MBA 401- TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Principal Elements of the Function of Quality Organization

Total quality management is an approach that first originated in the 1950s and became popular
in the early 1980s. It is a continuous effort of an organization in which the management and
employees ensure customer satisfaction and customer loyalty by being completely involved in
the production of goods and services that satisfy their customers.

It is a combination of management and quality tools that focus on increasing the business
prospects and reducing the losses caused by uneconomical practices. Total quality is a
collection of attitude, organization, and culture of the company. It is infinitely adaptable and
variable. It uses a set of tools and techniques for process improvement called six sigma. It is
one of the widely used processes in which 99.96% produced results are expected to be defect
free. Many companies including Motorola, Toyota Motor Company, Ford Motor company etc.
have implemented Total Quality Management. TQM acts as a foundation for many activities in
an organization such as:

1. Improving teams
2. Meeting customer needs
3. Reducing time of development cycles
4. Employee involvement
5. Reducing service and product cost
6. Challenging goals
7. Empowerment of the employee

 Principles of Total Quality Management:

The key principles of total quality management include:

1. Management Commitment
2. Employee empowerment.
3. Decision making
4. Continuous improvement
5. Customer focus

 Key elements of Total Quality Management:

In order to implement total quality management successfully, an organization must concentrate

on the eight elements. These elements drive the force behind improvement, leadership, design
and planning initiatives. These are:

1. Ethics
2. Integrity
3. Trust
4. Training
5. Teamwork
6. Leadership
 7. Recognition
8. Communication

The eight elements are categorized into groups of four depending on their function. The groups
are:

1. Foundation:

The entire process of Total Quality Management lies on the foundation of the elements
consisting of ethics, integrity, and trust. TQM involves every employee in this level irrespective
of their designation.

Ethics:

Ethics is an element that is concerned with the understanding of the good and bad in any
situation at the workplace. It is a subject related to the organization as well as the individual.
Ethics of an organization set up the business code which outlines the guidelines that every
employee is expected to follow. The individual ethics incorporate the rights and wrongs.

Integrity:

Integrity is an element which refers to the morals, honesty, values, and sincerity of an individual
in the organization. It involves respecting fellow workers and the policies of the organization.
This is one of the important characteristics for which the customers expect.

Trust:

The by-product of ethical conduct and integrity is trust. The framework of Total Quality
Management cannot be built without trust. It stimulates complete participation of all members in
the organization. It improves the relationship among employees which helps in better decision
making. It also promotes continuous improvement by individual risk-taking.

2. Building bricks:

Based on the foundation of ethics, integrity, and trust, bricks are a collection of elements which
are placed in order to reach the roof of recognition. The elements of the building bricks include:

Training:

To be highly productive, employees must be trained. This responsibility falls solely on the
supervisors who are responsible for implementing Total Quality Management in their respective
departments. Employees must be trained under decision making, problem-solving, interpersonal
skills, technical skills, and business economics. This is done so that the employees can work
effectively and produce efficient results.
Teamwork:

Teamwork is a crucial element of TQM. It helps the business to receive effective and efficient
solutions to the problems. Teams also provide a permanent improvement in process and
operation. TQM organizations usually adopt three types of teams. They are:

 Quality improvement team: Also known as excellence teams whose purpose is to deal
with the problems that recur often. They are set up for 3 to 12 months.
 Problem-solving team: These teams are set up to solve certain problems and also to
identify the root cause of those problems. They usually last from 1 week to 3 months.
 Natural work team: These teams consist of a group of skilled individuals who share
responsibilities and tasks. They usually work for an hour to two every week.

Leadership:

Leadership is a quality trait of a person who provides an inspiring vision to the team and sets
strategic directions to be understood by all. This is one of the crucial elements which must be
constructive, effective and positive.

3. Binding mortar:

Binding mortar is an element which binds all the other elements together. The key element of
this category is Communication.

Communication:

Communication binds the organization together and is the core element of success. It is
necessary to make sure that all the levels of communication among the suppliers, member and
the customers are kept open. The communication among employees or the members of the
organization is done in three ways. They are:

 Downward communication: Downward communication is the central form of

communication in any organization. It is basically done through discussions and
presentations.
 Upward communication: Upward communication provides a platform to build trust
amongst the employees and the supervisors.
 Sideways communication: This type of communication takes place among various
departments. It allows dealing with customers and suppliers in a professional way and
helps break down the barriers between the departments.

