UNIVERSITY OF KHARTOUM

SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

ZYTEC Case Study

"What Methods of TQM can be done, what can't be done, how can
we overcome barriers to Change Quality Standards in Sudan?"

Instructor: Dr. Ismail Elkhalifa Suleiman, PhD

Prepared by: Yousif Alghaly Ahmed Mohammed

Index No. 113144

October 2014

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Introduction:

Globalization, industry growth and technological change interact to create

alternative environments with varying levels of dynamism and complexity
requiring realignment of operation strategies. Along with quality, cost, delivery,
and flexibility, customer focus is another competitive priority to adapt fitting
operation strategies proactively in changing environments. Regardless of the
effort by managers of such environments to raise their performance, they still
face major challenges in how to implement such strategic initiatives for company
business excellence.
Effective strategy deployment can be assumed as one good way to make such
initiatives successful. However, despite all effort made in the different fields in
adapting new strategies and implementation procedures, sustainable
development in industries has become a major concern in the last decade both in
developed and developing countries. It is widely accepted that customer
satisfaction is the primary focus in modern business success. Companies must
always put the customer needs in first place. This has resulted in the exercise of
value creation. Therefore, with the concept of value, customer value has become
a source of sustainable competitiveness. Therefore, companies have adopted
different platforms for value creation, such as; mass production, streamlined
supplier networks, value in design, lean Construction/production, six sigma and,
total quality management (TQM). However, TQM represents a platform for
marketing potentialities, and synergistic in facilitating efficient management of
process for value creation and delivery in the highly dynamic and competitive
market.
TQM as a management approach focus on the early involvement of all
organization members at early stage of the procurement process, therefore,
taking the right decision at early stage will save a great deal of time effort and
money leading to more added value to the Customers.
ZYTEC designs and manufactures electronic power supplies and repairs power
supplies and CRT monitors. The company supplies original equipment
manufacturers, repair customers in addition to large end users. Also the company
sells, by a direct sales force, to customers in the United States.

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However, since most of customers are large multinational companies, many of
ZYTEC power supplies are exported around the world. ZYTEC competes from Far
East and European companies as well as 400 US companies.

ZYTEC is currently the fifth largest multiple output power supply company in the
US. The fastest growing US electronic power supply company, and the largest
power supply repair company in North America.

ZYTEC has number of employees, approximately about 800 located at Minnesota

HQ, with a manufacturing facility in Redwood Falls. Since 1984 the company has
used the quality and reliability of its products and services as the key strategy to
differentiate it from the competition.

ZYTEC started in January 1984 the new company focus; Quality, Service and Value.
Therefore, ZYTEC managed to commit its overall performance to achieve quality,
service and value Provided that the company has required extensive knowledge
of TQM principles and implementation practices and standards, skills, expertise,
ambition, commitment, required infrastructure as well as tremendous desire to
achieve organization's objective of becoming a world class industrial leader. For
decades, ZYTEC has been recognized by its customers with nine awards for
supplier's excellence, and also ZYTEC remains the sole source supplier for 18 of its
20 new build customers, and this is not an easy task.

A ZYTEC has able to produce more with its existing resources through an
improved customer focus and streamlined work processes. With its increased
awareness of its internal and external customers, there is a greater focuses on
what really needs to be accomplished in order to meet (Exceed) their customers’
needs and expectations, therefore increasing their profitability through increased
customer retention. Being able to meet customer expectations the first time and
every time will enable the organization to increase its market share as new
customers seek them out. Since ZYTEC has focused and streamlined its work
processes they will benefit from lower costs because of reduced waste and
rework.

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One of the major savings that occurs is fewer customer complaints and warranty
claims. More satisfied customers’ results in greater market share, Because of
improved communication, teamwork, and good management-employee relations.

ZYTEC focus on the key processes that provide the organization’s customers with
products or services. An organization is a compilation of a wide variety of
activities. An organization needs to be looked at from all perspectives;
manufacturing, marketing, information technology, research and development
must work well together in an effective organization. The ZYTEC adhere to a
customer-centered philosophy that includes paying attention to organizational,
strategic, environmental, and people factors.

ZYTEC had developed an organizational philosophy utilizing a quality management

system that creates a customer focus and generates customer satisfaction. It also
implements organizational leadership, create strategic plans, develop and
manage the organization’s human element, measure organizational success,
improve processes, utilize quality tools, manage projects, and track key business
results.

ZYTEC uses the term “Quality is not an act, it is a habit”.

