Total quality management definition by authors

Total Quality Management (TQM) was developed by William Deming, a management consultant whose work had a great impact on Japanese manufacturing. TQM focuses on ensuring that internal instructions and process standards reduce errors.

What is Total Quality Management?

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management strategy that is designed to bring awareness of quality in all organizational processes. It is commonly used in manufacturing, education, government, and service organizations. It provides an umbrella under which everyone in the organization can strive and create customer satisfaction. Total Quality Management consists of three qualities that are as follows:-

1. Quality of return to satisfy the needs of shareholders
2. Quality of products and services to satisfy some specific needs of the consumers
3. Quality of life at work and outside work to satisfy the needs of the people in the organization

Total Quality Management Definitions

Some of the famous definitions of Total Quality Management given by different writers and organizations are as follows:

According to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), “Total Quality Management is a management approach for an organization, centered on quality, based on the participation of all its members and aiming at long- term success through customers satisfaction, and benefits to all members of the organization and to society.”

According to Ricky W. Griffin, “A strategic commitment by top management to change its whole approach to  business to make a quality guiding factor in everything it does.”

According to Robert Kreitner, “Total quality management (TQM) is defined as creating an organizational culture committed to the continuous improvement of skills, teamwork, processes, product and  Total service quality and customer satisfaction.”

According to Robbins and Coulter, “Total Quality Management is a philosophy of management that is driven by customer needs and expectations and focuses on continual improvement in the work process.”

Total Quality Management ensures that things are done rightly for the first time, and defects and waste are eliminated from operations. An organization that adopts TQM must implement changes in all areas of management. It is removal from earlier management theories that were based on the belief that low cost is the only way to increase productivity. It must review its strategies, plans, policies, procedures, and practices as per the needs and desires of the market.

Objectives of Total Quality Management

1. Better, less variable quality of product or service.
2. Quicker less variable response in a process to customer needs.
3. Greater flexibility in adjusting to customers shifting requirements.
4. Lower cost through quality improvement and elimination of non-value adding work.

Principles of Total Quality Management

• Customer focus
• Commitment from the leadership
• People engagement
• Process approach
• Continuous improvements
• Evidence-based decision making
• Relationship Management

Tools for TQM | Tools For Total Quality Management

Organizations can apply several tools and techniques to improve quality. The popular among tools for TQM are as follows:

• Benchmarking
• Outsourcing
• Speed
• ISO 9000
• Statistical Quality Control (SQC) techniques

1.Benchmarking

Benchmarking is the process of searching the best practice competitors that leads to better performance. It is an evaluation and comparison of an organization’s own products and processes against the very best. It is a very particular form of environmental scanning.

Benchmarking involves looking for similar firms to examine how they have achieved the best performance levels and to understand the process they use. It helps to examine the process behind the excellent performance. This permits organizations to develop a practice which helps to improve performance.

The applications of benchmarking involve four steps.

1.  Understanding in detail the existing business practice.
2. Analyzing the business process of others.
3. Compare owns business performance with that of others analyzed.
4. Executing the steps necessary to close the performance gap.

2. Outsourcing

Outsourcing is the process of subcontracting some of the jobs to other organizations to bring quality and get the benefit of specialization. It is an important means of reducing costs and improving quality. If an organization performs each and every activity by itself, it may not be able to perform it in an efficient manner and the quality of products and service will also be inferior.

Therefore, the organization needs to identify certain areas that can be outsourced to minimize the cost of operation and to produce higher quality.

3. Speed

Speed is the time required to perform specific activities for an organization. It is required in every area including development, production, and distribution of products or services. Many organizations are using speed for competitive advantage today. Increasing speed will give organizations a strategic advantage and helps them to complete the task more effectively.

Speed has become an important competitive advantage today. It involves not only doing the same thing faster but also rethinking and redesigning the whole business cycle.

4. ISO 9000

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards bodies. It was founded on 23 February 1947. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland. The organization produces worldwide international and commercial standards. There are 158 member countries in ISO up to 2006.

There are five sets of standards covering areas such as product testing, employee training, record keeping, supplier relations and repair policies and procedures starting 9000 to 9004. Firms that meet these standards apply for certification and are audited by a firm’s domestic affiliate organization.

Nepal Bureau of Standards and Metrology adopts this standard in Nepal. This office reviews every aspect of the firm’s business operation in relation to standards and grant ISO 9000 certificate who meet the standards. Thus, it develops quality standards over a wide range of quality systems, which add value to business operations.

5. Statistical Quality Control (SQC)

Statistical Quality Control also known as SQC is a set of specific statistical techniques that are applied to monitor the quality of goods or services. It measures the degree of conformance of the various factors involved in processing the products on the basis of specifications. It is based on statistical and probability theories. It seeks to control the quality through incoming materials, processing and outputs produced.

Acceptance sampling is applied for sampling a lot of materials and final output to ensure that quality standards have been met. Process sampling is used to evaluate products during the course of production to ensure that defective piece is not produced. Control charts are constructed to set the acceptable lower and upper limits of an aspect that we want to control in an item.

