Total Quality Management (TQM) is a comprehensive and
structured approach to organizational management that seeks to improve the
quality of products and services through ongoing refinements in response to
continuous feedback. TQM requirements may be defined separately for a
particular organization or may be in adherence to established standards, such as
the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 9000 series.
TQM can be applied to any type of organization; it originated in the
manufacturing sector and has since been adapted for use in almost every type of
organization imaginable, including schools, highway maintenance, hotel
management, and churches.
TQM processes are
divided into four sequential categories: plan, do, check, and act (the PDCA
cycle). In the planning phase,
people define the problem to be addressed, collect relevant data, and ascertain
the problem's root cause; in the doing phase,
people develop and implement a solution, and decide upon a measurement to gauge
its effectiveness; in the checking phase,
people confirm the results through before-and-after data comparison; in the acting phase,
people document their results, inform others about process changes, and make
recommendations for the problem to be addressed in the next PDCA cycle.
(1) Commitment and direct involvement of highest-level executives in setting quality goals and policies, allocation
of resources, and monitoring of results;
(2) Realization
that transforming an organization means fundamental changes in basic beliefs and practices and that this transformation is everyone's job;
(4) Understanding of the changing needs of the internal and external
customers, and stakeholders,
and satisfying them in a cost
effective manner;
(5) Instituting leadership in place of mere supervision so that
every individual performs in the best possible manner to improve quality and productivity,
thereby continually reducing total cost;
(6) Eliminating barriers between people and departments so that they work as teams to achieve common objectives;
and
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