Managers-Net

Total Quality Management - TQM

The “Body of Knowledge” for Total Quality Management embraces:

The concepts of Total Quality;
Application of the concepts of Total Quality to:
- products and services
- processes
- people
through the provision of appropriate
- values, policies and objective
- planning
- processes and measurement
- leadership, training and motivation
- organisation

Total Quality is a way of life. Total Quality is not a programme with a defined end point. A total Quality strategy will be effective only through long-term commitment and dedicated application by executive management and all employees. It requires the consistent application of the appropriate human and technical processes, tools and techniques.

Concepts:

Definition

The Institute of Management Services defines Total Quality Management as:

"A strategy for improving business performance through the commitment and involvement of all employees to fully satisfying agreed customer requirements, at the optimum overall costs, through the continuous improvement of the products and services, business processes and people involved."

The concept of Total Quality Management can be expressed as “Achieving success through delighting our customers”.

Customers being the internal user, the external customer or end-user, together with the other stakeholders, i.e.

shareholders
employees
suppliers

It also requires consideration of the environmental needs of the community.

Key concepts of Total Quality

Total Quality Management is a strategy for business success, based on the following concepts:

Total Quality means:

achieving strategic goals through customer focus and continuous improvement
delighting the customer, satisfying needs and expectations
anticipating the needs of the market
understanding and managing customer expectations
understanding the aims and capabilities of the your own organisation
all employees taking ownership of the products and services delivered

Total Quality requires:

management leadership and long term commitment
managers to act as role models who lead and empower change
a management culture of partnership, learning together, guidance and support for employees
clearly defined business objectives communicated by managers and supervisors, understood and “owned” by all employees. “Ownership” can be viewed as the “acceptance of accountability”.
Encouraging and empowering all employees to adopt “ownership” behaviour. Ownership of their outputs, ownership of customers problems, ownership of improvement actions.
A focus on success through people
- solutions by consensus
- recognition of success
- a “no blame” attitude
- education and training based on defined user needs
- teamwork
- effective communication including listening, providing feedback and provision of visual communication

Total Quality Management is an organisation wide process based on:

best use of the resources of the total organisation
organisational flexibility and response to change
defined internal and external customer/supplier relationships embracing:
- external customers
- internal customers
- external suppliers
- internal suppliers

bound together in long term business relationships

measurement of performance. The standard is the “agreed customer requirement”and the required performance is
- absolute conformance to agreed customer requirements
- customer satisfaction
- process efficiency
- anticipating customer needs and expectations
- delivering products and services that delight customers
- benchmarking - identifying and adopting world-wide best practice
- measuring and monitoring continuous improvement

The focus for Total Quality

is continuous improvement aimed at achieving total “customer delight”, perceived “value for money” at optimum cost to the organisation. This requires everyone within the organisation to:

use a defined process for Quality delivery
continuously identify improvement opportunities
deliver improvement through structured problem solving
identify and use error prevention and corrective feedback mechanisms
focus on Process design, reduction in variability and capability assurance
develop Cross-Functional Process Management

TQM and BS 5750/ISO 9000/EN 29000

The standard provides a basic guideline for Quality Management and Quality Systems.

TQM and BS 5750/ISO 9000/EN 29000 are complimentary, whereby the Standard provides a structure which can underpin continuous improvement - the philosophy of TQM.

Part 0 of the Standard refers to Total Quality Management whilst the remainder is concerned with Quality Assurance.

Traditionally certification has been limited to specific areas for organisation, but recent development permits Company Wide registration.

This is a logical progression towards Quality Systems and Total Quality Management.

Organisation

Adopting Quality as the fundamental principle by which the organisation will conduct its business, requires that it organises itself to support this objective. This involves developing an appropriate organisation structure and a Quality function appropriate to the needs of the organisation.

Business organisation structure: spans of control, reporting lines, work group missions and outputs should be reviewed to ensure that these support management leadership, teamworking and effective communication.

Quality support organisation: the functions of the support organisation might include:

training of the senior management and other groups of employees in Total Quality
providing “facilitation” and support in the application of the Total Quality process
supporting management in the development of strategy, objectives and goals in the respect of the implementation of the Total Quality process
co-ordinating the application of the Quality management process and the production of Quality plans
establishing and operating cross-functional process management in conjunction with the individual process owners
providing direct support for business-wide improvement projects
tracking cost of Quality
establishing initial and ongoing Quality training needs, developing training material and training Quality trainers
developing specific new processes and process applications to support Total Quality, e.g.: statistical process control (SPC)
co-ordinating, where necessary, the development of Quality management systems by departments, providing a company response to vendor assessments by potential customers
integrating safety, product liability and consumer considerations into products, services and business processes