|
Total Quality
Management
|
Total
Quality Management (TQM) is a combination of quality and management tools aimed
at increasing business and reducing losses due to wasteful practices. An
important part of TQM is its philosophy toward continually improving
your business and products.
The basic principles for the
Total Quality Management (TQM) philosophy of doing business are to satisfy the
customer, satisfy the supplier, and continuously improve the business
processes.
Questions you may have are:
a) How do you satisfy the customer?
b) Why should you satisfy the supplier?
c) What is continuous improvement?
|
|
Satisfy the customer
|
|
The first and major TQM
principle is to satisfy the customer--the person who pays for the
product or service. Customers want to get their money's worth from a product or
service they purchase.
|
|
Users
|
|
If
the user of the product is different than the purchaser, then both the user and
customer must be satisfied, although the person who pays gets priority.
|
|
Company philosophy
|
|
A
company that seeks to satisfy the customer by providing them value for what
they buy and the quality they expect will get more repeat business, referral
business, and reduced complaints and service expenses.
|
|
|
Some
top companies not only provide quality products, but they also give extra
service to make their customers feel important and valued.
|
|
|
Internal customers
|
Within
a company, a worker provides a product or service to his or her supervisors. If
the person has any influence on the wages the worker receives, that person can
be thought of as an internal customer. A worker should have the mind-set of
satisfying internal customers in order to keep his or her job and to get a
raise or promotion.
|
|
|
Chain of customers
|
Often
in a company, there is a chain of customers, -each improving a product and
passing it along until it is finally sold to the external customer. Each worker
must not only seek to satisfy the immediate internal customer, but he or she
must look up the chain to try to satisfy the ultimate customer.
|
|
Satisfy the supplier
|
|
|
A second TQM principle is to
satisfy the supplier, which is the person or organization from whom you are
purchasing goods or services.
|
| External
suppliers
|
|
A company must look to satisfy their
external suppliers by providing them with clear instructions and requirements
and then paying them fairly and on time. It is only in the company's best
interest that its suppliers provide it with quality goods or services, if the
company hopes to provide quality goods or services to its external customers.
|
Internal suppliers
|
|
A supervisor must try to keep his or
her workers happy and productive by providing good task instructions, the tools
they need to do their job and good working conditions. The supervisor must also
reward the workers with praise and good pay.
|
Get better work
|
|
The reason to do this is to get more
productivity out of the workers, as well as to keep the good workers. An
effective supervisor with a good team of workers will certainly satisfy his or
her internal customers.
|
Empower workers
|
|
One area of satisfying the internal
suppler is by empowering the workers. This means to allow them to make
decisions on things that they can control. This not only takes the burden off
the supervisor, but it also motivates these internal suppliers to do better
work.
|
|
|
|
TQM Requirements
|
|
The common elements of a successful shift to TQM are:
|
|
a) Top Management commitment
/ leadership.
b) Shared Values - Policy Deployment.
c) Line Management ownership.
d) Cascade training in TQM - compulsory.
e) Widespread use of teams / councils / committees.
f) Employee involvement / empowerment.
g) Recognition and celebration.
h) Voice of the customer.
i) Challenging quantified goals - benchmarking.
j) Focus on processes / improvement plans.
k) Specific incorporation in strategic planning.
l) Supported in all Management appraisal
|