TQM and Quality

Tools
Jan Alistair Villegas
Production and Operations Management
Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila
Introduction
• What is TQM?
• Total Quality Management
• Quest for quality in an organization
• 3 Philosophies
• Continuous Improvement
• Employee Involvement
• Customer Satisfaction
• Not only quality of the finished product, but quality of every
aspect of the process to produce a finished product
• Sample of TQM programs: ISO, 6σ, etc.
TQM Approach
• What do customers want?
• Internal and External Customers
• Design a product that will exceed customers wants and are
relevant
• Design processes which will make the job right at the first
instance
• Keep track of results and use these to improve the system
• Extend these to suppliers and distribution
• Top Management’s involvement is important, combined with
the dedication and combined efforts of everyone.
TQM Elements
• Continuous improvement
• Equipment, methods, materials and people
• Kaizen
• Competitive benchmarking
• Employee empowerment
• Team approach
• Fact-based decision-making
• Knowledge of tools
• Supplier quality
• Champion
• Quality at the source
• Supplier partnership.
Comparison of cultures –
TQM-infused vs. traditional
Aspect Traditional TQM

Overall mission Maximize ROI Meet or exceed customer

Objectives Emphasis on short-term
Management Not always open, sometimes
inconsistent objectives
Manager’s role Issue and enforce orders
satisfaction
Balance of short-term and long-
term
Open, encourages employee
input and objectives
Coach, build trust

Customer requirements Not high priority and unclear Highest priority

Problems Assign blame, punish Identify and resolve

Problem solving Not systematic and individual Systematic and in teams

Improvement Erratic Continuous

Suppliers Adversarial Partners

Jobs Narrow, specialized, Broad, more general, team-

individuality oriented
Focus Product oriented Process oriented
Obstacles to implementing
TQM
• Lack of a corporate-wide definition of quality
• Lack of strategic plan for change
• Lack of customer focus
• Poor communication in the organization
• Lack of employee empowerment
• Lack of long-term focus
• Concentration on short-term financial results
• Internal politics
• Lack of strong motivation
• Lack of time to devote to quality objectives
• Lack of leadership.
Criticisms of TQM
• Blind pursuit of TQM programs
• Quality program linkages to organization strategies are lacking
• Quality-related decisions may not be tied to market
performance
• Failure to carefully plan a program.
Problem solving
• One of the basic procedures of TQM
• Important aspect of problem solving in TQM is eliminating the
cause to prevent recurrence
• These are “opportunities for improvement”
• Steps to solving problems:
• Define the problem and establish an improvement goal
• Collect data
• Analyze the problem
• Generate potential solutions
• Choose a solution
• Implement the solution
• Monitor and collect feedback if the solution accomplishes the
goal
PDSA Cycle
• Plan-do-study-act cycle
• May be referred to as the Shewhart cycle or the Deming
wheel
PDSA Cycle (cont.)
• Plan
• Study the current process and document that process
• Collect data by making predictions about what will happen and why
• Analyze and develop a plan for improvement
• Do
• Implement the plan
• Document problems and unexpected observations
• Study
• Evaluate the results in the DO phase
• Act
• Standardize the new method and involve all the people involved in
the process
• Prepare a plan for the next test
References
• Stevenson, William J. Operations Management. 7th ed. 2001
• Mote, Dave and Laurie C. Hillstrom. Total Quality
Management. Reference for Business website.
• Nahmias, Steve. Production and Operations Analysis. 3rd ed.
1997. McGraw-Hill Companies, USA.