Total Quality Management’s Impact on Different Business Processes

by Business Dictionary

 

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a competitive approach to long-term success that’s derived from a dedication to customer satisfaction. Within this system, every employee in a company endeavors to enhance the products, services and internal culture to produce a streamlined set of business processes that deliver an improved customer experience.

Also commonly known as Quality Management in the United States, a TQM effort is unique in that it requires a high level of commitment to an established philosophy, with every member of the organization not only familiar with the end goal but committed to it – a dedication many attribute to the self-motivation of employees through reward-based incentives.

For the overall process to be effective, there are 10 key practices management can use to promote the culture of Total Quality Management and, in doing so, positively impact nearly every process within an organization. These include:

• Foster a continuous drive toward improving products and services
• Stop depending upon inspection to achieve quality
• Work with a single supplier to avoid having to award supplier contracts based on price alone
• Commit to a continuous reevaluation of processes related to planning, production and service to achieve improvement goals
• Provide on-the-job training to develop and retain valuable staff, including opportunities for extensive education and self-improvement for everyone
• Remove barriers between staff areas to facilitate a free-flow of collaboration and ideas
• Get rid of any slogans, exhortations and targets aimed at employees
• Do away with numerical quotas for employees and numerical goals for management
• Eliminate the barriers that erode pride of workmanship, such as an annual evaluation or merit-based system
•  
• Task everyone within the organization toward achieving the transformation goals of TQM
•  

Fostering Positive Impact through Research and Effective Leadership

The above mentioned practices related to Total Quality Management can have a profound impact on companies both large and small. To achieve the best results, there are two areas of focus that can enable the benefits of Total Quality Management to be integrated as seamlessly as possible: employee participation and benchmarking.