All finished products may not be exactly the same and therefore, some limits or tolerance must be set so that if the finished product falls within these set limits, it can be considered of acceptable quality.

Quality Glossary Definition: Total quality management

A core definition of total quality management (TQM) describes a management approach to long-term success through customer satisfaction. In a TQM effort, all members of an organization participate in improving processes, products, services, and the culture in which they work.

Primary Elements of tqm

TQM can be summarized as a management system for a customer-focused organization that involves all employees in continual improvement. It uses strategy, data, and effective communications to integrate the quality discipline into the culture and activities of the organization. Many of these concepts are present in modern quality management systems, the successor to TQM. Here are the 8 principles of total quality management:

1. Customer-focused: The customer ultimately determines the level of quality. No matter what an organization does to foster quality improvement—training employees, integrating quality into the design process, or upgrading computers or software—the customer determines whether the efforts were worthwhile.
2. Total employee involvement: All employees participate in working toward common goals. Total employee commitment can only be obtained after fear has been driven from the workplace, when empowerment has occurred, and when management has provided the proper environment. High-performance work systems integrate continuous improvement efforts with normal business operations. Self-managed work teams are one form of empowerment.
3. Process-centered: A fundamental part of TQM is a focus on process thinking. A process is a series of steps that take inputs from suppliers (internal or external) and transforms them into outputs that are delivered to customers (internal or external). The steps required to carry out the process are defined, and performance measures are continuously monitored in order to detect unexpected variation.
4. Integrated system: Although an organization may consist of many different functional specialties often organized into vertically structured departments, it is the horizontal processes interconnecting these functions that are the focus of TQM.
   • Micro-processes add up to larger processes, and all processes aggregate into the business processes required for defining and implementing strategy. Everyone must understand the vision, mission, and guiding principles as well as the quality policies, objectives, and critical processes of the organization. Business performance must be monitored and communicated continuously.
   • An integrated business system may be modeled after the Baldrige Award criteria and/or incorporate the ISO 9000 standards. Every organization has a unique work culture, and it is virtually impossible to achieve excellence in its products and services unless a good quality culture has been fostered. Thus, an integrated system connects business improvement elements in an attempt to continually improve and exceed the expectations of customers, employees, and other stakeholders.
5. Strategic and systematic approach: A critical part of the management of quality is the strategic and systematic approach to achieving an organization’s vision, mission, and goals. This process, called strategic planning or strategic management, includes the formulation of a strategic plan that integrates quality as a core component.
6. Continual improvement: A large aspect of TQM is continual process improvement. Continual improvement drives an organization to be both analytical and creative in finding ways to become more competitive and more effective at meeting stakeholder expectations.
7. Fact-based decision making: In order to know how well an organization is performing, data on performance measures are necessary. TQM requires that an organization continually collect and analyze data in order to improve decision making accuracy, achieve consensus, and allow prediction based on past history.
8. Communications: During times of organizational change, as well as part of day-to-day operation, effective communications plays a large part in maintaining morale and in motivating employees at all levels. Communications involve strategies, method, and timeliness.

These elements are considered so essential to TQM that many organizations define them, in some format, as a set of core values and principles on which the organization is to operate. The methods for implementing this approach come from the teachings of such quality leaders as Philip B. Crosby, W. Edwards Deming, Armand V. Feigenbaum, Kaoru Ishikawa, and Joseph M. Juran. 

More TQM Information

TQM Resources

You can also search articles, case studies, and publications for TQM resources.

Books

The Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence Handbook

From Quality to Business Excellence: A Systems Approach to Management

Insights to Performance Excellence 2021-2022

Juran, Quality, and a Century of Improvement

Articles

Why And How TQM Leads To Performance Improvements (Quality Management Journal) Evidence shows that TQM improves organizational performance, but researchers disagree on why and how such improvements occur and on who really benefits. This study tests hypotheses relating to TQM adoption and the path from wealth creation to wealth appropriation.

The Relationship Between ISO 9000 Certification, TQM Practices, And Organizational Performance (Quality Management Journal) There is no consensus among the research community about the relationship between ISO 9000 certification and TQM, and the effect of each of these quality management practices on organizational performance is still debated. This paper developed a conceptual model to study the relationships between ISO 9000 certification, TQM practices, and organizational performance.

The Role Of Strategic Planning In Implementing A Total Quality Management Framework: An Empirical View (Quality Management Journal) This empirical study examines the significant role of strategic planning as an important dimension in successfully implementing TQM and confirming that strategic planning is likewise extremely important. 

Videos

TQM: The History and the Now (ASQTV) This episode explores total quality management’s beginnings and how it’s used to build and sustain a culture of quality today. 

Certification

Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence Certification - CMQ/OE

Courses

Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence Certification Preparation

Introduction to Quality Management

Quality 101 

Adapted from The Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence Handbook, ASQ Quality Press.