The term “Total” is considered important, as it is an indication of the use of the

model company-wide and involves an effort by everyone to bring about improved
performance. “Management” adds the human factor to the effort put in to
improve performance and quality. It requires commitment and leadership from
the top management to achieve quality goals. It is their duty that the institution is
provided with the required infrastructure to support a holistic approach. These
words together bring the essence of “Total Quality Management”. TQM can be
defined as "Doing the Right Thing, Right the First Time, All the Time; always
striving for Improvement & always satisfying the Customer.”, by doing this ZYTEC
tracks key business results.

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Implementation of Total Quality Management

A clear and sound TQM framework have been created and adopted which should
be communicated to all the members, at all levels in the ZYTEC business, adopts
this in the right way; it would make the procedures in the organization more
comprehensive, controlled and time managed. This framework discusses the
factors that are important for any institute to successfully implement TQM within
the organization and enjoy the returns.

Principles and Practices in ZYTEC:

1. Leadership:

The top management has implement TQM through leadership by using two
elementary ways, first, integrating the TQM philosophy and principles in the
organization operations in every department. Second, delivering long-term
training and development that would be necessary for the development of the
company. As result of this trip, Zytec initiate process called Management by
Planning (MBP). The process involves employees in establishing long-range plans
and short-term objectives.

Implementing TQM using Leadership

Implementing TQM using Leadership is a team effort by every individual working

at every stage, low or high in the ZYTEC. Responsibilities have been delegated to
all and make them realize their role as a leader.

1. Involvement:
ZYTEC has representatives from all groups who would lead the
departments. The company identified group leaders and their
responsibilities from the affected departments.
2. Interest:
The senior management of the company led and make sure every individual
understands the urgency and importance of implementing TQM in the
company.
3. Monitoring:

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 TQM is a procedure and not a process. Goals were monitored and altered
during implementation. Senior managers were analyzing the procedure and
make the right implementation to generate results that would favor TQM.
4. Phasing:
TQM is done in phases and the managers use their leadership skills and see
that before they start any phase, the previous phase is completed.

2. Information Analysis:

As Bill Gates stated, “Information technology and business are becoming

inextricably interwoven. I don't think anybody can talk meaningfully about one
without the talking about the other.”

In every department and at every level, ZYTEC is data driven. ZYTEC systematically
collects and process reliable, timely, and accurate data and information, of board
scope and significant depth.

ZYTEC communicates better, improve accessible information, connect with other

departments better and reduce the level of gaps that may be formed due to lack
of communication within the organization. Adding the process flow supports
consistency and reduction the failures, improve speed and also quality.

ZYTEC made valuable Quality Management Systems which is a set of complex

parts and components that deal with the quality of products and processes under
required controls along with continuous improvement. Implementing QMS does
not by itself make the ZYTEC profitable, but it provides it with the potential to
improve, from fields of production and sales.

The purpose of QMS is similar to that of ISO 9000, which is, Customer
requirements need to be fulfilled. Achieve efficiency in terms of all factors of
production like manpower, technology and finance, both externally and
internally.

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ZYTEC is designed in order to assist the employees improve the quality and
reliability of the products. Reliability can be described as the trouble-free time
that a process gives before it fails, so as to:

• Improve product or process reliability and quality

• Increase customer satisfaction
• Early identification and elimination of potential product or process failure
modes
• Prioritize product or process deficiencies
• Capture engineering/organization knowledge
• Emphasized problem prevention
• Documents risk and actions taken to reduce risk
• Provide focus for improved testing and development
• Minimized late changes and associated cost

Benchmarking

Benchmarking in ZYTEC is defined as the measurement of organization’s quality

policies, products, programs, strategies, etc. and then comparing it with the best
practices in the market. Some of the objectives of benchmarking are to determine
what kind of improvements are required on the process, to analyze how other
organizations achieve their high performance levels and to use the same
information to improve their performance.

This process is done through following steps:

• Planning

• Collection of information

• Analysis of data

• Implementation

• Monitoring

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Benchmarking has been practiced by ZYTEC so as to achieve the best in the
market, which made with several leading firms, such as IBM, Wal-Mart, Sony,
P&G, HP, FEdex, etc.

3. Strategic Quality Planning:

ZYTEC’s planning process takes the quality and service needs of customers and
drives them through the organization and its suppliers. Strategic quality planning
includes vision, mission, and values of the firms. They are formed by taking into
account the quality concept. With effective strategic quality planning efforts
employees are taken as an input in developing the vision, mission, strategies, and
objectives. This facilitates acceptance and support of strategic quality plans by the
employees. Successful strategic quality planning efforts also take into account the
possible side effects of the plan to the environment prior to the production.
Strategic quality planning is positively associated with operational performance,
inventory management performance, society results, customer results, and
market performance. However, strategic quality planning is not statistically
related to perceived performance in the company, Thus Strategic quality planning
is positively related to performance.