4. Roof:

The roof consists of a final element which tops off all the other elements of TQM. It is called
recognition.
Recognition:

This element involves the suggestions and achievements for the teams and the individuals
including positive feedback and encouragement. Every employee seeks recognition and it is the
duty of the supervisor to detect and recognize the contributors and motivate them. This
increases self-esteem and boosts performance and morale in an individual.

Conclusion:

These elements help an organization to effectively implement total quality and ensure they meet
all the requirements of its customers. This helps them to focus on customer satisfaction and can
help in the growth of the organization.

Various tools can be used to implement TQM such as PDCA cycle, fishbone diagrams,
histograms etc. These tools help can be used in any situation and can provide efficient outputs
when used correctly.

TQM Models

Following are the various models of total quality management:

 Deming Application Prize

 Malcolm Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence
 European Foundation for Quality Management, and
 ISO quality management standards

Customers and their feedbacks are the foundation of every Total Quality Management model. In
simpler words, Total Quality Management begins with understanding customers, their needs
and what they expect from the organization. Design foolproof processes and systems to collect
customer data, information to further study, analyze and act accordingly. Such activities not only
help you understand your target customers but also predict customer behaviour.

As a business marketer, you need to know the age group of your target customers, their
preferences and needs. Employees need to know how their products or services can fulfil
customer needs and demands.

Total Quality Management model requires meticulous planning and research. Every total quality
management model integrates customer feedbacks with relevant information and plans
accordingly to design effective strategies to achieve high quality products.

Strategies formulated to yield better quality products need to be evaluated and reviewed from
time to time. Remember, customers are satisfied only when products meet their expectations,
fulfil their needs and are value for money. Their overall experience with the organization needs
to be pleasant for them to be happy and return to the organization even the next time.

Continuous improvements, changes and modifications in the existing processes according to

customer expectations are necessary to yield higher profits. Processes can’t be same always. If
a customer complaint about a particular product of yours, find out the root cause of problem.
Understand and implement necessary total quality management models to rectify the problem,
remove the defect for a high-quality product.

The successful implementation of Total quality Management model needs extensive planning
and most importantly participation of every single member who is benefitted out of the
organization(Management, suppliers, clients and even customers). Without the participation of
each and every employee, total quality management model would be a complete failure.

Total Quality Management model begins with research and collecting information about end-
users followed by planning and full participation of employees for successful implementation.
Top level Management needs to make other team members aware of the benefits of total quality
management process, importance of quality to survive in the long run and how they can
implement various TQM models by prioritizing their customers and their feedbacks.

Deming's 14 Points for Achieving Quality Excellence

The concept of quality is at the core of many of our ideas about effective management and
leadership, and programs like Total Quality Management  and Six Sigma  have been at the
heart of many companies' success.
We know now that quality needs to be built into every level of a company, and become part of
everything the organization does. From answering the phone to assembling products and
serving the end customer, quality is key to organizational success.

This idea is very much a part of modern management philosophy. But where did this idea
originate? Before things like globalization and technological advances became so important,
competitive pressures were typically much lower, and companies were usually satisfied with
focusing their quality efforts on the production process alone. Now, quality is often thought to
start and end with the customer, and all points leading to and from the customer must aim for
high-quality service and interaction.

A New Business Philosophy

We owe this transformative thinking to Dr. W. Edwards Deming. A statistician who went to
Japan to help with the census after World War II, Deming also taught statistical process control
to leaders of prominent Japanese businesses. His message was this: By improving quality,
companies will decrease expenses as well as increase productivity and market share.

After applying Deming's techniques, Japanese businesses like Toyota, Fuji, and Sony saw great
success. Their quality was far superior to that of their global competitors, and their costs were
lower. The demand for Japanese products soared – and by the 1970s, many of these
companies dominated the global market. American and European companies realized that they
could no longer ignore the quality revolution.

So the business world developed a new appreciation for the effect of quality on production and
price. Although Deming didn't create the name Total Quality Management, he's credited with
starting the movement. He didn't receive much recognition for his work until 1982, when he
wrote the book now titled "Out of the Crisis." This book summarized his famous 14-point
management philosophy.

There's much to learn from these 14 points. Study after study of highly successful companies
shows that following the philosophy leads to significant improvements. That's why these 14
points have become a standard reference for quality transformation.

Note:

Deming's points apply to any type and size of business. Service companies need to control
quality just as much as manufacturing companies. And the philosophy applies equally to large
multinational corporations, different divisions or departments within a company, and one-man
operations.

The 14 Points

1. Create a constant purpose toward improvement.

 Plan for quality in the long term.

 Resist reacting with short-term solutions.

 Don't just do the same things better – find better things to do.

 Predict and prepare for future challenges, and always have the goal of getting
better.

