TQM in business

Using TQM in business is important, no matter what size your company. If you work for an SEO company in Fort Collins or anywhere in the United States, having a quality product and being efficient is critical to run a successful business.

Leader Deming developed the chain reaction: as quality improves, costs go down and productivity goes up; this leads to more jobs, greater market share, and long-term survival. He stressed worker pride and satisfaction and considered it management’s job to improve the process, not the worker. Quality circles, a central Deming theme, are based on the importance of employees meeting regularly in groups to comprehensively discuss product quality. The GDP in Japan rose steadily from 1960s by more than 10 percent per year. By 1951 the Japanese had named their quality prize in his honor. Deming’s book, Out of the Crisis, emphasized improving quality of the product as more important than short-term financial goals. He de-emphasized quantity, and emphasized quality. He believed that “statistical process control” was an invaluable instrument in the quest for quality. Deming developed fourteen points for management which can be summarized as:

1. Create a plan; publish the aims and purposes of the organization.
2. Learn and adopt the new philosophy of quality.
3. Understand the purpose of inspection; stop depending on inspection.
4. Stop awarding business based on price alone.
5. Improve the system constantly.
6. Institute training.
7. Teach and institute leadership.
8. Drive out fear, create trust, and create a climate for innovation.
9. Optimize the efforts of teams, groups and staff areas.
10. Eliminate exhortations, and targets for the work force; provide methods of achievement.
11. Eliminate numerical quotas for the work force.
12. Remove barriers that rob people of pride for workmanship.
13. Encourage education and self improvement for everyone.
14. Make action to accomplish the transformation, make it everyone’s job.

Besides the fourteen points, Deming is known for the Deming Cycle and the Seven Deadly Diseases. The Deming Cycle is illustrated in Figure 1. It involves five steps: consumer research and planning of the product (plan), producing the product (do), checking the product (check), marketing the product (act), and analyzing how the product is received (analyze.)

The Seven Deadly Diseases can be summarized as:

1. Lack of constancy of purpose to plan products and services.
2. Emphasis on short-term profits.
3. Personal review systems for managers and management by objectives.
4. Job hopping by managers.
5. Using only visible data in decision making.
6. Excessive medical costs.
7. Excessive costs of liability driven up by lawyers that work on contingency.

I have used TQM in manufacturing companies and it is a successful tool to use. The company I worked for built a complex semi conductor machine from 6 weeks to 1 week using TQM.