The Total Quality Management Process

TQM – Total Quality Management – is an executive management system that focuses on the participation of all the employees of an organization to achieve constant improvement in quality, customer satisfaction, operational performance, etc. In this paper, “Quality Management” will be defined and disassembled, principles of Team Quality Management will be explored, its benefits will be enumerated, and a standard tool of TQM, a control chart, will be presented. Also, there will be a discussion of another tool from the webpage material. Through the knowledge of TQM theory, tools, and practices, organizations can be well organized in the deployment and application of TQM to optimize their operations and meet customer expectations.

Definition of TQM

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a concept that maintains that all areas of an organization should be led towards achieving continuous excellence through the participation and commitment of all employees in the improvement of processes, products, services, and customer satisfaction.

Components of TQM

Total (T): 

TQM, unlike most other improvement methods, is completely inclusive, embracing all departments and functions. It is the all-encompassing perspective that seeks to integrate quality management practices into every aspect of business.

Quality (Q):

TQM makes meeting and exceeding customers’ expectations by continuously performing quality products and services that fit their needs and expectations its number one priority.

Management (M): 

TQM relies on strong leadership commitment and active enrollment of the employees to improve quality, empower employees, and create a culture of continuous improvement.

How the TQM process works

TQM works by involving all employees in quality improvement initiatives, creating a learning environment that enables continuous learning and innovation. It emphasizes well-defined processes that ensure repeatable, high-quality results. Staff members are able to participate in betterment plans and agree with the organization’s objectives. The decision-making process is backed by solid data and analysis, which allows for factual enhancement (Naomi, 2015). Broad channels of communication that facilitate knowledge sharing and feedback create an open, collaborative, and transparent environment. Taking the TQM implementation as a systematic one, organizations boost their operational efficiency and customer satisfaction and let the growth be sustainable.

Eight Basic Principles of TQM

1. Customer Focus: Make sure that customer needs and satisfaction are the top priority and the objective of all operational activities.
2. Total Employee Involvement: Encourage all the employees from every level to be part of quality improvement while motivating them to be active contributors to the overall organization’s success.
3. Process-Centered Approach: Highlight the necessity of well-documented, tracked, and managed protocols to ensure the same manner of quality outcomes.
4. Integrated Business Processes: Use quality management practices through all the departments and activities to achieve the set objectives.
5. Systematic, Strategic Approach: Systematically perform quality improvement initiatives and link them to the organizational objectives.
6. Continual Improvement: Create a culture of continuous learning and innovation that allows for the identification and implementation of such opportunities for improvement.
7. Fact-Based Decision Making: Use good data and balanced analysis to support decisions that will move toward progress and produce the expected effects.
8. Communication: Institutionalize communication channels that will enhance information sharing, the exchange of ideas, and feedback between employees of the organization.

Benefits of TQM

• It increased product and service quality.
• Satisfied Customers and Built Loyalty
• Higher operational efficiency and productivity improved
• The Waste and Its Costs Cut Down.
• Higher Profitability
• Sustainable Business Growth
• Improve Productivity Through Employee Morale and Engagement.
• Greater Competitive Advantage
• Brand Reputation and Brand Image Enhanced.

Purpose and Benefits of the Pareto Chart Tool and Control Chart

The Pareto Chart and Control Chart assist in this decision-making by providing valuable insights and supporting the data-driven process. Using the Pareto Chart, teams can prioritize matters by indicating the most significant elements contributing to a problem, subsequently directing organizations to focus their activities on the most critical areas that bring about the greatest response. Also, the Control Chart serves as a useful tool to monitor process variation over time. It allows the monitoring of trends, the detection of abnormalities, and the taking of timely actions to ensure the stability of a production process (Saxena & Rao, 2019). The frameworks provide organizations with means for making smart decisions, appropriately allocating resources, and pushing forward constant improvements.

The Pareto Chart serves for the visualization of information to find and prioritize problems by their frequency or the strength of the problem’s consequences. This chart allows the team to prioritize their efforts, as it ranks the data in descending order of importance. The main goal is diminishing the problems by addressing the vital few factors that contribute mostly to inefficiencies or problems within the process. In addition, SPC uses the control chart to track process performance and variation by plotting the data points as a matter of time (Mizuno, 2020). It captures the process stability in a graphical form. It successively distinguishes between common cause variation and special cause variation, which signifies the requirement for timely corrective actions and maintaining an even quality level.

In conclusion, Total quality management (TQM) is a management approach that works with the principles of quality, customer satisfaction, and continuous progress, thus leading to the growth of an organization. Adoption of Total Quality Management principles is more likely to include the addition of value, innovation, and competition maintenance in today’s dynamic and rapidly changing business world. Applying the concepts of TQM to the processes, tools, and strategies results in increased operational excellence, strengthened customer relationships, and sustained growth and achievement of business goals.

References

Mizuno, S. (2020). Management for Quality Improvement: The 7 New QC Tools. In Google Books. CRC Press. https://books.google.ro/books?hl=en&lr=&id=aQ_2DwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP6&dq=The+Total+Quality+Management+Process+tools&ots=vY5blLxKEo&sig=RmWLN0XEyHXoNuzEPGyYj7I1CVs&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=The%20Total%20Quality%20Management%20Process%20tools&f=false

Naomi. (2015, July 28). Total Quality Management and Six Sigma. Six Sigma Study Guide. https://sixsigmastudyguide.com/total-quality-management-and-six-sigma/

Saxena, M. M., & Srinivas Rao, K. V. N. (2019). Quality management, total quality management, and Six Sigma. International Journal of Scientific and Technology Research, 8(12), 394-399.https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/86928941/Quality-Management-Total-Quality-Management-And-Six-Sigma-libre.pdf?1654264056=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DQuality_Management_Total_Quality_Managem.pdf&Expires=1708861233&Signature=RKlsKVICizRsYN3MzmdaJuOLGmyZenNAv54nbVXfpZlP9Mtn~7L4maci7x9IpgmvPMcr-7buDioMZCY-Eev7EezOZXNl4TBz4gtUgosC2QXwtVcaY086bUU1F-zhxHr8x6fI04gcRpMfQmTDr3LYyh38P0DQtcU5r3HkXXKUih-~oI4HVUfLdPpfiCwz4h~mMypEZzuFO04kBWIvB7YfzJyTOX7RtILU-pFBKVxU7cb8jRczFJwKumYbwf1DRlIFH3Ptai2E09eY8JhGnDacR1gZjdnO3jg9vxhwTcrNjTBlqhyOCC3~jDs01-vxyyHEfw~M3cLDZ3s6zb~bFhywPg__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA