Quality Management: Importance and Total Quality Management

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