Total Quality Management

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

It is key to ensure that all employees within your organization know about the Total
Quality Management (TQM) policies and make them an fundamental part of their
work. Your employees should know your corporate goals and recognize the
importance of these goals to the overall success of your organization. Employees need
to know what is expected from them and why. It may sound like a no-brainer but too
often this is not driven home by management. When employees understand and share
the same vision as management a world of potential is unleashed. If they are in the
dark, commitment is lacking and policies will not be successfully deployed.

 QUALITY IMPROVEMENT CULTURE

The organizational culture needs to be modernized on a continuous basis to

encourage employee feedback. Your employees are full of valuable knowledge-
embrace it! Listen to those executing the processes that keep your business moving
daily. If employees have an idea on how to improve operations, they need to know
management respects their ideas or they will not share.

 CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT IN PROCESS

There is no standing still. If you are not moving forward, you are moving backwards.
Total Quality Management (TQM) is a continuous process and not a program. This
requires constant improvement in all the related policies, procedures and controls
established by management.  Do your research. Keep your ear to the market and make
an effort to routinely revise all aspects of your operation. There should be a constant
 effort to improve proficiency – which will result in constant scopes for improvement
(even if some improvements are small).

 FOCUS ON CUSTOMER REQUIREMENTS

In today’s market, customers require and expect perfect goods and services with
zero defects.  Focusing on customer requirements is significant to long term survival
and essential in order to build relationships with customers. People do business based
on emotion. Competitors will always be a risk. Keep your customers close and happy.
Make sure precise requirements of all customers are documented and understood by
everyone that touches the account.

 EFFECTIVE CONTROL

It is essential to monitor and measure the performance of the business.  It’s easy to
forget how many times in a year an employee does not conform to a controlled
procedure or how many times a piece of equipment was down due to unplanned
maintenance. If strict documentation is maintained, you will be able to objectively
quantify areas for improvement and focus your efforts where they will provide the
greatest return of both your time and financial resources.
 The use of TQM techniques by Tesco to improve efficiency and
effectiveness
Tesco is one of the most successful retain supermarket chains in the UK. This is because of its
service and product quality. Tesco was started as a retail company in 1920s and since then it
has expanded and grown to become among the world largest companies in the retail industry.
In terms of the revenue base, the company comes second after Wal-Mart which is a US based
company (Ciaran & Wall, 2011). Ever since it began, Tesco has continued to introduce new
products and services to satisfy the needs of its customers. Currently it mainly deals with
production and sales of food items, groceries, cloths, and electronics among other items. In
addition the company also deals in sales of houses, internet services, financial and insurance
services. These are among its latest business ventures .
The company has used the concept and philosophy of quality management to maintain its
position as the leading supermarket in the UK. It goes the extra length not to increase quality of
its services but also to maintain the quality for customer continuous satisfaction. The main
focus in quality assurance for the company is to provide customers with products and services
that will meet their needs as well as providing products and services that are free of accidents,
wastes or defects.
Quality performance objective is the most prioritized objective above all other business
strategic objectives (Ciaran & Wall, 2011). The company uses various strategies to achieve this
goal of quality. The company dedicates a highly skilled human resource to maintain and
improve the quality of services offered to its customers. Every single day, the company’s
management staff has to attend a meeting with the main agenda being total quality
management. The staff discusses ways in which every business function can be integrated or
adjusted to meet quality. The company has a quality improvement team that deals with
ensuring maintenance of quality in all the goods the company sells in its stores as well the
services it provides to its loyal customers. In addition the quality improvement team is charged
with the responsibility to identify ways of improving the quality of service to its customers
every day. This team meets on a weekly basis to lead and monitor the process of quality
assurance.
In addition to the dedication of human resource to customer service management, the
company also has principles and policies used to govern quality assurance.