2. Adopt the new philosophy.

 Embrace quality throughout the organization.

 Put your customers' needs first, rather than react to competitive pressure – and
design products and services to meet those needs.

 Be prepared for a major change in the way business is done. It's about leading,
not simply managing.

 Create your quality vision, and implement it.

3. Stop depending on inspections.

 Inspections are costly and unreliable – and they don't improve quality, they
merely find a lack of quality.

 Build quality into the process from start to finish.

 Don't just find what you did wrong – eliminate the "wrongs" altogether.
  Use statistical control methods – not physical inspections alone – to prove that
the process is working.

4. Use a single supplier for any one item.

 Quality relies on consistency – the less variation you have in the input, the less
variation you'll have in the output.

 Look at suppliers as your partners in quality. Encourage them to spend time

improving their own quality – they shouldn't compete for your business based on price
alone.

 Analyze the total cost to you, not just the initial cost of the product.

 Use quality statistics to ensure that suppliers meet your quality standards.

5. Improve constantly and forever.

 Continuously improve your systems and processes. Deming promoted the Plan-
Do-Check-Act  approach to process analysis and improvement.
 Emphasize training and education so everyone can do their jobs better.

 Use kaizen  as a model to reduce waste and to improve productivity,

effectiveness, and safety.
6. Use training on the job.
 Train for consistency to help reduce variation.

 Build a foundation of common knowledge.

 Allow workers to understand their roles in the "big picture."

 Encourage staff to learn from one another, and provide a culture and
environment for effective teamwork.

7. Implement leadership.
 Expect your supervisors and managers to understand their workers and the
processes they use.

 Don't simply supervise – provide support and resources so that each staff
member can do his or her best. Be a coach instead of a policeman.

 Figure out what each person actually needs to do his or her best.

 Emphasize the importance of participative management and transformational

leadership.
  Find ways to reach full potential, and don't just focus on meeting targets and
quotas.

8. Eliminate fear.
 Allow people to perform at their best by ensuring that they're not afraid to
express ideas or concerns.

 Let everyone know that the goal is to achieve high quality by doing more things
right – and that you're not interested in blaming people when mistakes happen.

 Make workers feel valued, and encourage them to look for better ways to do
things.

 Ensure that your leaders are approachable and that they work with teams to act
in the company's best interests.

 Use open and honest communication to remove fear from the organization.

9. Break down barriers between departments.

 Build the "internal customer" concept – recognize that each department or
function serves other departments that use their output.

 Build a shared vision.

 Use cross-functional teamwork to build understanding and reduce adversarial

relationships.

 Focus on collaboration and consensus instead of compromise.

10. Get rid of unclear slogans.

 Let people know exactly what you want – don't make them guess. "Excellence in
service" is short and memorable, but what does it mean? How is it achieved? The
message is clearer in a slogan like "You can do better if you try."

 Don't let words and nice-sounding phrases replace effective leadership. Outline
your expectations, and then praise people face-to-face for doing good work.

11. Eliminate management by objectives.

 Look at how the process is carried out, not just numerical targets. Deming said
that production targets encourage high output and low quality.

 Provide support and resources so that production levels and quality are high and
achievable.
  Measure the process rather than the people behind the process.

Tip:

There are situations in which approaches like Management By Objectives  are appropriate, for

example, in motivating sales-people. As Deming points out, however, there are many situations
where a focus on objectives can lead people to cut corners with quality. You'll need to decide for
yourself whether or not to use these approaches. If you do, make sure that you think through
the behaviors that your objectives will motivate.

12. Remove barriers to pride of workmanship.

 Allow everyone to take pride in their work without being rated or
compared.

 Treat workers the same, and don't make them compete with other workers
for monetary or other rewards. Over time, the quality system will naturally
raise the level of everyone's work to an equally high level.

13. Implement education and self-improvement.

 Improve the current skills of workers.

 Encourage people to learn new skills to prepare for future changes and
challenges.

 Build skills to make your workforce more adaptable to change, and better
able to find and achieve improvements.

14. Make "transformation" everyone's job.

 Improve your overall organization by having each person take a step toward
quality.

 Analyze each small step, and understand how it fits into the larger picture.

 Use effective change management principles to introduce the new philosophy

and ideas in Deming's 14 points.

