Total Quality Management - Example

Abstract Total Quality management (TQM) is a bunch of principles and disciplines which are to be put together in a proper coordinated manner to develop the organization so that the customer requirements are met consistently. It involves departments, levels and divisions to deliver the best output at the lowest cost at the same time ensuring economic stability and sustained growth. TQM for every company is different but a few basic principles are same for quality effort. This report shows the manner in which car dealer in Eastern suburb of Sydney haa reduced their costs and looked forward to improve the quality of products and services with the application of TQM. With the growing level of competition quality management is becoming very important for leadership and management of the car delaer in Sydney. Quality management principles will not only help in providing quality management but also benefit the customers, owners, employees, suppliers, and the society as a whole. Table of Contents Introduction 3 Reasons for implementing TQM 3 Action Plan to implement TQM 4 Importance and reasons to use TQM 11 Conclusion 11 References 13 Introduction Total Quality Management is a clear description of the organizational behavior and attitude of the company that strives to provide the customers the best products and services. A good quality product helps the company to add and retain customers. The final consumer is becoming increasingly updated about the rising standards as they have access to wide range of products and services. Technological advancement has crossed geographical limits resulting in more informed consumers. TQM is a perfect method for the reduction of wasteful practices and getting optimum output for the car dealer in Sydney. TQM can be considered to have four main components namely quality planning, quality control, quality assurance, and quality improvement. This report shows the manner in which TQM will benfit the car dealer in Eastern suburb of Sydney to provide better services to the customers. The fact that the business environment has become highly competitive and transformed from local to global requires that the car dealer in Sydney becomes active in all fields i.e. right from the grass root level to make out maximum profit. This will help to ensure better production and reduced cost therbey benefiting the business Reasons for implementing TQM There is different reason which makes it imperative that the car dealer looks towards implemeting TQM in their business process. This is due to the following reasons Improved profits and market share through flexibility and quick answers to market related opportunities. Increased use of organization resources to attain increased customer satisfaction. Research and comprehend customer requirements and expectations. Communicating the needs of the market to the organization. Measure the customer’s satisfaction and working in the same direction. Action Plan to implement TQM The car dealer while looking to implement TQM has to look towards developing the following action plan so that the business is able to manage its resources in a better manner and is able to gain maximum efficiency from the use of the resources. The steps which the car dealer can look towards using are as The detailed description of the steps to be followed is as Customer Focus: The foremost characteristic of quality management is to identify and meet customer needs. A dissatisfied customer not only harms the current sales but is also a loss of future sales. A quality product is of a reduced value until it meets customer needs. TQM will help to find out the customer needs for the car dealer. For the industry the quality must be above the customer’s expectations. Determination of customer needs is a tough ask as taste, preferences and likes of customers differ from one person to another. Therefore, the car dealer in Sydney is required to gather market reports and research constantly to keep up to the needs (Wilmer, 2010). Continuous Improvement: The general philosophy of never ending improvement shall only lead to better output for the car dealer in Sydney. The customers liking and expectations are always changing and moreover increasing. It also differs from one level or group of people to another. So TQM aims at improvement at all levels from decision-making, planning and execution. A good plan with perfect decisions and timely execution results for quality product and services will help to improve the quality of services being provided by the car dealer in Sydney. Improvement can be attained by a circular process of plan- do- study- act. The managerial level should collect the data and problems and proceed forward with an appropriate plan. The data should be based on actual figures and customer complaints. Next involves the implementation of the plan. The plan needs to be carried out with proper implementation at all levels of production. Third is to study and evaluate the data collected previously and its progress towards the goal. The collected data are evaluated and studied to seewhether the results are according to plan set up in the plan phase. The last is to act in accordance to the results of the first three steps. If the entire process works accordingly, than the process is to be communicated to the other members in the company for further implementation. This as a whole will help the car dealer to act on the opportunity that exist (Wilmer, 2010) Employee Empowerment: The impact and output of human resource directly depends upon the empowerment given to the employees. TQM allows the workers to make decisions related to the production process. Therefore their suggestions are of great importance and highly valued by TQM principles. These suggestions are implemented in a proper manner for better results. The workers are required to be given proper and extensive training in quality measurement tools on a continuous basis to help them perform better. Making a proper decision is based on a process of logical activities and the decision is taken from several possibilities. The main benefit of this principle is that the decisions at the management level are based on the effects of previous decisions with references to real records. These real records are based upon proper