total quality management

7/16/2019 Total Quality Management

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THE EVOLUTION OF TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM)

The concept of quality has existed for many years, though its meaning has changed and evolved over time. In

the early twentieth century, quality management meant in-specting products to ensure that they met

specifications. In the 1940s, during World War II, quality became more statistical in nature. Statistical sampling

techniques were used to evaluate quality, and quality control charts were used to monitor the production

process. In the 1960s, with the help of so-called “quality gurus,” the concept took on a broader meaning.

Quality began to be viewed as something that encompassed the entire organization, not only the production

process. Since all functions were responsible for product quality and all shared the costs of poor quality,

quality was seen as a concept that affected the entire organization.

The meaning of quality for businesses changed dramatically in the late 1970s. Before then quality was still

viewed as something that needed to be inspected and corrected. However, in the 1970s and 1980s many U.S.

industries lost market share to foreign competition. In the auto industry, manufacturers such as Toyota and

Honda became major players. In the consumer goods market, companies such as Toshiba and Sony led the

way. These foreign competitors were producing lower-priced products with considerably higher quality.

To survive, companies had to make major changes in their quality programs. Many hired consultants and

instituted quality training programs for their employees. A new concept of quality was emerging. One result is

that quality began to have a strategic meaning. Today, successful companies understand that quality provides

a competitive advantage. They put the customer first and define quality as meeting o r exceeding customer

expectations.

Since the 1970s, competition based on quality has grown in importance and has generated tremendous

interest, concern, and enthusiasm. Companies in every line of business are focusing on improving quality in

order to be more competitive. In many industries quality excellence has become a standard for doing

business. Companies that do not meet this standard simply will not survive. As you will see later in the

chapter, the importance of quality is demonstrated by national quality awards and quality certifications that

are coveted by businesses.

The term used for today’s new concept of quality is total quality management or TQM. Figure 5-3 presents a

timeline of the old and new concepts of quality. You can see that the old concept is reactive, designed to

correct quality problems after they occur. The new concept is proactive, designed to build quality into the

product and process design. Next, we look at the individuals who have shaped our understanding of quality.

Genichi Taguchi Dr. Genichi Taguchi is a Japanese quality expert known for his

work in the area of product design. He estimates that as much as 80

percent of all defective items are caused by poor product design.

Taguchi stresses that companies should focus their quality efforts on

the design stage, as it is much cheaper and easier to make changes

during the product design stage than later during the production

process.

Taguchi is known for applying a concept called design of experiment

to product design. This method is an engineering approach that is

based on developing robust design, a design that results in products

that can perform over a wide range of conditions. Taguchi’s



philosophy is based on the idea that it is easier to design a product that can perform over a wide range of

environmental conditions than it is to control the environmental conditions.

Taguchi has also had a large impact on today’s view of the costs of quality. He pointed out that the traditional

view of costs of conformance to specifications is incorrect, and proposed a different way to look at these

costs. Let’s briefly look at Dr. Taguchi’s view of quality costs.

Recall that conformance to specification specifies a target value for the product with specified tolerances, say

5.00 0.20. According to the traditional view of conformance to specifications, losses in terms of cost occur if

the product dimensions fall outside of the specified limits. This is shown in Figure 5-4. However, Dr. Taguchi

noted that from the customer’s view there is little dif ference whether a product falls just outside or just inside

the control limits. He pointed out that there is a much greater difference in the quality of the product between

making the target and being near the control limit. He also stated that the smaller the variation around the

target, the better the quality. Based on this he proposed the following: as conformance values move away

from the target, loss increases as a quadratic function. This is called the Taguchi loss function and is shown in

Figure 5-5. According to the function, smaller differences from the target result in smaller costs: the larger the

differences, the larger the cost. The Taguchi loss function has had a

significant impact in changing the view of quality cost.

What characterizes TQM is the focus on identifying root causes of

quality problems and correcting them at the source, as opposed to

inspecting the product after it has been made. Not only does TQM

encompass the entire organization, but it stresses that quality is

customer driven. TQM attempts to embed quality in every aspect

of the organization. It is concerned with technical aspects of quality

as well as the involvement of people in quality, such as customers,

company employees, and suppliers. Here we look at the specific

concepts that make up the philosophy of TQM.

ISO9000

The ISO9000 series is the world’s major quality standard with some 350,000 users worldwide. It was first

published in the UK in 1979 under the title ‘Quality Systems’ and was known until the mid-1990s in the UK as

BS5750. It had its origins in the United Kingdom in quality procedures required by the Ministry of Defence and

NATO in their roles as procurement agencies. These AQAPs (Allied Quality Assurance Procedures) developed

into an international standard in the 1980s. ISO9000 is concerned with quality management, defined as the

means by which an organization employs its resources to meet its customer and regulatory requirements and

the mechanisms it employs to make continuous improvements. From December 2003 a new set of ISO9000

standards are in operation. These are known as ISO9000:2000.

The philosophy behind the ISO9000 series

The philosophy behind the ISO9000 series is that quality should be built into the systems and procedures of

the organization, where the emphasis is on prevention rather than cure. To be able to meet the demands of

ISO9000 an organization has to build quality in at each stage, from design through to delivery, assessment and

evaluation, through a formal and rigorous management system to ensure conformity of the product or service

to its specification. The aim is to produce a consistent level of product or service that is fit for purpose.



