Total Quality Management

The following list is taken from W. Edwards Deming's 2000 book Out of the Crisis.  

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and to stay in business, and to provide jobs.
   
2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.
   
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.
   
4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move toward a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.
   
5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.
   
6. Institute training on the job.
   
7. Institute leadership (see Point 12 and Ch. 8). The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of overhaul, as well as supervision of production workers.
   
8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company (see Ch. 3).
   
9. Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encountered with the product or service.
   
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.
    
    
    • Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership.
      
    • Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leadership.
    
    
11. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.
    
12. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, inter alia, abolishment of the annual or merit rating and of management by objective (see Ch. 3).
    
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
    
14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job.
    

Last week I mentioned a few blogs that we've been working on.  And today I'll list a few more that have just started.  The first couple of blogs deal with Manufacturing Software and Software as a Service (SaaS).  If you're not familar with SaaS, you'll want to check that blog out.

The other two blogs are about Open Source software and Key Performance Index (KPI).  KPI is another one of those areas where you'll want to look at if you're not sure what it is.

I hope that you'll have the time to look at each of them them and let me know how you like them.  We keep them updated on a regular basis, so we’ll let you know when there's an article that'd be of particular interest to those of you who are looking at this blog about Total Quality Management.

The previous post looked at the definition of each of the three terms in TQM (Total, Quality, and Management) as separate, individual items.  Today we'll look at those same three words, but this time looking at them as a single, whole item.

Since the beginning of time, probably every business, almost without exception, has wanted to satisfy its customers because that business realized that in most cases the following equation was true:  Satisfied Customers = Business Profits.  And that equation held true across the line; no matter what the business, no matter what the size of company, from a one-man/woman operation to a humongous international corporation.  (As an aside, did you know that out of the top 100 largest income producing units today, 49 are countries and 51 are corporations?)

So throughout the eons, there have been various attempts to create a system, even a philosophy, that would help to maximize the customer satisfaction, thus leading to a maximized profit.  The TQM approach was created in the 1950's and starting in the 1980's has become increasingly popular.

One of the ways of looking at TQM is to state that it's a management philosophy that seeks to focus on meeting customer needs and organizational objectives by integrating all organizational functions (design, engineering, production, marketing, finance, customer service, etc.).   That has been done before.  Other systems had looked at the idea of continuous improvement of the product and the production process.  But TQM also extends some of these previous systems by adding the inclusion of the ideas that the culture and attitude of a company are also important, and that having happy suppliers is necessary.  And it is a method by which management and employees can become involved in the continuous improvement of the production of goods and services.

To the original equation of Satisfied Customers = Business Profits has now become Satisfied Customers + Satisfied Suppliers + Satisfied Employees + Continuous Improvement = Business Profits.

Next time we'll look at:

• how to satisfy the customer
• how to satisfy the supplier
• how to continuously improve 

Here are a couple more closely related sites: Quality Control, and Qualtity Management Software.

Until then,
Hal Hamer

The term TQM refers to a combination of three words.  These three words are, quite obviously, Total, Quality, and Management.  The definition and meaning of each of these words is important, but more important is how these words combine and interrelate to create a concept that can help improve a company's image, bottom line, and employee satisfaction.  So let's look at these three words, first individually today, and then collectively in a future post.

Obviously we all know what each of these words mean in everyday use, but more specifically, what do they mean in terms of a business as they relate to TQM?

Total

Something that relates to the entire company/corporation;
Something that is enterprise-wide, covering all of the locations and not limited to just a few locations;
Also something that includes the entire operational process, from the very beginning to the end.

Quality

Not only should something work, but it should work well. It should also be well-produced, with well-made components, so that it is durable. It should have a high degree of excellence and worth.

There are actually three separate definitions that need to be included when talking about "quality".

1. Quality of products and services to satisfy some specific need(s) of the consumer (end user);
2. Quality of return to satisfy the needs of the shareholders;
3. Quality of life to satisfy the needs of the people in the organization, both at work and outside work .

Management

While similar to the definition above for the term Total, this is something that relates to the managment of the entire process, not just to the management of an individual step or plant. It consists of many different pieces, starting with planning, then moving onto organizing, directing, and controlling, and then finishing with the delivery of the actual product.

Here's an example of a software vendor with a TQM software solution.

Until next time,
Hal Hamer

Hi.  Welcome to my new blog about Total Quality Manufacturing (TQM).

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) defines TQM as:

"TQM is a management approach for an organization, centered on quality, based on the participation of all its members and aiming at long-term success through customer satisfaction, and benefits to all members of the organization and to society."

Great definition!  Now what does it mean?  This blog will look at what TQM is, what its parts are, how it's made up, etc. It will also provide links to TQM as it relates to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Materials Resource Planning (MRP), Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), etc.

I have a fairly new job, and part of that job is to find information about TQM and how it relates to the manufacturing environment.  So as I do the research, I'll be posting some of the info that I've found.  Hope that you enjoy it.

And to quote Monty Python, "And now for something completely different", here's a link to the Community Hopper.

I'm also doing a blog about Agile Manufacturing.   Check it out.

Thanks,
Hal Hamer