Quality management can be considered to have three
main components; Quality control, Quality assurance and Quality improvement.
Quality management is not focused only on product/services quality, but also
the means to achieve it, quality management therefore uses quality assurance
and control of processes as well as products to achieve more consistent
quality. Quality management adopts a number of principles that can be used by
upper management to guide their organizations towards improved performance. The
principles covers;
• Customer focus
• Leadership
• Involvement of people
• Process approach
• Factual approach to decision making
• System approach to management
• Mutually beneficial supplier relationship
• Continual improvement (Godfrey 2009).
• Involvement of people
• Process approach
• Factual approach to decision making
• System approach to management
• Mutually beneficial supplier relationship
• Continual improvement (Godfrey 2009).
Quality
management is a recent phenomenon, advance civilization that supported the arts
and craft which allowed clients to choose goods meeting higher quality
standards than normal goods. In societies where art responsibilities of a
master craftsman ( similarly for artist) was to lead their studio, train and
supervise, the importance of craftsman was diminished as mass production and
repetitive of work practices were instituted. The aim was to produce large
number of same goods (Thareja 2008).
The first proponent in the U.S for this approach was
Eli Whitney who proposed (interc1nangeabie) parts manufacture for muskets,
hence producing the identical components and creating a musket assembly line.
The next step forward was promoted by several people including Fredrick Winslow
Taylor a mechanical engineer who sought to improve industrial efficiency, who
is sometimes called “The father of scientific management”. He was one of the
intellectual leaders of the Efficiency Movement and part of his approach laid
further foundation for quality management, including aspects like
standardization and adopting improved practices.
Henry Ford also was important in beginning process and
quality management into operation in his assembly lines. In Germany Karl
Friedrich Benz, often called the inventor of the motor car, made a step in the
evolution by pursuing similar assembly and production practices, although real
mass production was properly initiated in Volkswagen after World War II from
this period onward, North American companies focused predominantly upon
production against lower cost with increased efficiency (Cook and Frank 2010).
In the evolution of Quality management Walter A.
Stewhart made a major step by creating a method for quality control for
production, using statistical methods, first processed in 1924. This became the
foundation for his ongoing work on statistical quality control. W. Edwards
Deming later applied statistical process control methods in the United States
during World War II, thereby successfully improving quality in the manufacture
of ammunitions and other strategically important products (Cook and Frank
2010).
Quality management leadership from a national
perspective has changed over the past five to six decades. After the Second
World War, Japan decided to make quality improvement a national imperative as
part of building their economy, and sought the help of Shehwart, Deming and
Juran amongst others. W. Edwards Deming championed Shewharts ideas in Japan
from 1950 onwards. In the 1950s and 1970s, Japanese goods were
synonymous with cheapness and low quality, but over time their quality
initiatives began to be successful, with Japan achieving very high levels of
quality in products from 1970s onward. A number of highly successful quality
initiatives have been invented by the Japanese; many of the methods not only
provide techniques but also have associated quality culture (i.e. people
factors). These methods are now adopted by the same western countries that are
decades earlier derided Japanese methods; these countries amongst many others
have raised their own standards and quality in order to meet International
Standards and customers demands. The I.S.O 9000 series of standards are
probably the best known International standards for quality management
(Wikipedia encyclopedia 2010).
Total
Quality Management
Total Quality Management (T.Q.M is a management
concept coined by W. Edward Deming, The basis of total quality management is to
reduce the errors produced during manufacturing or services process, increase
customer satisfaction, streamline supply chain management, aim for
modernization of equipments and ensure workers have the highest level of
training. One of the principal aims of Total quality management is to limit
errors to one per one million its of
products produced. Total quality management is often associated with the
development, deployment and maintenance of organizational systems that are
required for various business processes (wikipedia encyclopedia 2010).
