Total Quality Management

TQM is said to be a major augmentation to the traditional way an enterprise does business. TQM requires all activities of the enterprise to be managed with the single focus “satisfy the customer”. All other objectives if the enterprise – profits market share expansion, improved competitive position, capital productivity, cost reductions etc follow as its consequences. When quality products and quality services become the enterprise’s obsession, productivity and lower cost’s materialize from reduced scrap, rework, returns and the reduced recurrence of quality problems. Productivity is also positively affected by the extend each employee owns the results of his/her efforts.

Ownership of results means that the individual or team has taken responsibility for and is willing to be held accountable for improving the performance of the process. Training greatly enhances this willingness. Improving a process implies, improving not only the process itself, but also improving the links between that process and others- either before it or after it, or parallel to it. Participation in delivering and sustaining quality thus becomes necessary to adopting TQM successfully. This is a state that traditionally managed enterprises find very difficult to attain for they provide little, if any training. TQM is defined as an organizational obsession with meeting or exceeding customer expectation.