What is TQM?

Total Quality Management (TQM) is the continual process of detecting and reducing or
eliminating errors in manufacturing, streamlining supply chain management, improving the
customer experience, and ensuring that employees are up to speed with training.

Defining Quality
‘Quality’ is generally referred to as a parameter which decides the inferiority or superiority of a
product or service. It is a measure of goodness to understand how a product meets its
specifications. Usually, when the expression “quality” is used, we think in terms of an excellent
product or service that meets or even exceeds our expectations.

Cost of Quality
● Cost of Quality is a methodology used to define and measure where and what amount of
an organization’s resources are being used for prevention activities and maintaining
product quality as opposed to the costs resulting from internal and external failures. The
Cost of Quality can be represented by the sum of two factors. The Cost of Good Quality
and the Cost of Poor Quality equals the Cost of Quality, as represented in the basic
equation below: CoQ = CoGQ + CoPQ
● The Cost of Quality includes all costs associated with the quality of a product from
preventive costs intended to reduce or eliminate failures, cost of process controls to
maintain quality levels and the costs related to failures both internal and external.

Evolution of TQM
● Inspection
● Quality Control
● Quality Assurance
● Total Quality Management

Philosophy of TQM
Total Quality Management (TQM) is a comprehensive system for achieving continuous
improvement in customer satisfaction. It is a philosophy of total integration of the business to
achieve the required result. The goal is to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness, lower
operating cost and increased market share.

Importance of TQM
TQM can have an important and beneficial effect on employee and organizational development.
By having all employees focus on quality management and continuous improvement,
companies can establish and uphold cultural values that create long-term success to both
customers and the organization itself.

Tools for identifying and solving quality problems

Quality Management tools play a crucial role in improving the quality of products and services.
With the help of Quality Management tools employees can easily collect the data as well as
organize the collected data which would further help in analyzing the same and eventually come
to concrete solutions for better quality products.

Quality Management tools make the data easy to understand and enable employees to identify
processes to rectify defects and find solutions to specific problems.

● Check List - Check lists are useful in collecting data and information easily
● Pareto Chart - Pareto Chart helps employees to identify the problems, prioritize them
and also determine their frequency in the system.
● The Cause and Effect Diagram - The cause and effect diagram plays a crucial role in
identifying the root cause of a particular problem and also potential factors which give
rise to a common problem at the workplace.
● Histogram - Histogram helps identify the cause of problems in the system by the shape
as well as width of the distribution.
● Scatter Diagram - Scatter Diagram is a quality management tool which helps to analyze
relationships between two variables.
● Graphs - Graphs are the simplest and most commonly used quality management tools.
Graphs help to identify whether processes and systems are as per the expected level or
not and if not also record the level of deviation from the standard specifications.

Why do TQM Efforts fail?

The most important factor in the success or failure of TQM efforts is the genuineness of the
organization's commitment. Often, companies look at TQM as another business change that
must be implemented due to market pressure without really changing the values of their
organization. Recall that TQM is a complete philosophy that has to be embraced with true belief,
not mere lip service. Looking at TQM as a short-term financial investment is a sure recipe for
failure.
Another mistake is the view that the responsibility for quality and elimination of waste lies with
employees other than top management. It is a “let the workers do it” mentality. A third common
mistake is over- or under reliance on statistical process control (SPC) methods. SPC is not a
substitute for continuous improvement, teamwork, and a change in the organization's belief
system. However, SPC is a necessary tool for identifying quality problems. Some common
causes for TQM failure are.

● Lack of a genuine quality culture

● Lack of top management support and commitment
● Over- and under reliance on statistical process control (SPC) methods

TQM across organization

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a participative, systematic approach to planning and
implementing a constant organizational improvement process. Its approach is focused
on exceeding customers’ expectations, identifying problems, building commitment, and
promoting open decision-making among workers. There are five major steps to TQM, and each
are essential to successful implementation.
● COMMITMENT AND UNDERSTANDING FROM EMPLOYEES
● QUALITY IMPROVEMENT CULTURE
● CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT IN PROCESS
● FOCUS ON CUSTOMER REQUIREMENTS
● EFFECTIVE CONTROL