Quality Management: Importance and Total Quality Management

This report discusses the importance of quality management in the modern business world and how it helps companies to fight competition. It also provides a detailed description of Total Quality Management and its various elements. The report concludes that quality management is a continuous improvement process and involves all stakeholders within an organization.

OPERATION
MANAGEMENT
STRATEGY

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Contents
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................2
What is quality...................................................................................................................................2
Why is quality important...................................................................................................................3
Literature review in quality management..........................................................................................3
CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES......................................................................................................................................7
INTRODUCTION
In the increasing competition all around the world it has become essential for the
firms to maintain the quality of the products and services they are delivering to their

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consumers (Sallis, 2014). Quality is one of the most essential things based on which
companies can attract new consumers as well as retain old customers (Bon and Mustafa,
2013). This report highlights the various aspects related to the quality as the well as its
management. It also showcases the need of managing quality within an organisation. Apart
from this a detailed description of Total Quality Management is provided in the later part of
this report.
What is quality
Quality is understood to be as the pragmatic interpretation as the superiority and inferiority of
anything (Ross, 2017). In other words it is also understood to be as being suitable for the
intended purpose and hence providing higher consumer satisfaction. It is a conditional,
perceptual and somehow subjective attribute and can be understood differently by different
person (Wang, Chen and Chen, 2012). The consumer compares the quality of the two
competitor’s products before buying it. It is a degree that a product is maintainable,
sustainable and reliable (Vanichchinchai and Igel, 2011).
Why is quality important
In the increasing competition quality is one of the best ways through which a
company can achieve higher growth rate (Anvari, Ismail and Hojjati, 2011). It is the factor
that any consumer checks while buying any product. Quality is the thing that adds value to
the products or services which is necessary for achieving higher growth rates as it is the only
thing for which a consumer pays (Gimenez-Espin, Jiménez-Jiménez and Martínez-Costa,
2013). Apart from this quality helps in retaining the old consumers, no other factor works the
same way (Sadikoglu and Olcay, 2014). It helps in leading in the market in the increasing
competition as people always look for the value for their money. It is one of the best tools
that help in satisfying the needs of the consumers (Idris, 2011). It is also helpful in managing
the reputation of the firm as the people expects that high quality of products and services
being delivered by the company (Al-Swidi and Mahmood, 2012). This is more important for
the firms that is having higher brand value or say they have big brand name in the market
(Honarpour, Jusoh and Md Nor, 2012). This helps the smaller companies in making their
place in the market. Quality is also important because it helps in meeting the standards that
industry follows (Matias and Coelho, 2011). It helps in complying with all the legislations
which may help in avoiding legislative issues. Quality also plays role in reducing the cost. If
the higher quality operations are used inside the firm then the overall cost of operations is

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reduced. This also assists in reducing the probability of any kinds of failure for which
company will have to pay.
Literature review in quality management
In the modern day firms it is crucial for the companies to make sure that they have an
effective mechanism for marinating the quality of operations within the firm. In the views of
Kr Singh, (2011) Managing the quality is not an easy task. It is essential for the firms to make
sure that they have an effective mechanism for managing the quality of their products and
services (Shahin and Dabestani, 2011). On the broader context it is to be understood that
managing quality has a greater role in growth of the firm (Kober, Subraamanniam and
Watson, 2012). Various kinds of quality management tool are used inside the firm such as
Sig Sigma and Total quality management. One of the most widely used tools in this regards is
TQM. It is the overall assessments of the quality of the things that are done inside the firm.
TQM is one of the most widely used tools in the industries. On the contrary Juneja, Ahmad
and Kumar, (2011) believes that TQM comprises of organisational wide efforts to install and
develop permanent surrounding in which a firm improves continuously. The improvement is
done in the terms of its ability to deliver high quality services and products to the consumers.
There is no widely accepted approach of TQM on which they are agreed upon. TQM is a
developed over the years by continuously making changes in the already developed
techniques and tools of quality control.
Past of the TQM
Sıtkı İlkay and Aslan, (2012) suggests that the development of the quality management was
many years back in early 20th century. The approach towards it was done by William Sealy
Gosset who developed statistical quality control. After that the concept and various tools have
been developed over the years. TQM draw its attention in many industries in the late 1980s
and 1990s. Previously it was over shadowed by the quality management tools like lean
production, Six Sigma and ISO 9000. The first use of TQM as a tool was noticed back in the
1970s and 1980s in the nations of North America and Western Europe. The major reason for
developments of TQM was that these countries were facing stiff competition from the
Japanese companies who were highly capable of producing high quality goods at very
competitive cost. These countries were highly importing the products from the Japan because
of their high quality products (Loke, et al., 2012). In the economic turmoil TQM gained its
existence. This TQM was highly appreciated in the mid-1980s when US navy started to work

