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Total Quality Management

TQM is a way of managing the whole to achieve excellence in what you do.

If you are a business, TQM answers the following question:

  • How to become the best in what you do.

Also offers tools and techniques to achieve it. Answer to the first question has two folds,

  • What you do, and
  • How to do it better

Essentially writing down what you do and figuring out how to do it better. In doing so get buy-in from management and involve entire organization in the process.

Basic Approach

  • Commitment & Support from management
  • Focus on customers, internal and external
  • Involvement of entire workforce
  • Continuous Improvement of business and process
  • Treat suppliers as partners
  • Establish performance measures

Customer Satisfaction

Most important factors influencing customers perception of quality

  • Performance
  • Features
  • Service
  • Warranty
  • Price
  • Reputation

Customers continually change, through continuos feedback discover following

  • Discover satisfaction / dissatisfaction
  • Discover priorities of quality
  • Compare performance with competition / benchmark
  • Identify Customer needs
  • Determine opportunities for improvement

Employee Involvement

Hire the best, Train, and Retain

  • Motivation
    • Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
  • Empowerment
  • Suggestion System
  • Rewards and Recognition
  • Appraisals
  • Continuous Learning

Benefits of Employee Involvement

  • Employees make better decision using expert knowledge
  • Identify pain points
  • Implement and Support decision thy had part in making
  • Increases morale and sense of belonging

Leadership

  • Be Proactive
  • Begin with the End in Mind
  • Put First Things First
  • Think Win-Win
  • Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
  • Synergy
  • Sharpen the Saw

Continuous Improvement

  • PDSA Cycle
  • Kaizen
  • Six-Sigma

Performance Measures

  • Establish baseline measures, and trends
  • Indicate process gains and losses
  • Compare goals with actual performance
  • Provide information for individual and team evaluation
  • Provide information to make informed decisions
  • Determine overall performance of the organization