4. Human Resource Utilization:

ZYTEC involves its human resources in setting and achieving the company’s quality
objectives. Employee involvement refers to the regular participation of
employees in the work process, suggestions for improvement, setting goals and
monitoring the performance. So the organization makes a positive work
environment that is based on trust, good customer service, teamwork and
operational excellence, the ZYTEC leadership team has understand and invest in
the needs of the most important stakeholders of the organization, and the
employees.

The return of this it makes high levels of employee motivation, productivity,

creativity and commitment that will help in the sustainable growth of the
organization. A fundamental TQM percept is that employees must be involved
and empowered, Employee involvement includes various aspects such as:

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Employee empowerment

Teamwork

Reward and recognition

Education and training

Suggestion schemes

5. Quality Assurance of PRODUCTS and SERVICES:

ZYTEC manufactures power supplies designed and manufactured to a customer’s

specifications or requirements. This helps organization to learn how to implement
the TQM philosophy in the working of their businesses.

The process is a transformation of inputs by using operations and actions to

quality outputs that the customer value. Every task, from receiving the
requirement/order to placing the order in the customer’s hand is considered as a
process. This core is surrounded by the commitment to quality Assurance of the
quality message along with the need to change culture in the ZYTEC, which would
add total quality.

Commitment to quality deals with the leadership aspect, being the basic step of
the TQM implementation in the organization where all members are well
committed to the goal.

People/teams are the members who are responsible for the processes and by
working in teams they add a component of varied culture that is important for
TQM. Tools are the knowledge and techniques that are used for measurement,
metrics and improvements. Systems are the set of activities; mostly the
processing, communicating and controlling that should be applied to interact with
the other activities in the organization.

These components are used together efficiently and effectively along with
measurement of the performance; the ZYTEC achieved mission and goals
successfully and have sustainable growth.

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Supplier Partnership:

ZYTEC is committed to open communication and development of true partnership

with its suppliers. suppliers not only provide with raw materials but also the
technology and processes, design service, capacity improvement layouts which
can help in reducing costs, quick marketing, reduced production time and
improved quality, which can provide a long and sustainably business for the
company, thus also for the supplier. Suppliers help the company with the design
process, due to which ZYTEC finds out about new materials, technologies and
parts before its automakers. Over the years, suppliers are termed as partners and
companies have a co-dependent relation with them as suppliers would not exist
without the companies and the companies would fall without the suppliers.

As the company and its suppliers are now working as partners, there are values
and norms they need to follow which would help them cultivate their relation for
better returns. Company achieves high quality levels with profit, aim for supplier
partnerships.

6. Quality Results:

Based on customer data and information, ZYTEC has defined, monitored, and
improved most relevant customer performance measures on an ongoing basis.
Ultimately, the purpose of being in business is to stay in business. This category
examines a company’s performance and improvement in several key business
areas including customer satisfaction, product and service performance, financial
and marketplace performance, workforce, and operational performance.
Benchmarking is encouraged to see how the company compares with its
competitors. ZYTEC studied customer results, product and service results,
financial and market results, workforce results, operational results, and public
responsibility and citizenship results.

7. Customer Focus:

ZYTEC knows its customers. It focuses on serving the external customers, it first
knows the customers’ expectations and requirements and then offers the
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products/services, accordingly. By the aid of successful customer focus efforts,
production can be arranged with respect to the customers’ needs, expectations,
and complaints. This encourages firm to produce high quality and reliable
products/services on time with increased efficiency and productivity. When
customer expectations are met, their satisfaction will be increased, and the firm’s
sales and the market share will increase. Customer focus positively affects
operational performance, inventory management performance, employee
performance, innovation performance, customer satisfaction/results, sales, and
aggregate firm performance.

Continuous Improvement Process:

Continuous improvement is a ‘company-wide process of focused and continuous

incremental innovation sustained over a period of time’.

The process of continuous improvement is fundamental to the concept of TQM,

ZYTEC believes that customers are the most important part of the production line
therefore it is important develop operational and business processes which will
ensure that the expectations of the customer have been met. There are various
tools utilized in this improvement process, such as,

1) Just in time (JIT):

As defined by Graham (1998), ‘JIT is a management philosophy or toolbox
of techniques, which is based on making a significant improvement in
operating efficiency through reduced inventory levels, lead time and
overheads’. These critical elements in JIT are people involvement to gain
support and agreement from all the individuals involved in the process,
logistics network, to modify operational procedure, production or service
system or organizational culture to take advantage of JIT.
JIT advantages include waste reduction, increased ability to remain
competitive, improved working relations between employees, stronger and
more reliable working relations with suppliers, higher profits and improved
customer satisfaction. Implementation of JIT in the manufacturing unit of
ZYTEC Company shifts it from an efficient manufacturer with extra

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 inventory to a manufacturer that is able to meet the demand of the
customers and provide short lead-time.