According to Juran and Gryna (1999) it is an effective
technique for integrating the quality development, quality maintenance and
quality improvement efforts of the various groups in the organization so as to
guarantee production and services at the most economical level that ensures
customers satisfaction. Total quality management connotes a way of doing things
in an organization that enables the organization to consistently achieve
planned and continuous improvement in the quality of all its activities,
processes and results in order to meet or exceed the expectation of the customer.
Total quality management is a management system for a customer focused
organization that involves all employees in continual improvement of all
aspects of the organization. TQM uses strategy, data, and effective
communication to integrate the quality principles into the culture and
activities of the organization. To achieve this objective of the organization
through Total quality management, the organization should ensure that the
customers’ requirements (in all aspects) are clear, such that the products will
be designed for complete satisfaction, and waste elimination at every stage.
Hence this will ensure the running of the business in a coordinated fashion. in
a Total quality management environment all employees must strive to “DO the
right things first, first time every time” (‘Munro-Faure 1992).
Total quality management has a newer concept in the
approach to management known as Six Sigma which focuses on improving quality by
reducing the number of defects while Total quality management originally tries
to improve quality by ensuring conformance to internal requirements (Wikipedia 2010).
Principles of Total Quality Management (TQM)
1. Be
Customer Focused: Whatever you do for
quality improvement, remember that ONLY customers determine the level of quality.
Whatever you do to foster quality Improvement, training employees, integrating
quality into processes management, ONLY customers determine whether your
efforts were worthwhile
2. Insure Total Employee Involvement: You must remove fear from work place, then empower employee.., you
provide the proper improvement
Submission guidelines
3. Process
Centered: Fundamental part of TQM is
to focus on process thinking.
4. Integrated
System: All employees must know the
business mission and vision. An integrated business system may be modeled by
MBNQA or ISO 9000
5. Strategic and systematic approach:
Strategic plan must integrate quality as core component.
6. Continual Improvement: Using analytical, quality tools, and creative
thinking to become more efficient and effective.
7. Fact Based Decision Making: Decision making must is only on data, not personal or
situational thinking.
8. Communication: Communication strategy,
method and timeliness must be well defined.
TQM
Implementation Approaches
You can’t implement just one effective solution for
planning and implementing TQM concepts in all situations. Below we list generic
models for implementing total quality management theory:
1.
Train top management on TQM
principles.
2.
Assess the current: Culture,
customer satisfaction, and quality
management system.
3. Top
management determines the core values and principles and communicates them.
4.
Develop a TQM master plan based on
steps 1, 2, 3.
5. Identify and prioritize customer needs and determine
products or service to meet those needs.
6. Determine
the critical processes that produce those product’s or services.
7.
Create process improvement teams.
8. Managers
support the efforts by planning, training, and providing resources to the team.
9. Management
integrates changes for improvement in daily process management. After
improvements standardization takes place.
10. Evaluate
progress against plan and adjust as needed.
11. Provide
constant employee awareness and feedback. Establish an employee reward!
recognition process. (Shane 2003).
Commitment to Quality
Quality in engineering and manufacturing, business has
a pragmatic interpretation as the non-conformance or superiority of something.
Quality is a perpetual, conditional and some what subjective attribute and may
be misunderstood differently by different people. Consumers may focus on the
specification of quality product and services, or how it compares to
competitors in the market place. Producers might ensure the conformance quality,
or degree to which the product/services were produced correctly, many different
techniques and concepts have evolved to improve product/services quality. There
are two common quality related functions within a business, one is quality
assurance which is the prevention of defects, and the other is quality control
which is the detection of defects, commonly associated with testing which takes
place within a quality management system typically referred to as verification
and validation (Feldman 2005).
In the business world quality has various
interpretations, ISO 9000; Degree to which a set of inherent characteristics
fulfills requirements or expectations (Wagner and Mesinger 2006).
