Chinese Association of Idaho State University (CAISU)

What is Total Quality Management? | Importance of TQM and Principles

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a systematic approach for management to achieve long-term success through customer satisfaction.

In other words, TQM includes phrases such as: customer focus, the involvement of all employees, continuous improvement and the integration of quality management into the total organization.

Before understanding the details of TQM, let us learn the basics of quality management.

WHAT IS QUALITY?

As per International Organization for Standardization (ISO) definition, Quality is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs.

One of the legendary quality gurus’ Philip Crosby defined ‘quality as full and perfect conformance to the customer’s requirements’ which means doing the intended activity right the very first time that he nicely phrased it as ‘Doing It Right the First Time’ (DIRFT).

HISTORY OF TQM AND ITS EVOLUTION

In early days of industrial revolution, inspection was the way to determine the conformity of requirements in products manufactured or services offered.

Inspection then involved measuring, examining and testing to decide the conformity during these years of manufacturing.

There was no systematic approach but was good enough then as the volume of production was low.
As the organizations grew larger, this methodology failed to deliver desired results due to issues like technical errors, lack of training for inspectors, acceptance of defective products, etc. Then the need for much better system for managing operations became more relevant.

In 1911, FW Taylor in an initiative he took was to define tasks clearly and perform them under standard conditions and these tasks included inspection as well. This resulted in focused interest on inspection which led to a separate department of QC for defect prevention.

Even today, inspection plays an important role in quality control but is considered as one among the array of tools and not the only answer to quality problems.

In the 1920s, Dr W. Shewhart being a Mathematician, developed a methodology of statistical analysis for the management of quality.

He developed the modern control chart based on his studies and effectively demonstrated that any deviation in the production process leads to variation in the desired product. Therefore, he emphasized that eliminating variation/ deviation in the process leads to a quality outcome of end products.

During 1940s and 1950s, with the help of western quality gurus like Juran, Deming, etc, Japan grew vastly in the area of delivering quality products.

The concept of total quality control (TQC) was published by Ishikawa who focused on company-wide Quality Control which means, it involves all the employees from top management to the workers in the organization. During this phase, the statistical process control (SPC) largely evolved into mainstream activity for quality control which then emphasized on using SPC methodology during the manufacturing processes in order to avoid defective products. This gave rise to a new department called Quality Assurance which addressed the quality levels of products/ services at every stage of manufacturing process.

During 1980s n 1990s, TQM name was coined, and it was the centre of focus for all the quality-based strategies and techniques. In the same phase, ISO 9000 series standards were developed by International Organization for Standardization (ISO) which used TQM as its foundation. ISO 9001 standard is strongly based on the principles of TQM and Deming’s PDCA Cycle.

WHAT ARE THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF TQM?

The 7 principles of total quality management:

Customer-focused: The organizations are run and grown by the customers and hence the dependency of organizations on customers are high. Organizations need to know the changing need of customer requirements and meet such necessary demands to perform beyond their expectations. At the end, it’s the customer who would decide on the quality of the products delivered based on their satisfaction levels.
Leadership: Leaders as identified by the management defines the objectives and sets the direction for the organization in terms of accomplishing any set tasks. This helps any organization to keep their employees focused and involved in achieving the organization’s objectives.
Employee Engagement: All employees contribute in working towards company objectives. Total employee commitment when utilized effectively helps the organizations to perform better and earn greater revenue.
Strategic and systematic process approach: Strategic and systematic approach plays a critical part in management of quality to achieve an organization’s vision, mission, and goals. This process includes developing of a strategic plan to integrate quality as a core component to manage activities and resources efficiently.
Continual improvement: The major focus of TQM is continual process improvement. Organization’s overall performance evolves around the continuous improvement initiatives that drive the organization’s objectives.
Fact-based decision-making: TQM stresses that an organization should continually collect and analyse data to take effective decisions. Evaluation of an organization’s performance largely depends on the data and information collected.
Relationship Management: Organizations and its interested parties share a mutually beneficial relationship which helps them to deliver quality products/ services and grow together. This effective management of relationship makes the organization to create better value with enhanced capabilities.

WHAT ARE THE STEPS TO IMPLEMENT TQM?

Step 1:

Define Vision, Mission and Objectives clearly specific to the implementation of TQM and the expected outcome.
Entire employee community of the organization needs to understand the vision and mission and work effectively towards accomplishing the set objectives.

Step 2:

Define Key performance Indicators (KPIs)
These KPI factors help an organization to focus on key areas which help them to meet the desired objectives set by management.
These KPI factors help an organization to assess their performance and trace on their closeness to meeting the objectives.

Some examples of KPIs for better understanding: