All organisations, both manufacturing and service, have incorporated quality management principles as their mission to guarantee sustained customer satisfaction and better efficiency of resources in the past few decades.
What is TQM?
A core definition of total quality management (TQM) describes a management approach to long–term success through customer satisfaction. In a TQM effort, all members of an organisation participate in improving the processes, products, services, and the culture in which they work. It is a management system for a customer-focused organisation that involves all employees in continual improvement. It uses strategy, data, and effective communication to integrate the quality discipline into the culture and activities of the organisation.
Total employee involvement
All employees participate in working towards common goals. The management should support the employees in all TQM initiatives.
Process-centered
A fundamental part of TQM is a focus on process thinking. All jobs and tasks have to be defined on the basis of a process. The process has to be a dynamic component that will enable employees to keep innovating according to the changing requirements. The flexibility in the process will help to reduce the variations and allow for more creativity.
Fact-based decision making
In order to know how well an organisation is performing, data on performance measures are necessary. TQM requires that an organisation continually collects and analyses data in order to make decision making accurate and allow predictions based on past history.
kalpana@acl-india.in
kalpana r chennai
She is the founder of The Academy for Communication and Learning