user needs and then chooses the approach that will provide the highest quality product. These products may include computer software for a small business or food for a McDonald’s restaurant.
The criteria for the product’s quality are determined, and each requirement must be defined in measurable terms. TQM evaluates the organization’s ability to meet these requirements and studies the changes needed to improve any areas that were not met. This is called “continuous improvement” in quality planning.
Once a satisfactory product or service has been developed, it is sent out to the customer in a market setting, or an employee may be the final link in a delivery chain. This final link can be called the “full-service” delivery system when all required functions are provided.
This system is called “total quality management” because it encompasses all the activities necessary to produce a satisfactory product or improve service levels in an organization. In addition, it is necessary to include all the people involved, both inside and outside the organization.
What is agility in TQM?
Decision-making with the goal of maximizing value is referred to as agility. In order for a corporation to become more agile, it is not enough to simply be able to adapt quickly but to consider a wide range of possibilities, evaluate them, and ultimately determine whether or not to act or to keep things the same. Read more about how to support business agility.
Some of the Tools Used
Project teams and anybody else tasked with process improvement must consider both causes and effects. When changes occur during a process, knowing which inputs have an impact on the outputs—and to what degree—allows you to make educated and wise decisions. A fishbone diagram, often known as a cause-and-effect diagram, aids teams and individuals in brainstorming root causes in order to better generate solutions or changes.
What Are the Cons of Total Quality Management?
The biggest cons are that companies take more time and resources to build a quality system, and there is the possibility of failure since one does not know what the consequences would be if it fails. Also, the results are not always known to the management expecting them.
Some cons are that manufacturing industries often face a shortage of skilled labor, especially in high-tech areas like electronics and aerospace, where traditional workers may not be trained in TQM methods.
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