Quality and Total Quality Management
| Author | Judith Nixon |
| Pages | 735-741 |
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Although quality and quality management does not have a formal definition, most agree that it is an integration of all functions of a business to achieve high quality of products through continuous improvement efforts of all employees. Quality revolves around the concept of meeting or exceeding customer expectation applied to the product and service. Achieving high quality is an ever changing, or continuous, process therefore quality management emphasizes the ideas of working constantly toward improved quality. It involves every aspect of the company: processes, environment and people. The whole workforce from the CEO to the line worker must be involved in a shared commitment to improving quality.
Therefore, in brief, quality and total quality management (TQM) in particular can be defined as directing (managing) the whole (total) production process to produce an excellent (quality) product or service.
It differs from other management techniques in the attitude of management toward the product and toward the worker. Older management methods focused on the volume of production and the cost of the product. Quality was controlled by using a detection method (post production inspection), problems were solved by management and management's role was defined as planning, assigning work, controlling the production. Quality management, in contrast, is focused on the customer and meeting the customer's needs. Quality is controlled by prevention, i.e., quality is built in at every stage. Teams solve problems and everyone is responsible for the quality of the product. Management's role is to delegate, coach, facilitate and mentor. The major quality management principles
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are: quality, teamwork, and proactive management philosophies for process improvement.
Quality management in is not derived from a single idea or person. It is a collection of ideas, and has been called by various names and acronyms: TQM, total quality management; CQU, continuous quality improvement; SQC, statistical quality control; TQC, total quality control, etc. However each of these ideas encompasses the underlying idea of productivity initiatives that increase profit by improving the product.
Though most writers trace the quality movement's origins to W. Edward Deming, Joseph M. Juran and Philip B. Crosby, the roots of quality can be traced even further back, to Frederick Taylor in the 1920s. Taylor is the "father of scientific management." As manufacturing left the single craftsman's workshop, companies needed to develop a quality control department. As manufacturing moved into big plants, between the 1920s and the 1950s, the terms and processes of quality engineering and reliability engineering developed. During this time productivity was emphasized and quality was checked at the end of the line. As industrial plants became larger, post-production checks became more difficult and statistical methods began to be used to control quality. This was called reliability engineering because it moved quality control toward building quality into the design and production of the product. Taylor was the pioneer of these methods. Although some writers consider Taylor's methods part of classical management in opposition to the quality management system, both Deming and Juran both used statistical methods for quality assurance at Bell Telephone laboratories.
In the decades that followed World War II, the U.S. had no trouble selling everything made. This demand had the effect in the U.S. of driving industry to increase production, which resulted in less quality control. U.S. manufacturers became complacent, thinking that they could sell any product and that the consumer did not want or demand quality. The post World War II situation in Japan was just the opposite. The war had left the country devastated, and it needed to rebuild its means of production. In addition, Japanese manufacturers needed to counteract the shoddy reputation they had that products "made in Japan" were of low quality.
Japan began focusing on serious quality efforts. Japanese teams went abroad to visit foreign countries to learn how other countries managed quality, and they invited foreign experts to lecture in Japan on quality management. Two of these foreign experts were Americans W. Edward Deming and Joseph Juran. They each had a profound influence on Japanese quality processes, encouraging quality and design, built in, and zero defect programs. It took twenty years of concerted effort to revamp Japan's industrial system. The strategies used involved high-level managers as leaders, all levels and functions were trained in managing for quality, continuous progress was undertaken, quality circles were used, and the entire workforce was enlisted. By the early 1980s Japanese products, particularly automobiles and electronic products, were superior in quality to U.S. products. U.S. companies lost markets in the U.S. and in the western world to the Japanese and went in search of the Japanese secret. They found W. Edward Deming.
Deming was an American who worked in the 1930s with Walter A. Shewhart at Bell Telephone Company. Shewhart was a statistician who had the theory that product control could best be managed by statistics. He developed a statistical chart for the control of product variables. Deming developed a process, based on Shewhart's, using statistical control techniques that alerted managers of the need to intervene in the production process.
He then utilized these techniques during World War II while working on government war production. In 1947 Douglas MacArthur and the U.S. State Department sent Deming to Japan to help the war-devastated Japanese manufacturing plants. He introduced these "statistical process control" methods in a series of lectures on statistical methods to Japanese businessmen and engineers. The Japanese were an attentive audience and utilized Deming's ideas readily. They found him charming and considerate and listened to his ideas. His concept of employees working toward quality fit well into their personal ideas. His philosophy went beyond statistical quality control and encouraged building quality into the product at all stages.
Total Quality (TQ) consists of continuous improvement activities involving everyone in the organization—managers and workers—in a totally integrated effort toward improving performance at every level. This improved performance is directed toward...
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