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What
is TQM?
Total Quality
Management is a management style based upon producing quality service as
defined by the customer. TQM is defined as a quality-centered,
customer-focused, fact-based, team-driven process to achieve an organization’s
strategic imperative through continuous process improvement. TQM principles are
also known as total quality improvement, world class quality, continuous
quality improvement, total service quality, and total quality leadership.
The word
"total" in Total Quality Management means that everyone in the
organization must be involved in the continuous improvement effort, the word
"quality" shows a concern for customer satisfaction, and the word
"management" refers to the people and processes needed to achieve the
quality.
Total Quality
Management is not a program; it is a systematic, integrated, and organizational
way-of-life directed at the continuous improvement of an organization. It is
not a management fad; it is a proven management style used successfully for
decades in organizations around the world.
Operation of TQM
Any discussion
of TQM operation must start with a description of Dr. Deming’s universal
fourteen points of quality management.
Universal Fourteen Points
1. Create consistency of purpose with a plan
toward quality improvement of service. Upper leadership should create
and publish to all employees a statement of organization aims and purposes and
they must constantly demonstrate their commitment to it.
2. Adopt the new philosophy of quality. Everyone, from top
management to the lowest employee, must accept the quality challenge, learn
their responsibilities, and take on the leadership required for change to the
new philosophy. Poor quality should never reach the customer. An organization should
accept that defects in quality may occur, but it should ensure that defective
products never reach the customer.
3. Cease dependence on mass inspections to achieve
quality.
The purpose of inspections is for improvement of processes and reduction of costs,
not just to find defects. The need for mass inspections may be eliminated by
building quality into a service initially.
4. End the practice of choosing suppliers based
solely upon price. Organizations should stop awarding contracts based upon the lowest
bid; instead, they should be concerned with minimizing total costs. Rather than
trying to find the lowest bidder and then having to deal with cost overruns and
low quality products, organizations should move toward a single supplier for
any one item. They may then build a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust
with the supplier.
5. Identify problems and work continuously to
improve the system. Organizations must improve constantly and forever the system of
quality service. Many managers tend to think in terms of programs having a
beginning, middle, and an end. TQM does not have an end; it is a continuous
process. The phrase "continual improvement" must become common
language within the organizations.
6. Institute training. Organizations must adopt modern
methods of formal training, especially for new hires. On-the-job-training is
not acceptable since new hires will probably be learning the "old
way" of doing things from seasoned veterans who may be resisting the
change to TQM. Training also involves educating external customers as to what
the organization is trying to achieve. This helps when the organization later
seeks input on quality from these external customers.
7. Teach and institute leadership. The aim of leadership
should not be just to tell people how to do a job, but to help people do a
better job. Leadership is a learned skill, so
organizations must train their managers to be good leaders.
8. Drive fear out of the workplace. Organizations must
create trust and a climate for innovation so that all employees may work
effectively for organizational improvement. Much of workplace fear comes from
by-the-numbers performance appraisals that have numerical quotas. Employees tend to do what is required to
receive a good appraisal, not what is required for quality. Employees should
not be afraid to bring up new ideas and the organization should tolerate
failures when employees are experimenting with new ideas.
9. Break down barriers between departments. Upper management
should build teamwork between departments, not competition. They should
optimize the efforts of teams toward the aims and purposes of the organization
instead of fostering competition between departments.
10. Eliminate exhortations from the workplace. Management must stop
using slogans and targets to request zero defects and improved productivity
without providing workers the methods to achieve them. Such exhortations only
create adversarial relationships. Most of the causes of low quality and
productivity in an organization belong to the system and thus lie beyond the
power of the workforce to change.
11. Eliminate work standards and numerical quotas
for production. Upper management should stress achieving service quality rather than
quantity. It should remove individual punishment/reward control systems, such
as incentive pay. Eliminate Management-by-Objectives. Instead of relying
on objectives to reach goals, managers should institute methods for improvement
and use leadership to help workers achieve personal goals.
12. Remove barriers to pride of workmanship. Organizations should
abolish merit rating systems and not blame employees for system failures that
are beyond their control.
13. Institute and encourage vigorous programs of
education, retraining, and self-improvement. Use master trainers to educate
and nurture the workforce. Start training with the statistical vision of the
organization and then broaden it to include extended process training.
Extensive follow-up training should then be used to maintain the organization’s
vision.