In the manufacturing industry it is commonly stated
that “Quality drives productivity”. Improved productivity is a source of
greater revenues, employment opportunities and technological advances, however,
this has not been the case historically, and in the early 19th Century it ias
recognized that some markets, such as Asia, preferred cheaper products to those
of quality. Most discussions of quality refer to a finish part, wherever it is
in the process. Inspection, which is what, quality assurance usually means, is
historically, since the work is done. The best way to think about quality is in
process control, if the process is under control, inspection is not necessary
Wegner and Mesinger 2006).
However, there is one characteristic of modem quality
that is universal, in the past when we tried to improve quality. typically defined
as producing fewer longer cycle time. However when modem quality techniques are
applied correctly to business, engineering, manufacturing or assembly
processes, all aspects of quality, customer satisfaction and fewer
defects/errors, cycle time and task time/productivity and total cost etc must
all improve or at least remain stable and not decline (Almeida and Merria
2007).
The most progressive view of quality is that it is
defined entirely by the customer or end user and is based on the persons evaluation
of his/her entire customer experience, which is the aggregate of all the touch
points that customers have with the company’s products and services (Selden
1998).
According to Drucker (2005), quality in a
product or service is not what the supplier puts in but what the customer gets
out and is willing to pay for. The dimension of quality refers to the
attributes that quality achieves in operation, management supports
dependability, dependability supports speed, speed supports flexibility, and
flexibility supports cost.
QUALITY<>DEPENDABILITY<>SPEED<>FLEXIBILITY<>COST
(Almeida and Meria 2007).
(Almeida and Meria 2007).
Total quality management commits an organization to
achieve quality in everything because quality is a means of attaining
production excellence. Therefore a company that consistently maintains high
standards of product and service quality. in the face of changing environments
and customers demands will achieve production excellence (Munro Faure 1992).
Quality Standards
The international organization for standardization
(ISO) created the quality management system(QMS) standards in 1987, they were
the 1509000: 1987 series of standard comprising ISO 9001: 1987, ISO 9002: 1987
and ISO 9003: 1987 which were applicable in different types of activity or
process, designing, production or service delivery (ISO Journal 2010).
The standards are reviewed every few years by the
International organization for standardization. The version in 1994 was called
the ISO 9000: 1994 series comprising of the ISO 9001:1994:9002:1994 and
9003:1994 versions. The last major versions was called ISO 9002 and 9003
standards were integrated into a single certifiable standards ISO 9001:2008,
after December 2003, organizations holding ISO 9002 or 9003 standards had to
complete a transition to the new standards.
The last released versions, ISO 9001:2008, contains
many of the changes to improve consistency in grammar, facilitating translation
of the standard into other languages for use by over 950,000 certified
organization in the 175 countries of the world that uses the standard. The ISO
9004:2000 document gives guidelines for performance improvement over and above
the basic standard (ISO 9001:2000). This standard provides a measurement
framework for improved quality management, similar to and based upon the
measurement framework for production assessment, and to certify the processes
and the system of an organization, not the product or service itself (ISO
Journal 2010).
Pillars of Total Quality Management
According to Agoiagoh (1995), Total Quality Management
rest on four pillars in which are:
• A total commitment to the customer
• A total commitment to continuous quality improvement
• A total commitment to quality
• A total commitment to employee ownership
• A total commitment to continuous quality improvement
• A total commitment to quality
• A total commitment to employee ownership
Total Commitment to Customer
As noted by Agoiagoh (1995) the traditional concept of
customer sees the customer as being external to an organization, that is the
end user of the organizations finished products or service. But in Total
quality management concept of consumer, two types of consumers exist, the
external customer and the internal customer, while the external customer is as
traditionally conceived i.e. end-user of the organizations final products or
services, the internal customer is employee inside the organization who uses
the end product or services of another employees work. Since in any
organization, each employee will both give and receive services from other
employees, the implication of TQM concept of customers to one another and
therefore need to be regarded exactly the same way as the external customer is
regarded.