The first policy is that, it is a mandatory for all employees to meet the requirements of the
customers all the time.
Secondly the policies also focus on prevention of defects in its products and errors during
the process of customer service.
The goods sold in Tesco stores must meet certain standards and this means that total quality
management according to Tesco involves also the supply chain management. Suppliers of
goods are not expected to deliver goods with defects which would cause the customers to raise
complaints.
Thirdly, the policies also focus on the verification of processes to measure whether they are
meeting the right standards for quality.
 Speed performance objective
The condition for food preparation has to be hygienic
The company also considers the quality management system of all its suppliers before getting
into business with them
Cost performance objective
Human resource management. The company has policies that ensure its team of workers is
treated with the respect it deserves
Improving quality in the products is achieved in several ways. Tesco as a company produces
its own products. Being a retain chain with stores online and in several other location in the UK,
the company gets to sell products produced by other manufacturing companies. The company
subjects all its products to testing in order to meet the required standard of quality. It inspects
all its products at every point during the process of production (Ciaran & Wall, 2011). Hygiene is
maintained especially for production of goods that require cleanliness. Food products and
pharmaceuticals are just but the example of products that require high sensitivity to
cleanliness. Therefore, a part from employing skilled workforce, the company ensures that the
people handling products that require high sensitivity to cleanliness maintain a certain level of
hygiene to mitigate errors and complains. If customers who use the food court at any of the
company’s stores complain of about the quality of food, then this would affect the business and
cause customers to develop mistrust for the company. However, when customers enjoy the
food produced by Tesco because of the quality, then they would undoubtedly develop a habit
of buying food at Tesco’s stores .
Products sold at the stores have to have marks indicating the date of expiry. This includes
both the products produced by the company and the products produced by other companies.
When a good is about to expire after staying on the shelf for too long, the quality assurance and
improvement team ensure that they are removed from the shelves and disposed properly .The
goods which are shelved on Tesco’s stores have to be fresh. As such, the company has found it
highly possible to make sells of items such as groceries and meat fresh meat products.
Perishable goods are sold within the stores on a daily basis and replenished on a daily basis. It is
hard to find highly perishable products being shelved after 24 hours . In most cases, they are
entirely sold out within the time period of 24 hours. The company also has a policy where once
perishable goods such as groceries begin to show signs of defect, they are automatically
removed from the shelves and donated to homes where they can be used immediately. The
team charged with the responsibility of quality control and assurance ensures that only
products that meet the required standards are shelved.
Quality control is therefore majorly achieved through two main methods: inspections and
testing It is a technique that is applied during the entire process of production. It is applied
before the finished product is produced and also after production .The raw materials have to be
subjected to standard testing. It cannot use raw materials that will not yield the expected
quality. Therefore selection of materials to be used in production is an crucial aspect of quality
that the company emphasizes on. Every product of the various stages of production has to be
tested to meet certain standards .
Speed is an notable emphasis in the company when it comes to performance objective. This
implies the time taken for delivery of an item once the client places an order. Customers are
highly valued and none of them is expected to wait longer than the required time for delivery
.The company simply tries to reduce cases of customer complaints by ensuring that they get
value for their money .A customer can get what he or she needs whenever they need it; and
hence it is only through speedy delivery of products that this objective can be achieved. Speed
is used when handling customers. The store customer attendants are taught to be very prompt
as they attend to customers. The company has noticed that customers can be frustrated by long
queues especially when making payments .This frustration can cause the customers to opt for
other stores or supermarkets with shorter queues. In response to this need, the company has
ensured that delivery of service at the teller points is very fast and efficient so that customers
do not have to waste their valuable time .
When speed is achieved in the operations of the company, then all the other departments
will be impacted to incorporate speed .Communication of information is done with the same
necessary speed for effectiveness. Speedy communication helps in proper record keeping. It
helps throughout the entire process of supply chain management and inventory management.
Quality in communication however is only achieved through proper IT system that integrates all
the business functional units for smooth flow of information. The company has an enterprise
resource planning system that helps to improve the quality of internal and external
communication in the company. The system enhances smooth and quick flow of
communication throughout the process of supply chain management .

Apple

The main aim of Apple Inc. is to offer high-quality products to its customers. Apple Inc. uses
the system of Total Quality Management (TQM) to keep the employees satisfied and motivated.
The great source of motivation among the team is the communication at the public forums and
effective meeting among the employees. The company uses four basic tools of TQM such as –
Control chart, Pareto chart, cause and effect diagram, and Histogram. TQM enables the
company to bring all the stakeholders together. There are various organizational factors of
Apple that influence Total Quality Management. The senior management of Apple believes that
communication is an important key for the implementation of TQM system. The principles of
the system enable the company to establish an open culture of innovation and trust.  By
implementing the system of TQM, Apple Inc. has succeeded in reducing the wastage of the
whole supply chain management. The company is able to make a balance between the
responsiveness and efficiency by taking into consideration the principles of TQM.

Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning of the brand

Apple Inc. segments people into different categories. The company generally targets the urban
population as they have enough buying power for the Apple brand products. These people are
the initial adopters of the brand but with the brand equity of the company, many others have
also started using its products.
The company has segmented its products on the basis of three broad categories of consumers:

 The main target is on the people who love and like to hear music with iTunes and iPods.
 The company targets teenagers and professionals who use MacBook, Tablets and many
such gadgets.
 The third category comprises the set of consumers who use other products and services
of Apple such as Apple I-watch, Apple TV etc.

