Analysis of Total Quality Management

Practices in Manufacturing and Service

Sectors
Faisal Talib1
Mechanical Engineering Section, University Polytechnic,
Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh,
U.P., India
(ftalib77@yahoo.co.in)
Zillur Rahman
Department of Management Studies, Indian
Institute of Technology, Roorkee,
U.Kh., India
(yusuffdm@iitr.ernet.in)
M.N. Qureshi
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Technology and Engineering,
M.S. University of Baroda, Vadodara,
Gujarat, India
(mnqureshi@rediffmail.com)

Abstract- Quality gurus such as Juran,
Deming and Crosby have advocated
various methodologies for business success
and single out some quality practices.
These practices have a positive impact on
business performance in both
manufacturing and service sectors.
This paper attempts to identify the
TQM practices in two different sectors
and examines the difference between them
by analyzing their commonalities with
respect to their implementation as
applicable to both the sectors. The
methodology adopted was critically
examining the literature on TQM
practices followed by manufacturing and
service sectors. Altogether, 30 published
research studies (15 research studies on
TQM practices in the manufacturing
industries and 15 on the service
industries) were identified that focused on
TQM principles and practices used by
them. The finding showed no significant
difference in the level of most of TQM
practices and broadly the same group of
identified TQM practices do exist and are
applicable to both the sectors except few
differences were found and were
presented in this study. The results can
provide guidance for service managers
and quality practitioners aiming to
implement TQM. Further, some
managerial implications and future scope
of this study are also presented at the end.
Keywords- manufacturing industries,
service industries, top-management
commitment, Total Quality Management,
TQM practices,
I. INTRODUCTION
The concept of TQM philosophy and
its principles is quite old and was introduced
into the USA around 1980, primarily in
response to the severe competitive challenge
from Japanese companies [1]. Initially, the
attention was towards manufacturing
industries with little consideration being
given to the service industries largely
because of the domination of researchers

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Faisal Talib, Zillur Rahman, and M.N. Qureshi
from the engineering and operations
discipline [2]; [3]. The emergence of TQM
philosophy in service industries has been a
recent development and is being applied
from last two decades. The study by Saraph
et al. [4] comes out with the concept of
applying TQM practices in service industries
and was the first study in the service sector
where a set of identified TQM factors were
considered in both manufacturing and
service industries. Further, literature survey
of manufacturing on TQM is quite
encyclopedic, encompassing an
overabundance of research works [4]; [5];
[6]; [7]; [8] while review of the literature on
service reveals that it is young and recent
emerging area in the field of service quality,
human resource management, and customer
perception [9]; [10]. These plethora of
studies have often appeased to produce
mixed results, but in general TQM has been
credited in providing benefit for
organizations that implement it properly.
This has been proven by studies that have
involved wide-range of surveys, empirical
studies, and case studies [11]; [12]; [8]; [13];
[14]; [15]; [16]. Following the success of
TQM in manufacturing, practitioners and
academicians have started to study the
potential of transferring and applying TQM
principles and practices to service industries
and suggested its applicability in it. Although
there are some characteristics that distinguish
service industries with manufacturing
industries like intangibility, co-production,
inseparability, and heterogeneity of the
outputs of services that may affect the
transfer of the TQM principles and practices
to service environment which is in contrast
to there in the manufacturing industries that
are more measurable and standardized in
their specifications [1]; [17] and thus causes
difficulties for service providers in
controlling the quality of the service output
before delivering them to customers as is
normally done with manufacturing products.
It is identified that there are many
studies on the implementation of TQM
practices in manufacturing and service
sectors but no study has been conducted to
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identify a set of common and identical TQM
practices as applicable for both the sectors
for successful TQM implementation.
Although, this study shares a similar purpose
with the previous studies by examining the
extent of implementation of TQM and its
practices in manufacturing and service
industries, but it goes beyond the earlier
studies, by examining the difference between
TQM practices in the manufacturing and
service industries individually and than
comparing them for their commonalities with
respect to their implementation in both these
sectors. While, in the previous TQM studies,
no such type of comparisons were
conducted. Accordingly, there is a need to
focus on this issue and therefore, this study
tries to fill this gap by conducting an
extensive literature review on TQM practices
in manufacturing and service industries by
adopting a detailed research methodology.
The objectives of the present study
are as follows:
• To identify TQM practices
followed by manufacturing
industries.
• To identify TQM practices
followed by service industries,
and
• To examine the difference
between the identified TQM
practices in manufacturing and
service industries by analyzing
them for their commonalities with
respect to their implementation.
The above objectives are
accomplished through review of the
literature on TQM practices in
manufacturing and service sector. The
methodology adopted for this study was
literature review of published research
studies on the current subject focusing on
dimensions/practices influencing TQM in
manufacturing and service industries
separately. A total of 30 research
publications (15 research studies on TQM
practices in manufacturing industries and 15
on service industries) were selected from
 Analysis of Total Quality Management Practices in Manufacturing and Service Sectors

advanced search method and were reviewed. International Journal of Production

All these selected studies have been
published in a range of scientific journals
such as International Journal of Service
Industry Management, Decision Sciences,
International Journal of Productivity and
Quality Management, The TQM Magazine,
Academy of Management Review,
International Journal of Quality and
Reliability Management, Production and
Operation Management, Total Quality
Management and Business Excellence,
Research, Managing Service Quality,
Management Research News, and
International Journal of Bank Marketing.
After critically going through these studies
concerning to the various TQM practices
adopted in manufacturing and service
industries, the survey report is presented in
the tabular form in the next two sections in
Tables 1 and 2.