2) Six Sigma:
It can be best described as a business improvement approach that seeks to
find and eliminate causes of defects and errors in manufacturing and
service processes by focusing on outputs that are critical to customers and
a clear financial return for the organization. Six Sigma improvement teams
use the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control)
methodology to find and eliminate the causes of defects.
The analytical tools are common to all quality efforts including Six Sigma.
These tools consist of flowcharts, run charts, Pareto charts, histograms,
check sheets, cause and effect diagrams and control charts. The other tools,
which are extensively used, are failure mode and effect analysis and design
of experiments.
Successful implementation of Six Sigma is a combination of personnel as
well as technical methodologies.
It is implemented in virtually every ZYTEC business category such as return
on sales, return on investment, employment growth and stock value
growth. It is attentive to the entire business processes and training is
integral to the management system where the top-down approach ensures
that every good thing is capitalized and every bad thing is quickly removed.

Measuring TQM performance In ZYTEC:

Implementing TQM is not an easy concept and does have cost related to it. At
times implementing TQM may need huge financing and company would want to
know if its efforts have given any results. These performance measures have a
huge role to play in the success or failure of the company. Some of the basic ways
to know the performance of the ZYTEC can be seen by the level of employee
interaction, improvement in teams, level of customer complaints, customer
loyalty, reduction in defects, machine failure rates, quality performance by
suppliers, relations with suppliers and customers, increase in revenue, sales,
shareholder investors, etc. There are various models, which can measure the
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performance of the success of TQM; ‘The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality
Award (MBNQA) (American Model)’ framework is a very close replica of what
TQM is.

The Baldrige Criteria for performance excellence framework has seven categories
that help company’s achieve excellence. Company’s who truly follow TQM would
fulfill the criteria of the MNBQA. The seven categories are:

1. Leadership

2. Strategic Planning

3. Customer focus

4. Measurement, Analysis and Knowledge Management

5. Human resource focus

6. Operations focus

7. Business results

By assessing ZYTEC quality standards and performance along with the employee’s
involvement and customer’s satisfaction, it can be found that ZYTEC applied
MNBQA criteria as well as Deming fourteen points to achieve its TQM as
mentioned above.

Characteristics of Successful TQM:

The Sudan’s industries have arrived late to TQM, probably due to the
tendency to easily brush aside anything in management that is new, or to
dismiss TQM as a fad.
Continuous improvement is not a fad but a necessary part of management’s
obligation to properly run its company. Gone are the boom days when quality
did not matter due to the volume of product available and the ease of
obtaining products. Customers are now demanding higher quality, and at a
lower cost. In attempting to keep pace with the new attitude, a quality
management system that helps keeps costs down is well worth implementing.

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The characteristics that are common to companies that successfully
implement TQM in their daily operations are listed here:
♦ Strive for owner/customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction
♦ Strive for accident-free jobsites
♦ Recognize that the owner/customer provides the revenue while the
employees are responsible for the profit
♦ Recognize the need for measurement and fact-based decision making
♦ Arrange for employees to become involved in helping the company
improve
♦ Train extensively
♦ Work hard at improving communication inside and outside the
company
♦ Use teams of employees to improve processes
♦ Place a strong emphasis on the right kind of leadership, and provide
supervisors with a significant amount of leadership training
♦ Involve suppliers, requiring them to adopt TQM
♦ Strive for continuous improvement
The goal of management is to create a culture of quality across the entire
firm, get the job done right, the first time, and every time. Every effort to
incorporate the above principles into the company’s actions will further
quality production.
SUDANESE Public Sector and Private Companies:

In Sudan’s industries, in very few cases; quality management function / team

within the organizations is able to acquire necessary sponsorship from the
organization’s decision makers. These few organizations have planned to undergo
a quality certification programs, or have already undergone the quality
certification process, on the other hand generally in most of the organizations,
quality management function within the organizations is extremely limited. In
some cases quality management departments / functions within the organizations
do not possess the right kind of expertise so as to convince management that
they can actually deliver. In such cases; naturally, the management and the
decision makers do not pay attention to sponsoring the quality management
function. The worst case is of those organizations in which quality management
team exists and they possess the right (or at least relatively suitable) expertise for
implementing quality programs organization wide. In such organizations, quality

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teams are assigned responsibility of uplifting the quality of the organization or in
other words their main goal / target is to acquire quality certification. This make
the situation worst in such kinds of organizations provided with the inappropriate
sponsorship; and Results of this deficiency are endless dead loops of problems.