This brand creates a topmost position by being the No. 1 brand in the world. Whenever
someone talks about buying laptops, tablets, smartphones or any other electronic gadget, the
first brand that comes to their minds is Apple.

The Competitive Advantage of Apple

At the company level, there are very few competitors of Apple, but, at the product level, there
are many competitors in line. iPhone faces competition from Android-based smartphones and
IPad faces competition from Samsung Tablets. Apart from this, there are many competitive
advantages of Apple over its competitors such as:

Superior technology products: I Watch and MacBook are considered as the leaders in their
market space due to the technology and OS they use.

Revenue over time: Because of its high margins, Apple has very deep pockets.

Research and Development (R&D): The amount of money it invests in the R&D can be
considered as the major competitive advantage. Further, it can definitely be beneficial in the
near future.

Apple's approach to its customers and business appears to have helped it to avoid falling into
some of the pitfalls described by the Seven Deadly Diseases. The former CEO, Steve Jobs
provided a clear constancy of purpose to Apple's plan, products, and services. His goal from the
foundation was simple yet towering; he aimed to change the world. The driving force behind
Apple in its beginning was to revolutionize the computer industry and shape a new
technological world. Before Apple, few had attempted to bring the computer from the office
and into the home.
This continuing idea that technology can and will help to improve society's lifestyle was
central to success that Apple has created.
While Goetsch describes the pressure on executives to produce short-term profits as
unavoidable, Steve Jobs had a different approach. "A lot of companies have chosen to
downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them.
We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of
customers, they would continue to open their wallets. This approach of focusing on quality in
their products and services would lead to unimaginable profits and a record setting stock
valuation for Apple's investors.
In terms of continuity of management and the investment Apple makes in its teams, the
company boasts a strong and dedicated collection of individuals. Amongst the team of Senior
Vice Presidents working in Hardware
Design, Internet Software and Services, iOS design, Industrial Design, Worldwide Marketing,
Operations and its CFO, the shortest serving member has been with the company since 1999,
the longest since 1989. This team of managers has provided a consistent and constant focus
towards creating quality, both in its products and within its offices.

Ikea

Obviously, the quality management was crucial for Ikea and the quality management laid the
foundation to its control system. Today, the quality management actually provides an
opportunity to increase the effectiveness and productivity of a company due to the
optimization of the existing resources of the company and fully realizing its potential.

At the same time, it should be said that quality management does not necessarily refers to the
quality of products or services solely.
In stark contrast, the modern concept of the total quality management encompasses practically
all branches of an organization and implies that quality is the priority direction in the
development of all units and work of all parts of an organization. Basically, total quality
management is a management strategy that targets at embedding awareness of quality in all
organizational processes. For instance, D. Royse (2006) defines total quality management as “a
management approach for an organization, centered on quality, based on the participation of
all its members and aiming at long-term success through customer satisfaction, and benefits to
all members of the organization and to society” (155).

Furthermore, the emergence of total quality management, especially in recent years, has
been determined by the growing importance of the quality of products and services supplied to
customers. The effective quality management was an important step on the way to gaining a
larger market share since it is more and more difficult to maintain positive performance in the
situation of a constantly growing competition. Often quality turns to be the major
advantageous of companies operating in developed countries. At the same time, quality
management also contributes to the creation of a positive public image of a company since
customers, being satisfied with the quality of products or services they receive, would readily
become loyal customers of this company. In such a way, the positive customer experience
leading to the growing popularity of the brand of a company is another argument in favor of
the wider implementation of quality management. No wonder that nowadays, many companies
have focused on the implementation of total quality management, including such companies as
Ikea and others.
 However, the implementation of quality management may be not an easy task. In actuality,
many companies may face a serious problem of the lack of the unified standards of quality that
may be a serious obstacle on the way to the improvement of quality and, therefore,
effectiveness of functioning of a company. At this point it should be said that standardization
should be one of the first steps that a company needs to make in order to develop a clear and
unified system of standards of quality.

The development of quality management is not only a popular trend in the modern business
but it is also an essential condition of the progress of any organization. In fact, nowadays,
quality is rather viewed as the major objective of the functioning of an organization leading to
the customer satisfaction. As a result, by means of the implementation of total quality, a
company can benefit consistently from the increasing of the level of customer satisfaction.
Obviously, quality management proves to be highly effective because it contributes to the
growing effectiveness and productivity of a company and, at the same time, enhances its
position in the market by means of developing a positive customer experience that naturally
leads to customer loyalty and, therefore, popularity and recognition of the company’s brand.