Quality management (TQM and related concepts)

Quality management: TQM and related concepts, notes.

Total Quality Management (TQM)

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management approach that focusses on providing unparalleled customer satisfaction and aims for continuous improvement of business operations.

TQM is an improvement approach that focuses on how operations and other related processes should be managed and improved. It focuses on how to approach improvement by putting quality as the main operations performance objective. It involves using a continuous process of detecting, reducing and eliminating errors. It may use a collection of approaches from different sources and combine them to form a coherent quality strategy

As many organisations now focus on lean management (i.e. the elimination of waste and costs), TQM arguments this approach by emphasising behavioural change at the heart of operations improvement.

Teamwork and employee involvement is a crucial part of TQM. TQM is a creation of culture of quality in all the employees within the firm (organization wide approach towards quality). There is participation by all members of organization and it is aimed at long term success through customer satisfaction.

It is a long term process and requires shift in management practice and organization culture. It also needs huge investment, time and money. Japanese companies are more successful in implementing TQM than western countries.

TQM stresses the following elements (Slack et al., 2016):

• Meeting the needs and expectations of customers.
• Improvement covers all parts of the organization (and should be group-based).
• Improvement includes every person in the organization (and success is recognized).
• Including all costs of quality.
• Getting things ‘right first time’, that is designing in quality rather than inspecting it in.
• Developing the systems and procedures which support improvement.

Principals of TQM

Customer focus: Customers have the final say in judging about your products

Leadership: Leaders establish unity of purpose

Employee Involvement: Employee empowerment and active participation from the employees in decision making and addressing quality related problems

Strategic Approach: A strategic plan is very necessary to ensure quality

Systems Approach: Identifying and managing interrelated processes

Continual Improvement: A permanent objective, ensure companies will find new ways and techniques in producing better quality products, production, be more competitive, as well as exceed customer expectations

Factual Approach: Decisions are based upon analysis of data and information

Mutually beneficial relationship of both organization and its suppliers enhances the ability to create value

Employee Involvement

Employee involvement is extremely important for any quality management program that focuses on continuous improvement. A sense of operator ownership emerges when employees feel as if they own the processes and methods they use and take pride in the quality of product or service they produce. It comes from participation on work teams and in problem-solving activities, which instill in employees a feeling that they have some control over their workplace.

Quality Circle (Q.C): Objectives and Benefits

Quality circles (Q.C) builds better understanding between management and workers. Better cooperation and avoiding confrontation is the key element of QC.

In most organizations, a quality circle is a group of 5 to 8 employees performing similar work, who volunteer themselves to meet regularly, to identify the cause of their on-the-job problems, employ advanced problem-solving techniques to reach solutions and implement them.

The Quality Circle concept provides an opportunity to the circle members to use their creativity and experience in bringing about improvements in their work. The concept makes circle members feel they have an important role to play in the organisation.

Management (MBA) Question on Quality Management

Q) What are the building blocks of World Class Operations? Explain with suitable example. (10 Marks)

Q) Briefly explain the different types of quality with examples.

Q) AL is an Indian automobile company headquartered in Chennai, India. Founded in 1948, it is the second largest commercial vehicle manufacturer in India, fourth largest manufacturer of buses in the world and 10th largest manufacturer of trucks globally. It has manufacturing plants in India and abroad. The company believes in producing world class products wants to be competitive in the world market.

a. Think your-self as a consultant for the company. Briefly state how the company should go for implementing TQM in its operations.
b. With reference to AL, explain how KANBAN can be implemented in the company.

Q) Quality gurus, have all stressed the importance of employee involvement for quality. Explain why you would agree with them and how industries have implemented total employee involvement for quality.

Q) Hero Honda Motors have a Quality Circle under the name “Sunrise Quality Circle”. Similarly many other Indian organizations have successfully implemented the concept of Quality Circle. What are the objectives of these organization for Quality Circle and what do you think are the factors for its success?

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