As examples E-Government in Sudan can enable through the following:

A. Education:

School and institutes online management or electronic management, which

enable and speedup the information flow in and between the school and the local
education administrations, states ministry of education and federal ministry of
education. Also, the application of E-G in the education sector could promote the
school and families digital interaction, save a staff records for promotions and
training chances even so, illustrate the needs of staff appointment and so on.

B. Health field:

The implementation of E- Government will enhance the possibility of the hospital

clinical information automation which lead to electronic health records and online
emergency desk, thus result in digitalization of prescription and medical
certificate cycle. All these can promote the citizen life due to expedite and
easiness of delivering the government services throughout using the new
technologies.

SUDAN E-GOVERNMENT CHALLENGES:

According to UN report on E-Government development index and world E-

Government development ranking in the years 2010 and 2012 Sudan index in the
year of 2010 was 0.2610 and the world ranking 154. In the year of 2012 the index
was 0.2542 and world ranking 165. According to these figures it seem clear that
Sudan has not move ahead while most countries in the same region has increased
their E-Government value such as Tunisia , Algeria and Morocco. The adaptive
challenges of E-Government go far beyond technology; they call for organizational
structures and skills, new form of leadership, transformation of public-private
partnerships. E-Government projects implementation in developing countries
facing many challenges and barriers, we briefly discuss each of this challenge.

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TQM implementation in Sudan E-G, Firms and manufacturing organizations,
identified quality problems as listed below:

1. Upper management does not insist on systematic measuring of customer

satisfaction level and training programs.
2. Lack of training programs to enhance workers’ skills and involvement in
quality improvement activities.
3. Organizations do not place enough importance on cases of goods returned
nor relates such cases to customers.
4. Many organizations do not involve suppliers when making improvements to
products and in general suppliers have difficulties in meeting the
organizations’ requirements.
5. Insufficient teamwork facilitators and team building techniques.
6. Worker evaluation lacks a systematic approach and hence salary
adjustments do not commensurate with job functions. Appreciation for
contribution by workers is not apparent.

Reasons of and Barriers to TQM Practices in Sudan:

1. Leadership:

Limited vision of leaders severally blocks quality management activities in Sudan’s

industries. As we all know that it is the leader who determines how an
organization would actually work therefore unless and until leaders do not buy
quality as an important tool for organizational sustainability, quality function
cannot be implemented in an organization. In short visionary leadership style is
extremely essential.

2. Organizational Reporting Hierarchy:

Quality management depends on standardization and repeatability of best

practices which in turn largely depends on process engineering and
documentation. It is important to note that effectiveness of process definition,
process implementation and control depends on consistency and correctness of

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the organizational reporting hierarchy. Following are few major problems that
exist in Sudan regard to organizational hierarchy:

A) In most of the cases organizational hierarchy is not defined therefore

reporting channels are not clear. This confuses the quality experts while
implementing quality and engineering it. Definition of organizational
hierarchy is not considered as an important task by the management.
B) In many cases the quality management departments and staff members
report under staff members within the organization of whose quality they
have to manage. This creates a lot of transparency issues. Further to this,
this arrangement does not allow quality management staff members in
truly identifying the weakness of any particular individual. Overall result of
this situation is that organizations’ improvement is simply blocked.
Major reasons of absence of organizational reporting hierarchy and incorrect
hierarchy are management’s limited vision and interest in this activity.

3. Focus on Product, Projects and Processes Only:

As discussed earlier, quality management in Sudan is only restricted to product,

projects and process quality improvement only; this is a major setback as because
people quality is completely ignored.
Major reason of ignoring people quality management is limited vision of the
management. Major consequences of ignoring people quality is lack of employee
satisfaction, de motivation among employee, unskilled employees and other
problems related to general human resource management.

4. Availability of Local HR Suitable for Quality:

Many of the quality experts in Sudan believe that local HR is not trained for
quality management activities within most industry. This statement is true both
for the general staff that are present within the organization and the quality
management staff members as well.
Essential deficiencies related to quality management in local human resource
include (but not limited to):
Lack of necessary knowledge concerning computer science; software engineering
(or related) and quality management discipline, improper technical writing and

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documentation skills, lack of knowledge concerning soft skills; management in
general, languages and communications.
Major consequence (as obvious) of lack of high-quality manpower that matches
the requirement of quality management skill set is that the industry is unable to
acquire suitable human resource for the management of quality.