14. Act to accomplish the transformation. Put everyone in the
organization to work to accomplish the transformation. Transformation is the
job of every employee, not just management. Establish some type of information
center to keep the entire organization informed about transformation progress.
These fourteen
points form the foundation of Total Quality Management. They are the cure for
the five deadly diseases that can destroy an organization
Five Deadly Diseases
There are five
deadly diseases that must be eliminated from an organization before TQM
implementation may be successful. If not eliminated, they may not only prevent
the TQM transformation but may gradually destroy the organization. The five
deadly diseases are described as follows.
1. Bottom-line management. An organization that
is only concerned with the bottom line and manages solely by-the-numbers is
doomed to failure. Management is difficult work; a manager who relies heavily
on numerical objectives is taking the easy way out. Managers must know the
process, get involved in the process, understand the issues, and set examples
for their subordinates to follow.
2. Evaluation using organized by-the-numbers
performance appraisals. Evaluation using organized performance appraisals,
merit ratings, or annual reviews of performance sometimes result in rankings,
forced quotas, and many grading categories that act to create competition,
which causes a breakdown of teamwork within an organization. Instead of using
performance appraisals, managers should provide individual, personal comments
to employees to help them improve.
3. Emphasis on short-term gains. When the workforce has
had short-term gains rewarded in the past, there is the tendency for employees
only to work toward short-term gains. Management must act to ensure employees believe the organization will give
priority to long-term improvement over short-term gains.
4. Lack of consistency of purpose. When an organization
has no consistency of purpose, the workers are unsure as to their continued
evolvement in the organization. An organization must have a constantly pursued
long-range plan that promises attention to quality.
5. Mobility of the work force. When employees are
constantly leaving an organization, it is indicative of serious problems within
the organization. Curing the other deadly diseases may help eliminate this
disease. Management must take steps to ensure all employees feel they are an
integral part of the organization.
Advantages of TQM
Short-term and
long-term advantages are present in any management style. Total Quality
Management has few short-term advantages. Most of its benefits are long-term
and come into effect only after it is running smoothly. In large organizations,
it may take several years before long-term benefits are realized.
Long-term
benefits that may be expected from Total Quality Management are higher
productivity, increased morale, reduced costs, and greater customer commitment.
These benefits may lead to greater public support and improvement of an
organization’s public image.
Eliminating
errors and doing things right the first time saves time and resources. The
savings may then be used for expansion of services or made available to
employees in their efforts to increase service quality.
Total Quality
Management may create an organizational atmosphere of excitement and sense of
accomplishment through the rewarding of creativity. When
experimentation-oriented failures are accepted as a part of the learning
process, employees feel free to use their creative energies to develop new
ideas.
Instead of
mistakes being hidden from management or denied, and thus being allowed to
blossom into larger less easily rectified problems, they are tolerated and
employees are encouraged to try again. When employees feel they are an integral
part of the organization, they feel needed and enjoy work more, which may
further increase service quality.
Total Quality
Management’s extensive use of teamwork gives employees the experience of
problem solving and using their knowledge and experiences in a collaborative
effort. As employees gain experience with team problem solving, they may be
used to form cross-sectional ad-hoc "mega teams" that can attack
larger organization-wide problems. TQM gives an organization greater
problem-solving flexibility and increases the quality of work life for all
employees.
Total Quality
Management may be a "profit generator," even for public
organizations. It does not actually create profit for the organizations, but if
implemented properly, it may identify costly processes and cost-saving
measures. The only expense of TQM is the
cost of routine operations. In public organizations, saved resources may be
viewed as "profits."
TQM versus Authoritative Management
Style
Authoritative
management is boss-centered and uses authority, fear, and coercion to influence
people. The authoritative leader lacks empathy and is usually not personally
likeable. Total Quality Management is team oriented, with charismatic leaders
who influence people by working with them to achieve quality; it may break the
"claim and blame" cycle. It does not blame anyone for problems;
instead, it only seeks solutions.
It is obvious
that the two styles diametrically differ in their approaches to management.
Some of these differences are noted as follows.
1. Authoritative management looks
for the "quick fix" while TQM seeks long-term solutions.
2. Authoritative management continues to operate the
same old way while TQM emphasizes innovation and creative thinking.
3. Authoritative management
controls resources by function while TQM optimizes resources across the whole
organization.
4. Authoritative management
seeks to control people while TQM empowers people.
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