information and data which will improve the functioning of the car dealer (SIMON, 2009) Use of Quality Tools: The use of quality tools leads to quality services provided the workers understand the use of the tools. So training the workers accordingly is very necessary as they assess the quality and the problems. They need to understand how to assess quality of a product by use of quality tools. Quality of a product is controlled by the seven means namely cause and effect diagram, scattered diagram, flowcharts, pareto chart, histograms, control charts and checklist. Cause and effect diagram contains the main causes for quality problems. The problem in a company could be related to machines, workers, measurements, suppliers, inferior material and many more. For example a machine may lack in optimum output due to low or old quality tools. A worker may be lacking due to poor training and supervision. The car dealer can improve this aspect by providing the required training and skills (Gray & Khalid, 2006) Control charts are used to ascertain the working plans according to the plan depicted in regards of width, weight or volume. For example the width of a tire can be measured and compared with the required width. If the measurement matches than it is said to be in control. A control chart can be plotted out for the same with the help of the observations. Like in the diagram below are two lines one above the center line the upper control limit (UCL) and the one below called the lower control limit (LCL). As long as the observation lies within the two lines, the quality is problem free (Lee & Cetinkaya, 2000) Product Design: The design of the product should be in a manner to meet the customer’s requirements. The customers’ daily language and terms are to be converted into technical requirements using the system tool called quality function deployment (QFD). This process begins with getting customer requirements and numerically scores them on the basis of their importance. Then these scores are translated into specific product characteristics and also compared with the related competitors. Lastly, goals are set according to the identical problems. QFD helps in viewing the technical versus the consumer requirementsfor a product. These can be done on the basis of analysis which helps in developing the best product quality and design. Three important production objectives are productivity, flexibility and quality (Greenbaum, 1997) Process Management: TQM states that quality product is the outcome of quality process. So quality should be built into the production process. Process management ensures that a product problem should be met at source than to discard after finishing. If the source problem is not corrected than the problem of low quality production continues. Improvement at source brings out the difference between the traditional method of production and the application of quality management as the new method aims at inspecting goods at the time of production rather than after completion. In the new concept the goods are stopped from being finished if a problem is detected within the process and is again sent back for reproduction. Whereas, in the earlier process, discarded goods, after completion would increase the total cost of production and these costs would add upfor the final consumer. Process management helps control quality problems at source and corrects them. Management Supplier Quality: TQM helps to provide the concept of quality to the suppliers and also ensures that they use the same quality practice at their place. Many companies have their representatives at the supplier’s location which in a way involves the suppliers in the entire production process. The benefit of this principle is to increase ability to improve and create value for both the parties and optimize their costs and resources. Importance and reasons to use TQM The application of this principle shall lead to establish a relation between short term profits and long term considerations. This will help to in the identification and selection of potential suppliers who will help to develop the business. Thusa mechansim through which the development of future plans through proper communication can be developed This will ensure that steps are taken to improve production actions and activities which will make proper use of the resources and expertise with the partners. It makes the production more flexible and answerable to the market changes or the need and modification of the customers. Thus it will helt to develop a clear communication system and also be open for all. Conclusion The principles of Total Quality Management not only look towards the satisfaction of external customers with quality outputs but also the internal customers and suppliers. It also helps at continuous improvement using special quality methods and brings in problem solving techniques. Therefore the car dealer in Sydney by applying TQM principles as a part of their corporate strategy will achieve better results. Effective use of TQM principles will help the car dealer in Sydney in obtaining maximum return on investment. Quality goods and services are the results of both discipline and management. So the car dealer requires both quality system and quality culture for better quality results. A production process should be flexible enough to adapt to the changing market requirements. As the automotive market is extremely price sensitive, calculation of the actual cost of manufacturing and also to identify the potential areas for minimization of costs structure is the only way to the key to success. References Gray, R. & Khalid, B. 2006. A logistic and supply chain approach to efficiency. Research methodology in supply chain management, Part 4, pp. 87-93 Greenbaum, J. 1997. Efficient Customer response. Software Management, CBS Interactive Inc Lee, C. & Cetinkaya, S. 2000. Stock Replenishment and Scheduling for Vendor Managed Inventory Systems. Journal of Management Science, Volume 46, Number 2, page 217-232 SIMON. 2009. Simon delivers on demand data analytics with IBM eServer iSeries, Canada Wilmer, A. 2010. ERP software package in a nut shell. Retrieved on Septemner 8, 2012 from http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/Erp-Software-Packages-In-A-Nut-Shell/756462 Read More