ISO9000 requires that all the activities necessary to produce the product or service be documented if the

quality system is to conform to the standard. An educational establishment would, for example, need to

document all the activity concerned with the delivery of its programmes, including selection, interviewing,

induction, discipline, assessment, records of achievement, advice and guidance, etc. ISO9000 places a

considerable discipline on those intending to use it. Putting a system in place is not easy or straightforward. It

involves a large investment of resources and staff time. Everybody in the institution needs to understand its

implications and to work to the systems and follow the procedures that have been put in place. Many teachers

might consider the emphasis on following detailed written instructions stifling to initiative and excessively

bureaucratic, although for or others they can provide useful guidance and direction.

Does ISO9000 guarantee quality?:

ISO9000 only sets the standard for the quality system. It does not set the standards that the institution or its

learners should be achieving. The staff of the institution together with its customers and those to whom it

is accountable are the arbitrators of standards of teaching and learning. What ISO9000 can do is to assure

that there are systems in place to deliver those standards once they have been decided. ISO9000 cannot

guarantee consistency of standards between institutions. This is an important consideration because so much

attention is given in British and other educational systems to the question of the consistency of standards

between institutions.

Zero defects are Crosby’s major, but controversial, contribution to thinking on quality. It is a powerful idea. It

is the commitment to success and the elimination of failure. It involves putting systems in place that ensure

that things are always done in the right way first time and every time. Crosby argues that aiming for zero

defects, in a business context, will increase profits by saving on costs. The impact of quality on the bottom line

is what makes Crosby’s model so attractive.

Crosby does not believe in statistically acceptable levels of quality. For Crosby there is only one standard, and

that is perfection. His is a pure prevention model, and he believes that it is possible to deliver error-remove

errors the closer that one gets to zero defects. However, not all commentators agree with this thesis. For

example, Joseph Juran, a critic of Crosby, argues that, after a certain point, conforming to requirements can

actually impose additional costs and as a result he does not believe that zero defects is an attainable goal.

Zero defects is a concept which is harder to apply to services than to manufacturing. In services zero defects

are desirable, but it is difficult to guarantee fault-free service with so many opportunities for human error.

Nevertheless, zero defects are an important service-industry goal. It is an idea that ought to have an important

echo in education. At its simplest and most powerful it would mean that all pupils and students would make a

success of their education and fulfil their potential. The task of quality improvement in education would be

building the systems and structures to ensure that this happened. Much stands in the way of zero defects,particularly norm-referenced examinations which make the goal of zero defects effects an impossibility and a

widely held view that standards can only be maintained by a high degree of failure.

quality circle

One major characteristic of Japanese company-wide quality control is the quality circle. The quality circle is

probably the most well-known Japanese contribution to quality management. The quality circle movement,

associated with Ishikawa, started in 1962 in the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation. It spread



to banks and retailing and has been exported worldwide. Success in the West has not been so extensive as in

Japan, however, although even there it has been shown to have limitations.

In Japan a quality circle is typically a voluntary group of usually five to a dozen staff all from the same

workshop. They meet regularly and are led by a foreman, team leader or one of the workers. Their aim is to

contribute to the improvement and development of the enterprise and to build a happy workforce. Quality

circles are about using human capabilities to the full. These aims are broader than is consistent with a narrow

definition of quality as often used in the West. Typically, members of quality circles master statistical quality

control and related methods and utilize them to achieve significant results in quality improvement, cost

reduction, productivity and safety.

They are all taught the seven tools of quality control—Pareto charts, cause and effect diagrams, stratification,

check sheets, histograms, scatter diagrams and Shewhart’s control charts and graphs. All members

of the circle engage in self and team development. They receive no direct financial reward for any

improvements they make.

Even in Japan many quality circles have foundered. This is usually because of lack of management interest or

the opposite—excessive intervention. However, many more have been successful. Many commentators,

including Philip Crosby, have warned against the fashion for quality circles as a cure-all for poor staff

motivation or inadequate quality and productivity in either manufacturing or service industries. Joseph Juran

has gone further and expressed doubts on their effectiveness in the West. He believes that the industrial

culture is different. In western approaches to quality improvement the quality circle is replaced by teamwork.

Control Charts Control charts are a very important quality control tool. We will study the use of control

charts at great length in the next chapter. These charts are used

to evaluate whether a process is operating within expectations

relative to some measured value such as weight, width, or

volume. For example, we could measure the weight of a sack of

flour, the width of a tire, or the volume of a bottle of soft drink.

When the production process is operating within expectations,

we say that it is “in control.” To evaluate whether or not a

process is in control, we regularly measure the variable of

interest and plot it on a control chart. The chart has a line down the center representing the average value of

the variable we are measuring. Above and below the center line are two lines, called the upper control limit

(UCL) and the lower control limit (LCL). As long as the observed values fall within the upper and lower control

limits, the process is in control and there is no problem with quality. When a measured observation falls

outside of these limits, there is a problem.

total quality management

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