Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | C | Chartered Management Institute: Checklists: Operations and Quality

TQM: getting total quality to work.

Article Excerpt
Introduction

The successful implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM) can lead to improvements in the quality of products and services, reductions in the waste of resources, and overall increases in efficiency and productivity. Such improvements contribute to good customer relations, growth in market share and sustained competitive advantage. However, TQM needs to be implemented consistently across the organisation and to become an ongoing process of continuous improvement, if it is to be effective. TQM involves everyone in the organisation and needs to become a way of life, if it is to be successful.

National Occupational Standards for Management and Leadership

This checklist has relevance to the following standards:

B: Providing direction, units 1, 5, 6, 9

F: Achieving results, unit 3, 12

Definition

TQM is a style of managing which gives everyone in the organisation responsibility for delivering quality to the final customer, quality being described as 'fitness for purpose' or as 'delighting the customer'. TQM views each task in the organisation as fundamentally a process which is in a customer/supplier relationship with the next process. The aim at each stage is to define and meet the customer's requirements in order to maximise the satisfaction of the final consumer at the lowest possible cost.

Action checklist

1. Decide whether to run pilots

While it is important to map a TQM strategy to cover the whole organisation, it is...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!