Leadership Styles

Although many organizations are in the process of implementing TQM, varying degrees of
success are reported. Leadership plays a critical role in the sponsorship of TQM within
organizations and sets the culture necessary for TQM to flourish. This article will explore some
of the important interfaces between effective leadership and successful TQM. The intention is to
demonstrate that TQM without the right leadership cannot fully succeed and that the principles
of effective leadership can be learned and practiced.
 1. Transformational Leadership - Transformational leadership is defined as a leadership
approach that causes change in individuals and social systems. In its ideal form, it
creates valuable and positive change in the followers with the end goal of developing
followers into leaders. Enacted in its authentic form, transformational leadership
enhances the motivation, morale and performance of followers through a variety of
mechanisms. These include connecting the follower's sense of identity and self to the
mission and the collective identity of the organization; being a role model for followers
that inspires them; challenging followers to take greater ownership for their work, and
understanding the strengths and weaknesses of followers, so the leader can align
followers with tasks that optimize their performance...
2. Servant Leadership - According to Greenleaf’s observations, the servant leader
approaches situations and organizations from the perspective of a servant first, looking
to lend their presence to answer the needs of the organization and others. Servant
leaders seek to address stakeholder wants and requirements as their priority, with
leadership to be pursued secondarily. This contrasts with the leader-first perspective,
wherein a person aims to gain control quickly often driven by the desire and prospects
for material gain or influence.
3. Adaptive Leadership - Adaptive leadership is a practical leadership framework that
helps individuals and organizations to adapt to changing environments and effectively
respond to recurring problems. First, the change itself needs to be considered to
subsequently take on challenges and respond to the change.
4. Rational Leadership – Rational means to think in a reasonable way. Rational leaders
make statements, decisions, or judgements using reasoned thinking, based on facts,
and applying rules (Chris, 2009). Hughes et al. (2006) and Teresa (2013) defined that
the rational leaders are the goal oriented and behave as they do because they believe
that performing their chosen actions has more benefits than costs. They make rational
choices based on their goals, and those choices govern their behavior. Furthermore,
they accept the shortcomings as well as talents and look at the only facts behind before
making a decision.
5. Leadership for Kinesthetic Learning Style - Kinesthetic learning style means that
when you need to make a decision, you don’t want to read information, listen to lectures,
or review charts and data. You’d much rather personally experience a concept, process,
or person in order to draw a firm conclusion.

That’s because you’re most convinced when you’re able to do something yourself.
You’ve been known to say, “I won’t know until I try it” and you’re always looking for ways
that you can be more hands-on before reaching a decision. 

Your high propensity for doing gives you great perspective, but it can also mean it’s
difficult for you to make a choice in circumstances where you’re unable to experience
something on your own.
Source: (PDF) Leadership Styles and their relationship with TQM Focus for Indian Firms: An
Empirical Investigation (researchgate.net)

Why Time Management is Important in Corporates?

 Every organization works on deadlines. Time Management helps individuals to finish

work within the assigned time and stay stress free and relaxed throughout the day. Time
Management helps you plan specific time slots for all your day-to-day tasks at
workplace.
 Time Management helps an individual to prioritize things. It is important for an
employee to understand what is important and urgent at the moment. Staying
overburdened at work leads to frustration and eventually one loses interest in work. You
can’t do anything and everything. Pick up all that is important and urgent at the start of
the day and finish it off first before starting with something which can be done a little
later. Know what is important for you. Allocate specific time slots to activities as per their
relevance and make sure you stick to the same.
 Effective Time Management makes you a favourite amongst your superiors,
clients as well as fellow workers. Do not keep work pending from your end. Finish off
tasks as and when required. Ignoring critical issues is pointless. You have to do it in any
case. Discuss with your co-workers or immediate reporting boss and find out a solution.
Keeping a check on your time helps your complete task just when it is needed.
 Managing time well helps an employee to plan his career path effectively. Doing
things on time helps you reach the top of your career within the shortest possible time
frame. Employees who just work for the sake of doing work and do not pay attention to
deadlines are never taken seriously at the workplace. They are the ones who always crib
and complain of excessive workload.
 Time Management makes you an organized individual. One needs to keep things at
their respective places. Avoid keeping heaps of paper and stacks of files on your desk.
Not only it gives a cluttered look to your workstation but also wastes half of your time in
searching important documents, files, folders and so on. Individuals should prefer writing
on notepads instead of loose papers.
 Effective Time Management helps an individual to identify the time wasters at the
workplace. It is foolish to waste time on unproductive things which yield no results. No
one expects you to work at a stretch for the whole day. Assign some time in your daily
schedule to check updates on social networking sites or calling up your friends but do
know where to draw the line. Your office does not pay you for gossiping and loitering
around.
 Time Management makes an individual disciplined and punctual. One gets in the
habit of reaching work on time as a result of effective time management.