II. TQM PRACTICES IN MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES

TABLE I
SURVEY OF TQM PRACTICES IN MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES AS REPORTED BY DIFFERENT
RESEARCHERS

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Faisal Talib, Zillur Rahman, and M.N. Qureshi

III. TQM PRACTICES IN SERVICE INDUSTRIES

TABLE II
SURVEY OF TQM PRACTICES IN SERVICE INDUSTRIES AS REPORTED BY DIFFERENT
RESEARCHERS

IV. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS related to degree of performance and

A review of the literature reveals that
there are nine TQM practices in two different
sectors i.e. manufacturing and service, based
on their frequency of occurrences in the
extent literature that consists of 15 published
research papers in each sector, totaling to 30
research papers that focused on practices
influencing TQM in both the sectors. From
these 15 research studies, this paper performs
a comparison of TQM practices between
manufacturing and service industries which
are presented in Table 3. After critically
analyzing Tables 1, 2 and 3, many results of
interest emerged out from the present study
adoptability of TQM practices as well as a
common group of TQM practices for
manufacturing and service industries.
The present study showed that six out
of nine TQM practices identified are similar
and common in both manufacturing and
service industries. They are: topmanagement
commitment; customer focus and
satisfaction; human resource management;
training and education; employee
involvement; and supplier management. The
plausible explanation for this result is the
higher score of frequency of occurrences of
these practices in the two sectors. This

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 Analysis of Total Quality Management Practices in Manufacturing and Service Sectors
suggest that the level of TQM practices in
both the sectors are not significantly
different except for supplier management in
which manufacturing industries show a
significantly higher frequency of occurrences
than service industries (See Table 3).
Therefore, this group of common TQM
practices could determine the success of a
TQM program in manufacturing and service
environment and for further research work in
this area.
Furthermore, the reason behind the
less adoption of supplier management as
practice in service industries could be that
many companies feels supplier quality and
performance is not so crucial for them as
they are mainly dealing with intangible
services not concerned with the incoming
products or raw material as in case of
manufacturing industry. Therefore, many
service industries do not recognize the role
played by supplier performance and
management in an organization's quality
performance and its contribution to customer
satisfaction [39].
In contrast to above results, quality
information and performance measurement,
process management, and quality systems
represent other three major TQM practices in
manufacturing industries while continuous
improvement and innovation, benchmarking,
and quality culture/work culture are more
important TQM practices in service
TABLE III
SOME COMMON TQM PRACTICES OF MANUFACTURING AND SERVICE INDUSTRIES AS
REPORTED BY THE SURVEY
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57.5
industries. This concerns that there exists
some inconsistencies in these three practices
while implementing a TQM program in the
two sectors separately. The possible reason
behind this outcome may be the nature of
service operations compared to their
manufacturing counterpart. Service
industries are more focused on customer
orientation and customer satisfaction as well
as on quality culture and work environment
while manufacturing industries are highly
tangible in nature where quality products and
measurement performance as well as
management of process and use of quality
tools and techniques plays an important role
in deciding the business performance.
Regarding consistencies, four TQM
practices stand out in several studies as being
more central for manufacturing and service
industries. They are: top-management
commitment (including leadership),
customer focus and satisfaction (including
customer orientation and customer
feedback), human resource management
(including job rotation, internal recruitment,
quality circles, and employment security
policy) and training and education (including
learning). They have stronger relationship in
manufacturing as well as in service
industries. This predicts that TQM concept
mainly lies on these four principles and
practices and may be treated as the pillars of
TQM philosophy.
Faisal Talib, Zillur Rahman, and M.N. Qureshi
V. CONCLUSIONS
This paper has successfully presented
the groups of TQM practices for
manufacturing and service industries as well
as a group of common TQM practices
applicable to both the sectors. Although most
of the practices identified in the two sets are
similar but few inconsistencies were also
found to be present by comparing them.
Such differences often in research results to
frustration, both for researchers designing
new studies and practitioners who seek
advice on how to implement TQM concept
in their organizations. These inconsistencies
may be due to nature of operations,
characteristic of firms, service design,
products and services offered by
manufacturing and service industries. Also,
this study is limited to review only 15
research studies on TQM practices in each
sector, if more studies in the same area are
taken than these inconsistencies may be
minimized. This may be another reason for
the presence of few inconsistencies in the
present study.
Furthermore, the findings also
suggest that the level of TQM practices in
manufacturing and service industries are not
significantly different except for quality
information and performance measurement,
process management, and quality systems
practices in which manufacturing industries
shows a significantly higher frequency of
occurrences while for service industries,
continuous improvement and innovation,
benchmarking, and quality culture/work
culture shows a higher frequency of
occurrences. By examining 15 research
studies in each sector, the present study
provides some guidelines for managers of
both sectors who want to implement TQM
concept. Three most important TQM practice
stands out as being centre for manufacturing
and service organizations: top-management
commitment; customer focus and
satisfaction; and training and education.
Also, managers should introduce and
develop employee involvement practices in
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57.6
their organization by delegating authority
and empowering employees. Hence, by
focusing on these principles and practices, an
organization can build a quality
improvement program that will have a
positive influence on business performance.
Despite the overall findings produced
in this study, there are still open
opportunities for further studies. Further
studies on comparing the degree of
performance on quality practices and
relationship of these identified practices to
quality and business performance can be
taken by the academicians and practitioners.
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