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with quality consultant so as to improve the effectiveness of the navy operations. After Navy,
TQM was used by US federal government in various departments of theirs. This helped the
US firms in not only recapturing the market from the Japanese but also helped them in
expanding in other parts of the world. TQM is understood to the efforts to improve the
overall process by involving suppliers and not just the workers (Foster Jr, Wallin and Ogden,
2011).
Present of TQM
In the views of Mellat Parast, Adams and Jones, (2011) there are several definitions of TQM
given by various agencies. TQM in the modern time have surpassed the approach like Six
Sigma and Lean production. There were few key concepts upon which TQM was agreed
upon (Dora, et al., 2013). Some of these concepts are like quality is defined by consumer’s
needs; it is the responsibility of the top management to improve the quality; enhanced quality
is always obtained by continuous and long term improvement of work processes which is
possible due to systematic analysis; it must be conducted throughout the firm. In the modern
time the basic thing that is understood by the quality management is that it is not a day
process rather it is a continuous improvement process (Laohavichien, Fredendall and Stephen
Cantrell, 2011). The highest of quality is attained when the whole organisations analyse
various processes within the firm over the long period of time. Quality management is not
just the task of any one unit instead it can be achieved by the holistic efforts of the people in
various departments (de Menezes, 2012). There are some activities that is done in TQM that
includes commitment by senior management and all the workers, meeting consumers
requirements, diminishing development cycle times, just in time/demand flow manufacturing,
diminishing services and products costs, systems to facilitate improvement, line management
ownership etc.
Ebrahimi and Sadeghi, (2013) believes that principle of TQM are management commitment
(plan, do, check and act), employee empowerment, fact based decision making
(SPC,DOE,FMEA, the 7 statistical tools, TOPS), continuous improvement, customer focus. It
is very important to implement the TQM in a better way. Firsts and foremost thing that a
company must do is to check that whether it is ready for incorporating the TQM so that its
success can be ensured. In the present situation the requirement of having a total quality
management inside the company is very high. This is also due to the fact that competition in
many of the industries have become cut throat and hence for remain in the competition

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quality management is highly necessary (Bowen, et al., 2012). TQM generally fails in such
situation where it is implemented without doing the research. This can also be due to very
unstable funding base, weak administrative systems, poor morale of employee, lack of
managerial skills etc. In the current situation due to globalisation this tool has also reached to
the developing nations. Many of the developing firms are also adopting it to make its place in
the market.
Talib, (2013) understands that the future of quality management is very bright. It is going to
become one of the most essential tools in the growth process of the firm. The tools like TQM
will be highly efficient in improving the product and service quality of the firm. Even the
marketing will be based on the quality that it delivers which can also be seen in the modern
days also. Every company is labelling regarding the quality certification as well as providing
warranty certification (Sánchez-Rodríguez and Rafael Martinez-Lorente, 2011). In the future
quality management will be given more priority. A more cash flow will be given to the
research in the direction of quality enhancements. A quality management must be used at
every level of the product cycle so as to make it more accountable.
Al-Refaie, Ghnaimat and Ko, (2011) suggests that there are eight elements of TQM. For
successful implementation of TQM a company concentrate on all these elements. First is
ethics; a company must follow the ethical rules so as to achieve success without which a
company collapses in between. Second is Integrity without which a company will fail to have
success in quality. Third is trust and fourth is training on the ways things will be done so that
employees become ready for the changes (Albacete-Sáez, Mar Fuentes-Fuentes and Maria
Bojica, 2011). Fifth is teamwork since all the employees have to work in collaboration
towards improving the quality. Sixth is leadership as they are responsible for making this
implementation done by providing all the required resources. Seventh is recognition of the
high quality i.e. to determine the standard that must be achieved while making the
implementation. Eight is communication which is necessary for making the implementation
smooth as well as ensures that everyone gets aware about their role in enhancing the quality
(Akdere, 2011).
Chand, (2012) believes that there are some other elements of TQM like consumer
satisfaction, preventing rather than detecting the defects, quality measurement, corrective
actions for root cause, training of the employees so that they add their value to the overall

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process. All these elements need to be properly enforced so as to make sure that it gets
implemented in a best possible way.
CONCLUSION
From the above based report it can be concluded that there Quality is a pragmatic
interpretation of anything being good or bad. In the modern day of business quality is
understood to be as one of the best tool for fighting with the competition. It has become
essential for the companies to make sure that they have an effective mechanism for managing
the quality of products and services. From the early age of industrialisation quality is being
measured by statistical tools. In the present time also the quality has become one of the most
important aspects. In future the value of quality is going to increase further more. In order to
fight competition with the Japanese firms the concept of TQM was developed in North
American and European region. It is a continuous improvement process and is done by the
help of all the stakeholders within an organisation.
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