The Commitment to Continuous Quality Improvement
The objective of improvement is to continuously
improve quality by eliminating non-conformance in every activity through out
the company. The benefits that occur from a successful Quality improvement
programs include; improvedcustomer satisfaction, elimination of errors and
wastes, reduction in operation costs; increased motivation and commitment of
employees; increased profitability and competitiveness. Agoiagoh (1995), described
commitment to continuous quality improvement as the backbone of TQM which
emphasizes on:
• Seeking
better ways to perform activities and achieve results
• Quality
improvement as a never ending process that will go on forever
• Continuous
quality improvement as always planned and brought in a structured rather than
in a haphazard way.
•
Management’s commitment to quality as being continuous and for all time.
The Commitment to Quality
Total quality management commits an organization to
achieve quality in everything because quality is a means for attaining
production excellence, therefore an organization that consistently maintains
high standards of products and service quality, in the face of changing
environments and customer demand will be an excellent company. Though quality is one of the misunderstood
issues in business today, yet it is central to the survival of even the largest
organizations Mnro-Faure 1992).
The TQM concept of quality is radically different from
other concepts on the following grounds:
It is customer centered, which means that quality if
it does not meet the needs of the customer as defined by the customer. That the
customer expectation/needs in product or service can be precisely defined and
measured. Indeed from this point of view, if the expectation/needs is not
precisely defined before hand, then it is not quality. This could be done using
questionnaires and interviews. Quality is achieved not by reducing cost parse
but by reducing certain types of cost. The emphasis on providing defect free
goods and services means higher investment in preventing rather than correcting
defects after the have occurred. As Munro-Faure (1992) noted, correction is
often more expensive than prevention.
DIAGRAM
Quality Cost Reduction
P - Prevention Cost
A - Appraisal Cost
F - Failure Cost
NAC - Normal Activity Base
Business to ensure that total services provided t ;
Time
The
customer conforms to the customer’s requirements. They include
• The cost directly associated with providing the end product or
• The cost directly associated with providing the end product or
service which the customer purchases
• The cost associated with support activities
• The cost associated with support activities
• The hidden cost such as missed
opportunities and poor morale.
Basically, quality cost is classified into cost of conformance and cost of nonconformance.
1. Cost of conformance
Basically, quality cost is classified into cost of conformance and cost of nonconformance.
1. Cost of conformance
As Crosby (1979), noted cost of conformance or
prevention cost are cost of all activities undertaken to prevent defects in
design and development, purchasing, labour and other aspects of beginning and
creating products or services.
2. Cost of non-conformance.
Cost of non-conformance is all cost incurred because
failure occurs, if there were no failure, there would be no requirement for
appraisal and correcting activities. These costs are incurred as a result of
either, not doing the right job, or not completing an activity right.
Non-conformance cost includes:
• Appraisal Cost
• Internal Failure Cost
• External Cost
Appraisal cost
• Appraisal Cost
• Internal Failure Cost
• External Cost
Appraisal cost
Crosby (1979) described appraisal cost as cost
incurred while conducting inspection test and other planned evaluation used to
determine whether produced hardware, software or services conform to their
requirements. An example includes prototype inspection and test, production
specification conformance analysis, supplier surveillance, receiving inspection
and test.
Internal Failure Cost
According to Montgomery (1979), internal failure costs
are cost incurred when products components materials and services fails to meet
quality requirements and failure is discovered prior to delivery of the product
to the customer. Example includes scrap, rework, reset, failure analysis and
downgrading.
External Failure Cost
External failure cost occurs when the product does not
perform satisfactorily after it is supplied to the customer. Example includes
complaint adjustment, return products/materials and warranty charges.
The Commitment To Employee Ownership
Total quality management recognizes the contribution
which every employee can make and therefore seek to harness the skill and
enthusiasm of every one in the organization.
Paluchowski (1998) noted that a company will get to no
where if all thinking is left to management, the attainment of quality
objectives is therefore “everybody’s” job, from top management to the foreman.
This means that TQM commits the organization to tap into and rely heavily on
the creative abilities of all the employees which otherwise would remain
dormant. TQM empowers every all employee to take part in taking decisions that
were taken previously only by the managers.