FREE ESSAY ON TQM

TQM

Total Quality Management By Jeff Russell A new type of structure is being used in many
organizations today. That structure is labeled Total Quality Management (TQM). This
approach involves guaranteeing that an organization functions with a commitment to
quality and continuous improvement in meeting its consumer's needs. With any type of
change there will always be a number of bumps in the road which slow down the process
that can help a company increase the workers morale, production, profits and over all
positive environment to conduct business. The pressures of the cutthroat market place has
pushed companies' backs against a wall and to compete on a global scale new ideas have to
be explored. The purpose of a TQM program is to amplify the effectiveness of the
organization. During an age of downsizing and restructuring, many American companies are
determining that they must learn to manage more effectively. The management is running on
an older system, which adds to workers that call out more sick days and abuse the
companies' production procedure. Organizational problems decoding means that all members
of an organization participate in cultivating a vision and improving the corporate
cultures. In any change program you must comprehend where you are before you can chart a
course of where you want to be. Therefore, before executing TQM, or another program it is
important to add the total value of the organization in terms of its current quality or
performance class and to define the level of performance or quality you wish to achieve.
One will never achieve total output for any given input, but with simple steps that can
add dollars to the bottom line with an increase of production one can get close.
Organization diagnose contributes information which allows a faster reacting organization
to emerge, one which can deal proactively with changing emphases. Organization
examination is often mentioned as the most critical element in the TQM process. With this
technique utilized a company can measure all aspects of its output in relation to the
mass input. These all include external and internal inputs from the accountant to the
delivery truck driver. All members and service providers must be looked at so as to
acquire a complete overall view of the performance of the given organization. The steps
that a company takes towards Total Quality Management in the beginning only adds the real
value of having such a new system in place. Organization's are transforming and will
continue to do so in order to survive in this complex environment. Because change is
occurring so rapidly, there is necessity for new ways to manage focusing on product
quality and individual involvement. TQM is a type of an approach to managing work
focusing on the evaluation of industry processes. The development of a quality energized
culture and the empowerment of employees, for this purpose of continuous improvement of
products and philanthropies. Since TQM is a powerful new management technique requiring
absolute employee participation, the first step is a climatic change in corporate
culture. Any successful adjustment in corporate culture will depend upon the active
consultation and involvement of the management team. An important component in developing
a high performance organization is the identification of areas for improvement or
concerns. Total quality management has been defined as the guidance of activities
involving improving the quality of the organization's product or service. TQM involves
moving toward collective excellence by integrating the desires of individuals for growth
and development with organizational goals. TQM is a philosophy and a set of guiding
standards for continuous improvement. TQM applies human resources and analytical tools
into management efforts, by providing planned, efficient approaches to improving the
total organization, so that it is more customer oriented, quality conscious, adjustable
and attentive. Total quality management has become a cardinal concern of management. Much
of this attention was initially focused on the auto establishments, which experienced
declining sales and increasing product disappointments. Companies in numerous other
industries also became concerned. Some of these ideas were originally explored in this
country in the '80s due to deficient sales and decrease in market share. Both of these
can denote death for even considerably large companies like General Motors. It was GM
that characterized a major role in introducing TQM here with the Saturn car. GM decided
that since they might lose some valuable market shares due to expansion in Japanese car
sale, that they should study the extraordinary way that this old world culture seemed to
put quality autos on the market. GM found that the Japanese had less middle management
and more teams of employees that were self-governed. The teams were responsible for the
perfection of the products that were made, instead of having quality control inspectors.
The teams were given the authority to hire and fire its members. With this innovative
knowledge, GM tried an experiment for GM to use and harvest some of the inspirations so
as to enhance its other factories. Thus, the total quality management system was
subsequently made mainstream with it creeping into all types of organizations. There are
several widely recognized key characteristics of TQM systems. First for a system to be
TQM it has to be organization wide. Which determines that the production line is a
natural and obvious place to increase quality but it also takes place in all areas of the
business. This includes the superior CEO to the mailroom clerk. Second, the top managers
must visibly adhere the new TQM control system. If any of the workers were to contemplate
that the upper management was not taking the new guidelines seriously then you are more
inclined to have chaos. To help stop people from causing too many problems, a simple type
of reward system is put in place to recognize team associates and for the insurance that
there will be continued support. Third, everyone in the organization has a customer,
which could be the adjacent guy on the production line or remote to the organization.
This is a crafty way to get the personnel enthusiastic about pleasing the guidelines of
the company. Forth, doing the job expectations right the first time is important. Instead
of relying on product inspection, the employee should be responsible for the quality of
the product that is conceived. Finally, the most important aspect for an organization is
to let the team members know that each one of them is respected and valued. This again
goes for the entire chain, from the internal employees to the external vendors and
suppliers. More and more organizations are concluding that employees are no longer
satisfied with simply filling a slot in the organization chart. Everyone in the
organization has a voice and is allowed to speak on all issues. Today's managers are
being challenged to provide leadership in new and changing environments. Customers,
competitors, employees, and stockholders are all placing anxieties on management for
innovation and change at a rapid pace. Change is a scorning process. Every organization
exists in an endless state of adapting to change. External competitive forces usually
cause downsizing changes, whereas other changes to work operations emerge as a result of
shifting forces within the organization. Many management theorists feel that
authoritarian or political forces, adapting to this increasing rate of change and
therefore become reactive organizations reacting drastically after problems come to
light. The GM company for example, continues to focus on quality, cycle time reduction,
and teamwork in a change process that most companies can only try to emulate. Ten years
after initiating a quality change program, TQM is still being used to improve the
company. The Saturn car company is a continued success in the auto industry. It should be
noted that Saturn has yet to pull in an over all profit, but the high sales has GM
looking at the car company in hindsight. GM has taken what it has learned from Saturn and
applied it to the other lines of cars. How can you measure the value of such information?
So because of this new approach the TQM company lives on as a modern day experiment,
which by today's terms is not so experimental. GM strategy to meet these changing forces
is termed Total Quality Management (TQM). Total Quality Management may be defined as an
organizational strategy of commitment to improving customer satisfaction by developing
techniques to carefully administer output quality. TQM is not so much a special
technique, as it is an aspect of a reinvented corporate culture with a healthy commitment
to improving quality in all organizational approaches. 
Bibliography 
Bibliography Beecroft, GD (1999) The role of quality in strategic management Decisions,
v37 i6 Heapy, MS. And Gruska, GF. (1995) The Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award- A
Yardstick for Quality Growth Addison -Wesley Publishing Company Kuger, V. (1999) Towards
a European definition of TQM- a historical review The TQM Magazine v11 n4 p257 Marsh, J.
(1996) The Quality Toolkit- a practical resource for making TQM happen www.GM.com