Total Quality Management

S.Shahrukh Haider

Introduction Competition is getting harder and becoming

global. Companies now have to be more responsive, offer a better product and keep improving. Total quality management (TQM) increases customer satisfaction by boosting quality. It does this by motivating the workforce and improving the way the company operates. In an increasingly competitive market, firms with a continuous improvement culture and external focus are more likely to survive and prosper. TQM is considered an important catalyst in this context.

What is Total Quality Management ?TQM is an approach to improving the

effectiveness and flexibilities of business as a whole. It is essentially a way of organizing and involving the whole organization, every department, every activity and every single person at every level. TQM ensures that the management adopts a strategic overview of the quality and focuses on prevention rather than inspection.

Objectives of TQM

• Meeting the customer's requirements is the primary objective and the key to organizational survival and growth.

• The second objective of TQM is continuous improvement of quality. The management should stimulate the employees in becoming increasingly competent and creative.

• Third, TQM aims at developing the relationship of openness and trust among the employees at all levels in the organisation.

Defining Quality – 5 Ways

• Conformance to specifications• Does product/service meet targets and tolerances

defined by designers?

• Fitness for use • Evaluates performance for intended use

• Value for price paid• Evaluation of usefulness vs. price paid

• Support services• Quality of support after sale

• Psychological• e.g. Ambiance, prestige, friendly staff

Manufacturing Quality vs. Service Quality

• Manufacturing quality focuses on tangible product features

• Conformance, performance, reliability, features

• Service organizations produce intangible products that must be experienced

• Quality often defined by perceptional factors like courtesy, friendliness, promptness, waiting time, consistency

Significance of TQM

The importance of TQM lies in the fact that it encourages innovation, makes the organization adaptable to change, motivates people for better quality, and integrates the business arising out of a common purpose and all these provide the organization with a valuable and distinctive competitive edge.

Elements of TQM

• Be customer focused

It requires the company to check customers' attitudes regularly and includes the idea of internal customers as well as external ones.

• Do it right the first time

This means avoiding rework, i.e., cutting the amount of defective work.

• Constantly improve

Continuous improvement allows the company gradually to get better.

• Quality is an attitude

Every one has to be committed to quality. That means changing the attitude of the entire workforce, and altering the way the company operates.

• Telling staff what is going on

This involves improved communication. Typically, it includes team briefing.

• Educate and train people

An unskilled workforce makes mistakes. Giving more skills to workers means they can do a wider range of jobs, and do them better. It also means educating staff in the principles of TQM, which is a whole new style of working.

• Measure the work.

Measurement allows the company to make decisions based on facts, not opinion. It helps to maintain standards and keep processes within the agreed tolerances.

• Top management must be involved

If senior management is not involved, the programme will fail.

• Make it a good place to workMany companies are full of fear. Staffs are afraid of the sack, their boss and making mistakes. There is no point in running a TQM program unless the company drives out fear.

• Introduce team workTeam work boosts employees' morale. It reduces conflict and solves problem by hitting them with a wider range of skills. It pushes authority and responsibility downwards and provides better, more balanced solutions.

• Organize by process, not by functionThis element of TQM seeks to reduce the barriers that exist between different departments, and concentrates on getting the product to the customer.

Elements of TQM(Addition viewpoint)

• Leadership

•Top management vision, planning and support

• Employee involvement

•All employees assume responsibility for inspecting the quality of their work.

• Product/Process Excellence

• Involves product design quality and monitoring the process for continuous improvement.

•Poka-yokes are devices that prevent defects from being produced.

Elements of TQM (cont’d)

• Continuous Improvement

•A concept that recognizes that quality improvement is a journey with no end and that there is a need for continually looking for new approaches for improving quality.

• Customer Focus (on “Fitness for Use”)

•Design quality

•Specific characteristics of a product that determine its value in the marketplace.

•Conformance quality

•The degree to which a product meets its design specifications.

Implementing TQM

• Successful Implementation of TQM

•Requires total integration of TQM into day-to-day operations.

• Causes of TQM Implementation Failures

•Lack of focus on strategic planning and core competencies.

•Obsolete, outdated organizational cultures.

Communication

For TQM to be successful, the organization must concentrate on the following key elements:

Ethics

Integrity

Trust

Training

Teamwork

Leadership

Recognition

Implementation of TQM

Roof: Recognition (Motivation)

The key elements of TQM can be divided into four groups according to their function:

Foundation: Integrity, Ethics, Trust

Building Bricks: Leadership, Teamwork,Training

Binding Mortar: Communication

Implementation of TQM

TQM fails because:

• Top management sees no reason for change.

