Total Quality Management (TQM)

Stop for a second, and think of all the pieces that need to come together to deliver a product to your customer.
From the time your customer considers purchasing your product to
the delivery of that product, how many processing points are
there? Dozens? Hundreds? An order is placed. A requisition is
made. Raw materials are ordered. Items are manufactured. Finished
goods are inspected. A delivery method is set. Customer contact is
made.
All of these activities impact the quality of what you deliver,
and a mistake or miscalculation in one small area can affect
everything else.
Poor quality is often the result of poorly planned
and executed processes. With the correct systems in place to create
and check quality, you have a much higher chance of getting the
order right and satisfying your customer.
So, if all the activities we mentioned contribute to the final
product or service, that means that virtually every department is
involved – not just manufacturing or operations, but also human
resources, accounting, marketing, and so on.
This is the essence of Total Quality Management (TQM). There's no
one "right" definition or explanation of TQM, but it's essentially
a management philosophy in which everyone in the organization
strives to continuously improve customer satisfaction. The
emphasis is on planned improvement – a continuous cycle of
improvements and feedback that provides the best possible products
and services.
TQM originated in Japan. Most people
credit W. Edwards Deming, a statistician who lectured on
statistical process control in Japan after World War II,
with importing the idea to the U.S. Deming outlined 14
points of TQM, and the philosophy took off from there. Other
notable TQM personalities include Kaoru Ishikawa, Philip
Crosby, and Joseph Juran.

TQM and a Culture of Quality
For TQM to work, everyone in the organization has to be involved.
It takes a "culture of quality," where people are constantly
looking for ways to improve the process and the product. The
Japanese have a name for this type of approach: kaizen. Kaizen is
the idea that people at all levels of the organization are
responsible for finding inefficiencies and suggesting
improvements.
With a TQM approach, there are three main opportunities
to make improvements and increase efficiency:

External customers – What can you
do to make sure your customers are completely satisfied with
your product or service?
Internal customers – How can you make
sure your suppliers and staff know what they need to deliver
so you can produce a quality product?
Business processes – How can you improve
the processes themselves, decreasing costs and time spent?

Remember, TQM is not limited to
manufacturing. TQM is a company-wide philosophy that
dictates how business is conducted. It can involve
recruiting new staff, motivating current staff, deciding
which workers go on which team, or deciding how to
restructure your organization. TQM is at the core of
everything – guiding you toward a more efficient and
effective workplace. Quality products and services are built
by quality people who work together in a quality
environment.

Principles of TQM
To start building a culture of quality, consider applying these
five key management principles within your organization.
1. Use "Plan-Do-Check-Act" (The Deming Cycle)
This is a structured problem solving system based on the
scientific method of hypothesize-experiment-evaluate.

Plan – Take the lead in making an
improvement. Define and analyze the problem, set a goal, map
out a process, collect and analyze data, and identify root causes
to address.
Do – Run a pilot of the proposed solution
on a small scale.
Check – Review the pilot. Gather data
and analyze the results of the proposed solution.
Act – Once you're confident that the
pilot has been successful, deploy the solution fully.

Read more about the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle here .
2. Empower Your Staff
TQM is more likely to work when every member of the team
participates in improvement initiatives. Many times, the best
solutions and changes come from the people who work with the
process on a daily basis.

Provide adequate training for staff, and understand what
motivates their performance.
Set up systems for high staff participation.
Start a system for staff to make suggestions and communicate
their ideas.
Recognize and reward contributions.
Aim for team excellence, not individual performance.
Develop cross-functional teams to improve overall understanding
of business goals.

3. Apply Statistics in Your Decision Making
TQM is an analytical process. It requires data and results to
monitor and evaluate improvement.

Collect data on what your customers want and need. Don't guess
or use secondhand data.
Survey your staff to better understand the pressures and
challenges they face.
Analyze the inputs and outputs of the process.
Use statistical process control (SPC). Create control charts
that map a process and identify trends that alert you to problems.
Apply other statistical problem solving and decision making
tools, where appropriate. See Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA), Systems Diagrams , and Cause and Effect Diagrams .


4. Continuously Improve
Look for improvements everywhere, and follow kaizen .

Define, achieve, and maintain standards.
Continuously measure production and performance.
Look at long-term improvements rather than short-term gains.
Understand systems, and realize that a problem may have
multiple, interdependent causes.
Don't just put out fires – work smarter, not harder.
Build review processes to prevent mistakes from happening in the
first place.
Eliminate waste wherever possible.
Adopt a zero-defects philosophy – do it right the first time,
all the time.

5. Focus on Your Customers
Look at your operations from the perspective of your customers –
both internal and external.

Build great supplier relationships – create mutually beneficial
arrangements, and provide clear instructions and reasonable
expectations.
Take care of internal customers – provide
great supervision, a good working environment, and motivation
for maximum performance.
Don't sacrifice quality for other measures of success.
Define your standards based on customer expectations.
Continuously scan customers' needs, and make changes as needed.
Solve problems without blaming anyone or denying your own
responsibility.

Tip:
While TQM has been responsible for extraordinary advances
in product and service quality, it has now largely been
superceded by approaches like Six Sigma . Six Sigma takes
TQM to the next level, seeking to achieve an rate of fewer
than 3.4 failures for every 1,000,000 opportunities for
failure.


Key Points
Following a TQM philosophy can lead your company to deliver
high-quality products and services. and create a great working
environment to attract and retain staff. But quality doesn't just
happen. It takes a large commitment, many hands, and much internal
analysis. The end result is a complete organizational system
that's constantly improving, growing, and developing. Apply the
TQM philosophy and principles in your organization, and watch it
become healthier and more productive.

Apply This to Your Life
Start today.

Look at the systems your organization has in place. Together
with your team, map out the processes. How do they work? Do
you see any gaps? Create systems and processes to fill those
gaps.
Analyze your management style. Do you encourage or hinder
staff involvement? What can you do differently?
Think about the relationships you have with customers and
suppliers. Where are there problems or tensions? What is the
cause? How do you communicate? What types of feedback
systems are in place? What can you do today to start
building stronger bonds?
Take a minute every day to appreciate the people who work
for and with you. Recognize their efforts, and work with
them to build a great organization.
Remind yourself that quality is key to your business,
because a quality company has long-term, quality customers
and workers.