5. Organization’s Long Term Goals, Objectives, Mission(s) and Vision:

To start with, most of the organizations do not have a defined long or short term
objectives, goals, mission and vision. Since mostly; these things are not defined
therefore individually people fail to understand their role within the organization
and their performance criterion. Absence of mission, vision, goals and objectives
also does not allow people in understanding how these four things relate to one
another and what should be their direction of work for achieving necessary
objectives then goals then mission and then vision.
Some organizations define mission, vision, objective or goal but they do not
define objective to vision relationship as discussed earlier. Absent or unclear
objective to vision relationship hinders organization’s overall productivity.
Very few (needle in a hay stack) organizations actually understand, document,
maintain and clarify objective to goal to mission to vision relationship to their
employees. In nearly a wide majority of organizations vision, mission, objectives
and goals (defined or undefined) do not include quality as an important
parameter of consideration. The result is that general staff members lose interest
in quality as an important function of the organization.
Major reasons of discrepancies in this area are management’s limited vision and
interest in this activity.

6. Transparency:

As in knowledge of all, transparency is extremely important within an

organization for a healthy work environment. Especially in case of people
management; transparency helps a lot. Sudan’s organizations experience lack of
transparency in their everyday working. Excessive information hiding, closed door
management and strict confidential communication channels introduce sense of
less ownership among employee making them de motivated and unsatisfied. Why
transparency issues exist in Sudan’s work environment is because generally

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people like to hide information from one another in order to flatter their
supervisors whenever possible. There are other several reasons as well that are
not being discussed here due to chances of deviation from core agenda.
Other than the indirect causes, since transparency causes information hiding
therefore quality management implementation becomes difficult and weaker.

7. Quality Management Staff Member’s Career:

Career development and growth are most important motivation factors for any
employee. Unfortunately in Sudan staff members belonging to quality
management function experience problems in this area. In most of the
organizations, employees working on quality management are not given any
career growth and development options. In simpler words employees from
quality management discipline are usually not given any raises in designation and
not many options are made available to them for their general career
development.
Reason behind this phenomenon is that management in firms of Sudan usually
does not focus on quality management as an important area / function within the
organization. Mostly management members believe that staff members
belonging to quality management function play a secondary role in organization’s
core business and their importance therefore; is relatively less. Lack of
management’s commitment to quality management function results in
management’s negligence towards quality and the quality management staff
members.
Consequence of this attitude of organization’s management towards quality
management staff is that generally; the quality management staff feels de
motivated, depressed, they experience less sense of ownership within the
organization and general employee and job satisfaction is seriously affected.
It is also important to note that mostly these reasons are the core problems due
to high quality management employee turnover. Quality management
employee’s career growth and development problems create barriers for quality
management and implementation due to unstable and unsatisfied human
resource.

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8. Returns, Awards to Quality Management Staff in Case of Successful
Quality Certification:

It is extremely horrible to note that in most of the organizations in Sudan (with an

exception of few) that successfully acquire certifications (any other certification
like for example ISO Etc) quality management employees’ services are usually
terminated. If not so, in some cases usually the quality management functions
experiences downsizing. In some cases employees are not laid off directly. In such
organizations quality management employees are usually irritated to an extent
that they leave the organization themselves.
An extremely rare case organizations, that achieve quality certification retain their
employee and give benefits to them. The reason of this horrible act by the
management of organizations is much similar to the reasons stated for some
other points earlier. In simple words, interest and management’s commitment to
quality are the core factors responsible for this behavior. In addition to this,
management in most of the organization (as discussed earlier) feels that quality
management is a secondary job.
Some management members feel that quality management staff members are
only important for acquiring quality certification; This limited vision for the quality
uplift in the organizations make the presence of employees belonging to quality
management completely redundant in view of management; once the
certification is acquired.
Consequence of this act of organizations’ management is high decline of general
organization’s quality after the certification and extreme disappointment and de
motivation of the quality management staff members.

9. Quality is Subjective:

Most of the quality management experts in Sudan believe that general perception
of staff members is that quality is subjective and theoretical mainly. This approach
towards quality makes staff members lose interest in quality for objective
improvement. Although it is true that quality is slightly subjective but as far as
quality sub functions like for instance quality engineering, control, monitoring,
implementation and other sub functions are concerned, quality is extremely
objective. Since most of the staff members like to be objective in their work
therefore they perceive quality as a redundant and unimportant part of business.
This attitude makes quality management cumbersome for the quality

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management staff members. In addition to this, quality is generally an ignored
function within the organizations.

10. Team Work:

Quality management experts in Sudan feel that lack of team work extremely
undermine the quality management programs. Lack of team work is mostly due to
individualistic attitude where every person likes to represent the idea that he /
she is the reason of success and not the reason of failure.
Lack of team work also occurs due to office politics, job dissatisfaction, de
motivation among employees and most importantly due to supervisors and team
members who do not allow benefits / rewards to be dispersed equally within the
team. Since quality improvement totally depends on collective and unanimous
effort therefore lack of team work hinders quality implementation. Lack of team
work also occurs due to unclear organizational objectives, goals, performance
indicators, mission and vision.

