TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT
The Origins of TQM
TQM was first introduced by Feigenbaum in 1957, but more recently various quality Gurus have enhanced and developed the notion. It is important to understand the contributions made by these quality gurus to help understand the origins.
Armand FEIGENBAUM - was a doctor in the Massachusetts Institute of technology in the 1950’s and he defined TQM as: ‘An effective system for integrating the quality development, quality maintenance and quality improvement efforts of the various groups in an organization so as to enable production and service at the most economical levels which allow for full customer satisfaction’.
W.E.DEMING - asserted that quality starts with top management and is a strategic activity.Deming’s philosophy is that quality and productivity increase as process variability decreases (a decrease in the unpredictable). In his 14 Points for quality improvement he emphasized the need for statistical control methods, education, openness, purposeful improvement and participation:
- Create constancy of purpose
- Adopt new philosophy
- Cease dependence on inspection
- End awarding business on price
- Improve constantly the system of production and service
- Institute training on the job
- Institute leadership
- Drive out fear
- Break down barriers between departments
- Eliminate slogans and exhortations
- Eliminate quotas or work standards
- Give people pride in their job
- Institute education and self-improvement program.
- Put everyone to work to accomplish it. J.M.JURAN - tried to get organisations to move away from the traditional manufacturing-based view of quality ‘as conformance to specification’ to a more used based approach, for which he created the phrase ‘Fitness for Use’. He pointed out that a dangerous product could conform to specification but would not be fit for use. Juran was concerned with management activities and the responsibility for quality, but was also concerned about the impact of individual workers and involved himself to some extent with the motivation and involvement of the work force in quality improvement activities.K. ISHIKAWA - created what is known as quality circles and cause-and-effect diagrams. Ishikawa claimed that there had been a period of over- emphasis on statistical quality control that caused people to dislike it. People became fed up with complexity, using complex tools to solve the problems. Furthermore, the resulting standardization of products and processes and the creation of rigid specification of standards became a burden that not only made change difficult but made people feel bound by regulations. Ishikawa saw the worker participation as the key to the successful implementation of TQM.Quality circles were an important vehicle to achieve this.
G. TAGUCHI - was concerned with engineering in quality through the optimization of product design combined with statistical methods of quality control. He encouraged interactive team meetings between workers and managers to criticize and develop product design. His definition of quality uses the concept of the loss that is imparted by the product or service to society from the time it is created. He created Quality Loss Function (QLF) that included factors such as costs of warranty, customer complaints, and loss of customer goodwill.
P.B. CROSBY - Suggested that many organizations do not know how much they spend on quality, either in putting it right or getting it wrong. He claimed that organizations that have measured their costs say they equate them to about 30% of sales. Crosby tried to highlight the costs and benefits of implementing quality programs by providing the ‘zero defects’ program, aimed at reducing the total cost of quality. This is summarized below: Quality is conformance to requirements Prevention not appraisal The performance standard must be ‘zero defects’ Measure the price of non-conformance (PONC) There is no such thing as a quality problem
WHAT IS TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM)-
The Quality in TQM TQM is a philosophy, concerned with meeting the needs and expectations of customers. It attempts to move away from the focus of quality been strictly operations and tries to refocus upon the whole organization as a unit of quality.
‘A TOTALITY OF INVOLVEMENT’,everybody’s responsibility, everyone focused on reducing the cost of quality, and
continuously improving to achieve this across the organization.
TQM is an extension of quality control
TQM can be viewed as a logical extension of quality control. Quality was achieved by inspection initially - screening out defects before the customer noticed them. Quality control created the systematic approach to not only detecting, but also treating the quality problems. Quality assurance widened the responsibility to include functions other than direct operations. TQM obtained most of this but developed its own themes, which were
distinctive. TQM is concerned with the following: Meeting the needs and expectations of customers Covering all parts of the organization Including every person in the organisation
Examining all costs which are related to quality
Getting things ‘right first time’, i.e. Designing in quality rather than inspecting it in Developing the systems and procedures which support quality and improvement Developing a continuous process of improvement.This development of quality can be seen as an extending cube, expanding the boundaries, forcing the more outward approach, rather than the original inward looking inspection approach.
