What are the major steps for an organization to follow in implementing TQM?

Manager has to lay greater emphasis on the checking of results. For example, changes in the current management information system may be initiated so as to produce verifiable results on quality and quantity. Quality aspects should be integrated into the way in which success is judged.

2. Briefing Quality

Employees at all levels are to be educated in order to have clear idea through face-to-face communication or through team briefing. Regular quality briefings will make a significant contribution to overall improvement. Briefing must be conducted by the immediate boss with an emphasis on local achievements, difficulties and targets.

3. Consultation

Consultation about the work should be improved as consultation by experts will improve quality and methods of work. Consultation improves the sense of belongingness and has a psychological impact in helping people in making valuable contributions. It provides an opportunity to the employees to concentrate on customer needs. Consultation may be informal or formal through the methods like quality circles and suggestion schemes.

4. Lateral Communication

An early involvement of specialists in marketing, designers, accounting and production engineers in product design results in successful product design. The interdepartmental free flow of communication and interpersonal free-flow communication results in perfect sharing of information of feeding the information forward in order to eradicate the possible failures / defects.

5. External Communication

The employees should understand the cost of failing to private a zero defect product and provide an efficient and courteous service. Those who deal with the customers have the most important job of ensuring high standards of quality of the product and service. They should have the flow of information from external sources regarding the customer needs and expectations.

6. Structure

The closely related aspect to communication is structuring the relationships among the people clear, unambiguous lines of accountability for people are needed. People should work in teams. The teams should be of manageable size of 4 to 15. Quality must report to the line.

7. Quality Targets

Clear and specific quality improvement targets must be set for each job holder. This act gives the feeling to everyone that he/she is associated with the quality issues. Individuals must also be provided with support to achieve these targets.

8. Harmonization

The organizations should ensure harmonization by respecting and communicating the contributions of all the employees in order to make a progress towards total quality. This practice will avoid the “them against us” Syndrome.

9. Training

Every employee should be trained towards total quality, its philosophy, practices and outcome. Infact, training should be continuous and for all levels of employees.

10. Continuous Improvement

Total quality is a must in to-day’s economic scenario, where competition is the order of the day. Meeting the competition efficiently requires satisfying the present and future expected and even unexpected needs of the customer. Meeting the customer needs competition is a continuous and never ending phenomenon.

Therefore, quality improvement is a continuous effort on the part of all organizations. Total quality also requires the development of new procedures and structures. Development of effective leadership at work is necessary to persuade the people to deliver quality to customers. Realignment of work, procedures and organizational culture is a part of total quality.

Organizations should see the total quality as a ‘way of life’ at work using everybody’s Ideas and Expertise.

The past decade has seen many organizations focus on Total Quality Management (TQM). In spite of the current competitiveness of the business climate, every organization’s desires to survive, be successful, to expand and grow. Total quality management (TQM) is a technique of managing to enhance efficiency, profits, market share, cohesiveness, flexibility and competitiveness of a firm as a whole. But, for that, you need to do careful planning and good management quality for their products and services. The following factors are considered as essential and crucial for achieving successful TQM execution within any company.

1)    Management commitment and understanding:

It is utmost important that every worker within an organization must be aware of the Total quality management policies. These policies should be made a significant part of their work. Every employee needs to know your company’s “ifs and buts.” Also, the importance of corporate goals to the overall success of your firm. Every employee must know about their priorities, tasks, goals, and what is expected from them and why.  The world of potential is unleashed if employees comprehend the company’s vision and share the same as management. When the vision is blurry, there is a lack of commitment and policies are not able to deploy successfully.

2)    Customer focus:

Customer focus means a degree to which an organization continually satisfies customer requirements. Such firms can be expected as a successful firm as it recognizes the need to put the customer first in every decision made. The most important thing to quality management is maintaining a closer relationship with the customer. It helps determine the customer’s taste, colour, and preferences. Therefore, it is necessary to get the customer closely involved in the product design and development with valuable input to every stage. The customer allows an organization to exist; thus, prioritizing customer is one of the major factors of the framework of Total quality management. Every element should focus on total customer satisfaction, both internal and external.

3)    Employees involvement and participation:

TQM environment or culture needs committed and skilled employees, who all can fully participate in the activities performed to improve the quality. A company must encourage all its employees at all levels to take responsibility. You must also boost them to communicate well toward refining the quality at all production stages. Since managers and supervisors hire the employees, so they should consider the employees as intelligent and having effective ideas. The workforce within the company is considered as internal customers. Thus, they need to be well contented to achieve complete satisfaction for its external customers. It is as if they are happy, they will keep others happy.

4)    Training and education:

Training and education in any filed is utmost important in determining the success of Total quality management. You should consider that empowerment and involvement is not that effective unless employees receive formal, systematic quality management course. Education and training programs should target everyone working in the organization as the quality under the Total quality management. It is the responsibility of everyone to get involved in such training programs conducted by the organization. The training programs help employees from the top management to the labour-force to understand the philosophies of TQM.

5)    Communication:

Communicating in a good way allows that TQM to be more approachable, leading to reduce one’s fear. Good communication is like cement that holds bricks of the Total quality management process. Direct communication between employees and supervisors, face-to-face interaction, and a good feedback system are very significant in conveying ideas to the management and integrating the essential change required.

6)    Culture:

The culture within a company is nothing but the interaction that takes place between employees within an organization. A relationship gets created within the employees by their behaviour. Culture, in other words, can be described as the beliefs which permeate the company regarding the processes. These processes tell us how to conduct the business, how the employees must behave, and the way they prefer to be treated. Total quality management culture consists of a co-operative and open culture, which is needed to be created by the organization management. In TQM culture, all the employees are made to feel considered; it happens only if they are involved in the development of the vision, strategies, and plans of the organization. The implementation of TQM culture is important because employees are unlikely to behave in an acceptable, responsible manner. It happens in the case where they see the management behaving irresponsibly and saying something or acting in opposition to it.    

Conclusion:

Till now, you must have understood that all the above mentioned are the key factors for a successful TQM implementation. Leaders should be the first to provide the initiative to apply Total Quality Management, as well as support quality programs.

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