11. Change Management:

As known to all of us change is extremely important for any organization and so is

change management important. Change management is an approach; extremely
necessary for the change of approach of individuals, teams and organizations.
Since quality management’s core responsibility is to identify and implement
macro and micro level changes necessary for organizational improvement
therefore it is extremely important that change management must be done
extremely carefully and with full devotion within the organizations. Change
management process not only controls changes in organizations, work products,
projects, processes, working methodology, procedures only rather it also includes
change management for change in attitudes, believes and behaviors of
individuals.
In Sudan, employees are generally resistant to change. Not only employees; but
also organizations, teams and their work and deliverables are not managed
through change management process.
Lack of change management within the organization for people, product, projects,
teams, processes and procedures Etc. is because of three reasons mainly.
The first reason is that change management experts (in our case quality
management staff) are not familiar of how change should be implemented.

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The second reason of resistance to change is that the new change in itself does
not seem better to relevant stakeholders than previous scenario. These two
reasons are due to lack of expertise of change agents or in our case quality
management staff members.
The third reason of deprived change management is commitment towards
improvement which is essentially less, organization wide. Some staff members are
also resistant to change as they suffer from superiority complex and feel that
their working methodology is better than anyone else as because they possess
more experience or larger knowledge pool.
Resistance to change also occurs due to general individualistic attitude, lack of
team work, office politics, less interest of staff members, job dissatisfaction and
de motivation among employees Etc.
Unsuccessful change management within the organization creates hurdles for
quality management.

12. Trainings:

Quality management process relies heavily on trainings. It is therefore extremely

necessary that trainings must be managed, effective and must be able to achieve
desired outcomes. Unfortunately, since quality management is not considered as
an important activity in Sudan therefore supervisors and employees within the
organizations do not commit to trainings for quality management. Lack of interest
in quality management trainings results in poor quality management knowledge
dispersion, absence of employees from trainings (concerning quality
management), improperly managed and ineffective trainings, dissatisfied trainers
from quality management department Etc.
Another important factor that needs consideration concerning training is that
normally the trainers (quality management employees within the organization),
who train employees of the organization for quality management, fail to deliver
trainings in efficient and effective manner; this is due to poor knowledge base of
the trainers.

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 13. Staffing & Recruitment:

TQM; in addition to its various aspects requires heavy focus on management of

people. One of the aspects of people management is that people within the
organizations must possess that right skills, expertise and attitude. In most
organizations in Sudan, heavy focus is laid on the technical expertise of the
potential staff members during staffing and recruitment process. When we use
the term right people, we essentially not only refer to the people with the right
expertise, rather we also focus on people with the right attitude and the right
skills. Since focus in most of the organizations is laid only on technical expertise of
potential employees during the recruitment and the staffing process therefore
generally the employees who are hired within the organizations lack visionary
approach towards work and in particular quality management. Most of the staff
members that are hired do not posses any knowledge of organization’s various
functions other than their core work.
Most of the staff members do not possess that right engineering, management
and soft skill knowledge. It can also be said that staff members posses depth
based knowledge of one area whereas breadth based knowledge is also essential.
These problems overall hinders quality and people management activities within
the organizations.
Here it is also important to specify that in most of the organization the
recruitment and staffing body (HR departments / Managers Etc) are not trained
and skilled enough to conduct the recruitment and the staffing process keeping in
view the organization’s mission, vision, goals and objectives.
Why focus is laid on the technical expertise only is because generally; the
management and the recruitment and staffing body within the organizations do
not possess visionary approach towards work and organizations themselves.

14. Understanding of Quality Management Sub Functions:

A widely existing problem as identified by many quality experts is that generally

staff members and quality management employees within the industry do not
understand various sub functions of quality management. In this regard
confusions exists as to what is quality control, quality monitoring, quality
management, quality monitoring, quality implementation, quality engineering
Etc. Lack of awareness of such basic level knowledge hinders basic quality
management and improvement organization wide.

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Reason behind this lack of knowledge of the quality management’s sub function is
lack of knowledge and expertise within the Sudanese Organizations and lack of
knowledge at the academic end.

15. Resource Conflicts:

Generally; in most of the Sudanese organizations (with an exception of few),

there are no dedicated quality management human resources. This scenario
naturally creates resource conflicts. Further to this; resource conflicts are also
common in case of general staff members who are always confused about how
they should manage their core work and their focus on quality.
Few reasons of resource conflicts are (but not limited to) limited funds available
to an organization, over burdened staff members, poor resource planning,
disintegrated project management, resource mismanagement, less interest of
organizations’ management in quality management program Etc.
Resource conflicts decline productivity, efficiency and effectiveness of quality
management program. It further eliminates focus of quality management and
general staff on quality management activities.

