TQM 601 - Quality Management: Analyzing CRH Plc's Quality Practices

This assignment analyzes CRH Plc, a building materials company, against W. Edwards Deming's 14 points of Total Quality Management (TQM). The assessment evaluates CRH's practices in areas such as consistency of purpose, employee motivation, quality control, supplier relationships, continuous improvement, training, leadership, fear reduction, interdepartmental relations, and employee empowerment. The analysis highlights CRH's strengths, such as its focus on employee development, continuous improvement initiatives, and emphasis on quality over cost. The assignment concludes by identifying key areas for improvement, including enhancing top management awareness of employee concerns and increasing employee adaptability to changes. The document provides a comprehensive overview of CRH's quality management approach and its alignment with Deming's principles, offering insights into how the company can further enhance its TQM practices.

ACTIVITY BOOKLET
TQM 601 – Quality Management
Class Activity
Course Title: Quality Management

Assessing an organization across Deming's 14 points for Total Quality Management. Fill up the
template below to review any organization of your choice against Deming' 14 points of TQM.
You can keep the name of the organization anonymous if you wish.
Brief description of department / organization:
CRH Plc is a building material business supplying a wide range of products necessary for
construction and currently it operates at an international level. The company has its
headquarters in Dublin, Ireland and it is earning revenue of 26790 million giving
employment to 85000 people approximately through all of its branches spread all over the
world (CRH, 2019).
Deming's 14 Points of TQM:
S.
No.
Description Evaluation of Current State in the department /
organization
1. Consistency of Purpose Based on the experience and keeping in mind the
plans for the future, CRH has developed precise
vision statements where continuous improvement
is given major emphasis. Rengineering core
activities, adopting training mechanisms,
implementing new technologies are some regular
activates that CRH performs to integrate activities
with the purpose of business.
2. Adopt a new philosophy At CRH, the difference between a manager and a
leader is very well recognized where the
employees are motivated to talk about their
problems and grievances. They are assisted in all
tasks by supervisions and managers thus sharing
knowledge and expertise. This upscales the
importance of employees in the organization.
3. Dependence on mass inspections Most construction companies check quality after
the work is completed but at CRH, they have
implemented mobile computing technology at the
site level as well so that production quality can be
managed at a base level and overall
manufacturing quality can enhance automatically
rather than inspection at the last stage.
4. Awarding business on the basis of
price tag alone
At CRH, relationship building with both
customers and suppliers has always been a
priority (Agrawal, 2019). They do not believe in

minimizing cost by compromising on the quality
levels. There are regular meeting with the
suppliers and CRH company encourages local
suppliers thus developing the society in which
they operate as well.
5. Improve constantly and forever CRH believes that regular monitoring and
Constant improvement is the key feature behind
development. They do not shy away from
investing on such means that improve overall
organizational performance. They constantly
redesign their process and upgrade to the latest
technology such as quality monitoring software's,
mobile quality checking mechanism etc.
6. Training on the job At CRH, employee training and development is a
major focus where the employee performance is
evaluated regularly by the managers and training
schedules as per the employee requirement are
developed. The employees collectively is a highly
productive and efficient team of workers where
their feedback and suggestions are regularly
incorporated.
7. Leadership At CRH, the top management regularly assesses
and recognizes the need for change if it arises and
then the change then recognized is implemented
after consulting form employees (Nyirenda and
Kumar, 2019). The manager and leader are ready
to assist at every point empowering employees
making them more knowledgable and skilled thus
increasing their loyalty as well.
8. Drive out fear CRH not just hires employees, it focuses on
building a family. The employees are motivated
to help each other out in the time of problem and
rather than individual success, growth of
organization as a whole and everyone is priority.
Thus, employee does not fear about the job and
working culture at CRH is not negative.
9. Break down barriers Inter department relationship is a very important
aspect at CRH where regularly some fun
activities are carried out so that different
employees working in different departments can
come together and thus the communication and
integration between them increases. This ensures
that the decision-making in the company does not
get delayed.

10.Eliminate slogans The management of CRH recognizes the
controversy of this point, and they realize that
emphasis on one factor might cause the factor to
argue (Bialaszewski, 2018). Because they do not
wan to create controversies, they adopt policies
that ensure that the employees implement
adequate care regarding the quality and along
with it, the systems are also kept updated with the
latest technology being used in the machinery.
11.Eliminate work standards.
Substitute leadership
In CRH, the targets and number that are set are
usually realistic and achievable where employee
or worker is never exerted. They focus on
employee development along with productivity
thus enhancing the quality and development in
CRH.
12.Remove barriers that rob workers
of their right to pride in the
quality of their work.
When the employees are given appraisal and
incentives on the basis of quantum of the work
done, compromise in the quality and fostering of
negative competition between employees is
inevitable. CRH avoids such practice and
employees are rewarded on the basis of quality of
work that they do.
13.Vigorous program of education
and self-improvement
CRH has set a career growth plan for employees
at every level in the company, and they constantly
motivate their employees to work harder in order
to succeed on that career path (Alghamdi, 2016).
14.Transformation is everybody’s
job.
The top management of CRH regularly modify
and update their plans and the employees are
closely integrated with the plan that they develop.
This helps CRH in achieving integrated
transformation.
What do you believe are the 1 or 2 most important and immediate actions your department /
organization should take to improve overall quality?
The immediate actions that CRH should take are that top management needs to be more
aware and concerned about the employees of the company and the flexibility to adapt to
changes amongst the employees must be enhanced.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Agrawal, N.M., 2019. Modeling Deming’s quality principles to improve performance using
interpretive structural modeling and MICMAC analysis. International Journal of Quality &
Reliability Management.
Alghamdi, H., 2016. Toward Better Understanding of Total Quality Management
(TQM). Journal of Business & Economic Policy. 3(4). pp.29-37.
Bialaszewski, D., 2018. W. Edwards Deming as a Guide for Reducing Risk in Project
Management. In Research, Practices, and Innovations in Global Risk and Contingency
Management (pp. 174-185). IGI Global.
Nyirenda, P. and Kumar, M.D., 2019. A Critical Review of Total Quality Management (TQM)
Models & Practices in Education. Our Heritage. 67(4). pp.18-23.
Online
CRH. 2019. [ONLINE] Available through:<https://www.crh.com/>