Total Quality Management Essay -- essays research papers

TQM is a philosophy of management driven by the constant attainment of customer satisfaction through continuous improvement of all organizational processes, including employee participation, teamwork, and leadership. There are five key principles: -MANAGEMENT COMMITMENT 1) Plan (drive direct) 2) Do (deploy, support, and participate) 3) Check (review) 4) Act (recognize, communicate, revise) -EMPLOYEE EMPOWERMENT 1) Training 2) Suggestive Scheme 3) Measurement + Recognition 4) Excellence Teams -FACT BASED DECISION MAKING 1) Statistical process control 2) Team oriented problem solving (TOPS) -CONTINOUS IMPROVEMENT 1) Systematic measurement + focus 2) Excellence Teams 3) Cross-functional process management 4) Attain, maintain, + improve standards -CUSTOMER FOCUS 1) Supplier partnership 2) Service relationship with internal customers 3) Never compromise quality 4) Customer driven standards Implementation of TQM Total Quality Management emphasizes detecting potential problems before they occur. There are five major areas of TQM, which are: †¢ Focus on quality and prevention of problems †¢ Cooperation with suppliers and customers †¢ Continuous improvement †¢ Encouragement of proper climate and employee empowerment †¢ Use of measurements to back decisions In the process of TQM customers are the ones who define a quality product. Not only should employees inspect products or services while performing duties, but companies must design quality products. During the design process there should be input from customers, marketing and those who assemble the final product. A company implementing TQM should cooperate with suppliers and have a focus on customer satisfaction. Vendors should be treated as business partners with all parties working to deliver a quality product. In order for TQM to be successful suppliers must also implement it. When implementing TQM one must remember that it is continuous improvement, while eliminating wasteful steps. In order to implement it employees must be empowered to make d... ...ogether to form a team so that the entire construction project in is sync with all of its components, thus resulting in more fluid results. The final and arguably most important application of TQM into the construction industry is a new system of measures. The construction does not have system of statistically monitoring themselves, except for total cost results. It can be argued that since the industry does not have a statistical standard of measurement it cannot improve itself. Instead of focusing on processes and causes of problems, the industry has focused on monitoring and inspection of end results. As an example, the construction industry does not monitor the amount of non-productive time at a project for the amount of redo-work that takes place due to mistakes. This lack of measurement leads to acceptance of the defects and non-productive time. Using a TQM approach, the cause of these "defects" are quantified and analyzed. This data can then be used to analyze the efficiency of projects as they are on going. This results in the ability to make beneficial changes by eliminating the cause of the defects wh ile the project is still in its construction phase.