Total Quality Management

TQM is a management philosophy that transformed the products and processes of leading Japanese companies. TQM pays constant attention to the needs of the customer and requires a continuing process of gathering relevant information and data. TQM assumes that most of an organization’s problems are due to flawed processes, not shortcomings of employees. Ultimately, TQM aims at organization-wide, continuous improvement that exceeds the expectations of the customer/client. TQM represents a “paradigm shift” and strives for nothing less than a new corporate culture. The fathers of TQM are generally recognized to include, among many others, W. Edwards Deming, Joseph M. Juran, George Box, and Philip Crosby in the United States and Genichi Taguchi and Kaoru Ishikawa in Japan. As its name implies, TQM focuses on quality. Juran defines quality as “fitness for use” by the customer while Deming contends that quality “should be aimed at the needs of the customer, present and future.” By either definition, the customer decides whether a product is of high quality, not the participants in the process that created the product.

14 principles for the transformation of an organization based on the assumptions that individuals want to do their best and that it is management’s job to enable them to do so by constantly improving the system in which they work. They are:

• Create constancy of purpose for improvement of product and service.
• Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age.
• Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality…Build in quality in the first place.
• End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price alone. Instead, minimize total cost.
• Improve constantly and forever [every process].
• Institute training on the job.
• Institute leadership. The aim of supervision should be to help people to do a better job.
• Drive out fear.
• Break down barriers between departments.
• Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.
• Eliminate work quotas, management by objective, management by numerical goals. Substitute leadership.
• Remove barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship.
• Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement for everyone.
• Put everybody in the [organization] to work to accomplish the transformation.
• System of Profound Knowledge

• Customers would receive what they ordered-without errors or mistakes, on time, all the time and for the right price.
• Suppliers would meet your requirements. Incoming inspections, inventory levels, and administrative hassles would be reduced or eliminated.
• Sales staff would spend their time working with customers, understanding their needs and getting orders, instead of acting as schedulers or expediters taking the heat for poor quality, late delivery, or paperwork errors.
• New products, processes and services, would be developed to agreed-upon requirements, as scheduled and at lower costs.
• People would enjoy their work as they became proactive in doing their jobs. They would stop spending large amounts of time responding to crises and dealing with a constant level of recurring errors and mistakes.

When organizations embark on a systematic approach to quality improvement based on a TQM principles, they gain both measurable and intangible benefits.

• The company becomes more competitive.
• Increased market share.
• Cost reductions.
• Things happen faster.
• The organization becomes easier to manage.
• Communications improve.

People help solve problems, experiencing less frustration and more satisfaction.

OUR Organization consists of full-time trainers and consultants with industry-diverse experience. While we do use industry proven approaches and methodologies, we tailor these to fit your organization’s specific needs. A unique combination of manufacturing experience, business and financial expertise, and a “hands-on” approach creates a recipe for our clients’ success. We not only identify and prioritize opportunities to add significantly to your bottom line; we develop and help our clients implement a plan for exploiting those opportunities to achieve financially measurable success.