16. General Mismanagement:

General mismanagement and lack of management ability, skills and capability

within the Sudanese organizations seriously affect the overall quality
management function. This is very much true in case of Sudan where
management is not so strong and capable; however broadly speaking weak
internal management results in lack of achievement of organizational objectives,
goals and mission. In addition to this it is in actual the management that
determines the overall performance of the organization and its function. Quality
management function heavily relies on management’s commitment and
sponsorship and the right management’s vision for its success.

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Conclusion:

TQM is a holistic and ethical approach of the firms to continuously improve their
products/services or processes involving all stakeholders in order to satisfy their
customers and to improve performance and sustainability. The results give that
overall TQM practices improve all performance measures.

A ZYTEC has able to produce more with its existing resources through an
improved customer focus and streamlined work processes. With its increased
awareness of its internal and external customers, there is a greater focus on what
really needs to be accomplished in order to meet their customers’ needs and
expectations, therefore increasing their profitability through increased customer
retention; more satisfied customers’ results in greater market share. Because of
improved communication and teamwork, ZYTEC has good management-employee
relations. All problems are solved and the organization begins to run more
smoothly, employee involvement and satisfaction will increase, which will lower
turnover and absenteeism. Beside Effective customer focus efforts increase
operational performance, customer results, and market and financial
performance. Effective strategic quality planning efforts improve employee
performance and social responsibility of the firm. It can be concluded that TQM
practices improve various performance measures in the firms.

All aspects of TQM practices effectively managed in a ZYTEC because each factor
in TQM practices improves different aspects of firm performance. The synergy
among the TQM factors brings about exceptional or crucial improvements in the
firm performances. Firms in Sudan should improve employee involvement/skill
and firm structure and allocate sufficient resources to implement TQM
successfully.

One of the solutions in successful implementation of Total Quality Management is

involving the Sudan industries employees through training in gaining continuous
improvement among them. Continuous improvement can be define as the
process of identifying, analyzing and giving a solutions to problems that involve
with testing, implementing and learning process. With suitable training provided
by the employer, the skills on know-how in completing and doing their job will

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increase from time to time. By the training provided, the employees also might
have a deeper understanding on their daily jobs which lead to successful
implementation of Total Quality Management in the firms or any industries. So,
why we need continuous improvement?

This is because for proactive reasons and reactive reasons. Proactive reason are
necessary for our own vision for the future improvement and how we will be
competitive in the coming time while reactive reason focus more on the
customers and the company itself.

Training will provide standardization of processes and work where when an

employee do not how to the job, they will tend to ask others and as the result
some of the solutions given will not provide standardization to the work or
process and this will lead to unsuccessful implementation of Total Quality
Management to an industry.

For TQM to be successful, Sudan organizations must give commitment in training

employees at all levels of hierarchy. The TQM that should be provided are good
when at comprehensive training, including technical expertise, communication
skills, small-team management, problem-solving tools and customer focus.
Training also will provide a company to challenge their employees and avoid them
from being in stagnant position and some of the capabilities and abilities of the
employees could be seen and enhance from the training provided. Thus one of
the solutions in solving the barriers to implementation of Total Quality
Management is by providing continuous improvement through training.

Not to forget Leadership commitment, Knowledge and process management

practices to improve inventory management performance, innovation
performance, social responsibility, and market and financial performance.
Successful training improves operational performance, employee performance,
and customer results; and successful supplier quality management to enhance
social responsibility.

TQM is bout Efficiency and Effectiveness; Efficiency means the tendency of

working well, without wasting time, money and resources. Building efficiency at
work comes with practice; because it is only practice that makes a man perfect.
Efficiency means precision, accuracy and dexterity in the particular task which is

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at hand. According to Peter Drucker, "Efficiency is doing things right; Effectiveness
is doing the right things." Efficiency is always called for, at work. Every
organization demands dexterous and efficient people who maximize the
throughput and act as a boon for the organization. Efficiency can be acquired by
regular practice and hard work. Becoming efficient at a job increases your
chances of success tremendously. In the context of sports and winning games, Pat
Riley had remarked the following lines. Quote verbatim, "A particular shot or way
of moving the ball can be a player's personal signature, but efficiency of
performance is what wins the game for the team.”

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Ahire, S.L., and Ravichandran, T. (2001). An innovation diffusion model of TQM

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Black, S. And Porter, L. (1996). Identification of critical factors of TQM.

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Burati, J. L., Mathews, F. M., and Kalidindi, S. N. (1992). Quality management

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Donna C. S. Summers (2009), Quality Management: Creating and Sustaining

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Culp, G., Smith, A., and Abbott, J. (1993). “Implementing TQM in consulting
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