Total quality management (TQM) is the continual process of detecting and reducing or eliminating errors in manufacturing, streamlining supply chain management, improving the customer experience, and ensuring that employees are up to speed with training. Total quality management aims to hold all parties involved in the production process accountable for the overall quality of the final product or service.

Total quality management is an ongoing process of detecting and reducing or eliminating errors. Total Quality Management is a management framework based on the belief that an organization can build long-term success by having all its members, from low-level workers to its highest ranking executives, focus on improving quality and, thus, delivering customer satisfaction.

It is used to streamline supply chain management, improve customer service, and ensure that employees are trained.

The focus is to improve the quality of an organization's outputs, including goods and services, through the continual improvement of internal practices.

Total quality management aims to hold all parties involved in the production process accountable for the overall quality of the final product or service.

Total quality management is a structured approach to overall organizational management. The focus of the process is to improve the quality of an organization's outputs, including goods and services, through the continual improvement of internal practices. The standards set as part of the TQM approach can reflect both internal priorities and any industry standards currently in place.

TQM prescribes a series of ways for organizations to accomplish this, with the pathway to successful continuous improvement centered on the use of strategy, data and effective communication to instill a discipline of quality into the organization's culture and processes.

More specifically, TQM puts a spotlight on the processes that organizations use to produce their products, and it calls for organizations to define those processes, continuously monitor and measure their performance, and use that performance data to drive improvements. Furthermore, it calls for all employees, as well as all organizational departments, to be part of this process.

TQM's objectives are to eliminate waste and increase efficiencies by ensuring that the production process of the organization's product (or service) is done right the first time.

This management framework was initially applied to companies in the manufacturing sector, but, over the decades, organizations in other sectors have adopted it, as well.

What Does Total Quality Management Do?

TQM oversees all activities and tasks needed to maintain a desired level of excellence within a business and its operations. This includes the determination of a quality policy, creating and implementing quality planning and assurance, and quality control and quality improvement measures.

TQM can be summarized as a management system for a customer-focused organization that involves all employees in continual improvement. It uses strategy, data, and effective communications to integrate the quality discipline into the culture and activities of the organization. Many of these concepts are present in modern quality management systems, the successor to TQM. Here are the 8 principles of total quality management:

  • Customer-focused: The customer ultimately determines the level of quality. No matter what an organization does to foster quality improvement—training employees, integrating quality into the design process, or upgrading computers or software—the customer determines whether the efforts were worthwhile.
  • Total employee involvement: All employees participate in working toward common goals. Total employee commitment can only be obtained after fear has been driven from the workplace, when empowerment has occurred, and when management has provided the proper environment. High-performance work systems integrate continuous improvement efforts with normal business operations. Self-managed work teams are one form of empowerment.
  • Process-centered: A fundamental part of TQM is a focus on process thinking. A process is a series of steps that take inputs from suppliers (internal or external) and transforms them into outputs that are delivered to customers (internal or external). The steps required to carry out the process are defined, and performance measures are continuously monitored in order to detect unexpected variation.
  • Integrated system: Although an organization may consist of many different functional specialties often organized into vertically structured departments, it is the horizontal processes interconnecting these functions that are the focus of TQM.
  • Micro-processes add up to larger processes, and all processes aggregate into the business processes required for defining and implementing strategy. Everyone must understand the vision, mission, and guiding principles as well as the quality policies, objectives, and critical processes of the organization. Business performance must be monitored and communicated continuously.
  • Strategic and systematic approach: A critical part of the management of quality is the strategic and systematic approach to achieving an organization’s vision, mission, and goals. This process, called strategic planning or strategic management, includes the formulation of a strategic plan that integrates quality as a core component.
  • Continual improvement: A large aspect of TQM is continual process improvement. Continual improvement drives an organization to be both analytical and creative in finding ways to become more competitive and more effective at meeting stakeholder expectations.
  • Fact-based decision making: In order to know how well an organization is performing, data on performance measures are necessary. TQM requires that an organization continually collect and analyze data in order to improve decision making accuracy, achieve consensus, and allow prediction based on past history.
  • Communications: During times of organizational change, as well as part of day-to-day operation, effective communications play a large part in maintaining morale and in motivating employees at all levels. Communications involve strategies, method, and timeliness.

The benefits of TQM include:

  • Less product defects. One of the principles of TQM is that creation of products and services is done right the first time. This means that products ship with fewer defects, which reduce product recalls, future customer support overhead and product fixes.
  • Satisfied customers. High-quality products that meet customers’ needs results in higher customer satisfaction. High customer satisfaction, in turn, can lead to increased market share, revenue growth via upsell and word-of-mouth marketing initiated by customers.
  • Lower costs. As a result of less product defects, companies save cost in customer support, product replacements, field service and the creation of product fixes. The cost savings flow to the bottom line, creating higher profit margins.
  • Well-defined cultural values. Organizations that practice TQM develop and nurture core values around quality management and continuous improvement. The TQM mindset pervades across all aspects of an organization, from hiring to internal processes to product development.

TQM is a set of management practices throughout the organization, geared to ensure the organization consistently meets or exceeds customer requirements. TQM places strong focus on process measurement and controls as means of continuous improvement.

Total Quality Management (TQM) is an approach that organizations use to improve their internal processes and increase customer satisfaction. When it is properly implemented, this style of management can lead to decreased costs related to corrective or preventative maintenance, better overall performance, and an increased number of happy and loyal customers.

However, TQM is not something that happens overnight. While there are a number of software solutions that will help organizations quickly start to implement a quality management system, there are some underlying philosophies that the company must integrate throughout every department of the company and at every level of management. Whatever other resources you use, you should adopt these seven important principles of Total Quality Management as a foundation for all your activities.

Total Quality management can be divided into four categories:

Planning Phase

Planning is the most crucial phase of total quality management. In this phase employees have to come up with their problems and queries which need to be addressed. They need to come up with the various challenges they face in their day to day operations and also analyze the problem’s root cause. Employees are required to do necessary research and collect relevant data which would help them find solutions to all the problems.

Doing Phase

In the doing phase, employees develop a solution for the problems defined in planning phase. Strategies are devised and implemented to overcome the challenges faced by employees. The effectiveness of solutions and strategies is also measured in this stage.

Checking Phase

Checking phase is the stage where people actually do a comparison analysis of before and after data to confirm the effectiveness of the processes and measure the results.

Acting Phase

In this phase employees document their results and prepare themselves to address other problems.

TQM is one of the most crucial parts of the company. The processes in the company cannot coincide with one another if it weren’t for the TQM department. They ensure that every process taken by each department is flaw-free and can cooperate well with the other processes from every other department in the company.

There is a misconception that TQM and its audits are used as fault finding devices but used as assurances for the employees’ safety and good business well-being.

Apart from the improvement of processes, the TQM department also conducts yearly internal audits. Refer to the whole internal audit process and the audit plan of the year for the TQM department through these links: 

Audit plan: https://hoithr.freshdesk.com/a/solutions/articles/63000268161

Internal audit: https://hoithr.freshdesk.com/a/solutions/articles/63000268162

The TQM department works hand in hand with each different department of the company to perfectly demonstrate and implement changes and improvements to their own department practices if needed be.

The TQM department’s members are divided into roles, each has a certain task to adhere to and are critical parts of the internal audits. Here are the roles of the members of the FOM department:

  1. TQM Manager
  2. Auditors