Total Quality Management (TQM) is the agreed companywide and plant wide operating work structure, documented in effective integrated technical and managerial procedures, for guiding the coordinated actions of the work force, the machines, and the information of the company and plant in the best and most practical ways to assure customer quality satisfaction and economical costs of quality.

It is often emphasised that TQM cannot be adopted on a “flavour of the month” basis. The total commitment of all levels of management on a continuing basis is absolutely essential. Many businesses that have been successful in TQM implementation are almost fanatical about it.

Requirements for implementation of Total Quality Management

For TQM to be effective, a number of requirements have to be met. These include:

• management commitment;
• customer focus;
• employee participation, knowledge and skills; and
• horizontal and vertical communication.

The extent of TQM success is dependent on the extent to which theses requirements are met. To help you to understand the importance of each one an analogy may be drawn between TQM implementation and a journey to a known destination. When you are planning to travel there are certain essentials you have to consider; for example, you must know your destination. Let us assume that you want to travel by car.

Customer focus is an essential element of TQM because customer satisfaction is like the destination in our travel analogy. Therefore customer needs and exceptions may be considered the road map for our journey, and they must be closely monitored if they are to be satisfied successfully. Hand and Plowman expressed the importance of the customer very clearly in the following two rules:

Rule 1: The customer always right
Rule 2:  If the customer is wrong, re-read rule 1

To break ground in a new market, it is essential to know what the customer wants, since affects the potential demand for the product.

Benefits of Total Quality Management

The benefits of TQM will only accure after time. The type of benefits an organisation might expect are improvements in organisational culture (for example, attitude towards work, absenteeism), products and processes (for example scrap, inventory, customer complaint) and customer satisfaction, to name a few. TQM_Powerpoint_Presentation