• Top management is not concerned for its staff.

• Top management is not committed to the TQM programme.

• The company loses interest in the programme after six months.

Reasons for FAILURE

• The workforce and the management do not agree on what needs to happen.

• Urgent problems intervene.

• TQM is imposed on the workforce, which does not inwardly accept it.

• No performance measure or targets are set, so progress cannot be measured.

• Processes are not analyzed, systems are weak and procedures are not written down.

Evolution of TQM – New Focus

TQM Philosophy – What’s Different?

• Focus on Customer

• Identify and meet customer needs

• Stay tuned to changing needs, e.g. fashion styles

• Continuous Improvement

• Continuous learning and problem solving, e.g. Kaizen, 6 sigma

• Quality at the Source

• Inspection vs. prevention & problem solving

• Employee Empowerment

• Empower all employees; external and internal customers

TQM Philosophy– What’s Different? (continued)

• Understanding Quality Tools

• Ongoing training on analysis, assessment, and correction, & implementation tools

• Team Approach• Teams formed around processes – 8 to 10 people

• Meet weekly to analyze and solve problems

• Benchmarking• Studying practices at “best in class” companies

• Managing Supplier Quality• Certifying suppliers vs. receiving inspection

Four Dimensions of Quality• Quality of design

• Determining which features to include in the final design

• Quality of conformance to design

• Production processes are set up to meet design specifications

• Ease of use

• Instructions, operation, maintenance, safety

• Post-sale service

• Responsiveness, rapid repair, p.m., spare parts

Seven Problem Solving Tools

• Cause-and-Effect Diagrams

• Flowcharts

• Checklists

• Control Charts

• Scatter Diagrams

• Pareto Analysis

• Histograms

Cause-and-Effect Diagrams

• Called Fishbone Diagram

• Focused on solving identified quality problem

Flowcharts

• Used to document the detailed steps in a process

• Often the first step in Process Re-Engineering

Checklist

• Simple data check-off sheet designed to identify type of quality problems at each work station; per shift, per machine, per operator

Control Charts

• Important tool used in Statistical Process Control – Chapter 6

• The UCL and LCL are calculated limits used to show when process is in or out of control

Scatter Diagrams

• A graph that shows how two variables are related to one another

• Data can be used in a regression analysis to establish equation for the relationship

Pareto Analysis

• Technique that displays the degree of importance for each element

• Named after the 19th century Italian economist

• Often called the 80-20 Rule

• Principle is that quality problems are the result of only a few problems e.g. 80% of the problems caused by 20% of causes

Histograms

• A chart that shows the frequency distribution of observed values of a variable like service time

at a bank drive-up window

• Displays whether the distribution is symmetrical (normal) or skewed

EXTRA MATERIAL: Explanation to 7 tools of TQM

Check Sheets are simple documents that are used for collecting data in real-time. A Check Sheet is typically a blank form that is designed for the quick, easy and efficient recording of the desired information, which can be either quantitative or qualitative. When the information is quantitative, the check sheet is called a Tally Sheet.

Check Sheets

A histogram divides up the range of possible values in a data set into classes or groups. For each group, a rectangle is constructed with a base length equal to the range of values in that specific group, and an area proportional to the number of observations falling into that group.

Histograms

Scatter Diagrams are used to present measurements of two or more related variables. A Scatter Diagram does not specify dependent or independent variables. Either type of variable can be plotted on either axis. Scatter Diagrams represent the association (not causation) between two variables.

Scatter Diagrams

A control chart consists of the following:

A Centre Line (CL) drawn at the process mean value.

Lower and Upper Control Limits that indicate the threshold at which the process output is considered statistically unlikely.

Control Charts

CL

Run Charts are similar in some regards to Contol Charts, but do not show the control limits of the process. They are therefore simpler to produce, but do not allow for the full range of analytic techniques supported by Control Charts.

• Run chart: Measurement against progression of time.• Control chart: Add Upper Control Limit and Lower Control Limit

to the run chart.

Run Charts

Machine Manpower

Method Material

Problem

Ishikawa Diagram is also called Cause-and-Effect Diagram. Often are four generic heading used: 4 M´s!

Ishikawa Diagram

Also called fishbone diagrams (because of their shape) or Ishikawa diagrams.Helps in identifying root causes of the quality failure. (Helps in the diagnostic journey.)

The purpose of the Pareto Diagram is to highlight the most important set of factors among a typically largeamount of causes for a problem.

In order to develop the Pareto Diagram for a specific process, the knowledge of Frequncy, Relative Frequency, Cumulative Frequency and Percentage Frequency is needed.

Pareto Diagram