Principles guiding TQM

TQM is a people-focused management system that aims at continuous increase in customer satisfaction at lower cost.

For details, please refer my previous article:-Total Quality Management.

We shall learn a few principles here and then continue this discussion over the coming articles.

A sustained management commitment to quality 

It is obvious that performance of an organisation is determined by how committed the management is for the implementation of TQM. So it requires committed involvement of top to lower persons to improve quality and reduces defects rather than simply prevention. If management is willing to take a sales hit, whole organisation should committed to quality improvement and customer satisfaction..

Focusing on the customer: 

As the main purpose of business organisation is creation of customer, there no need to repeatedly tell that organisation should focus on customers. So organisation has only options of  Satisfy the customer, satisfy the customer, and satisfy the customer. This is the main concern of TQM and only the way of success.

Preventing rather than detecting defects:

TQM concept is proactive rather than reactive. It looks to prevent inferior quality in products and services, rather than simply finding problems and figuring out them. TQM focuses to prevent probable problems and save cost and time for the remedy.

Universal quality responsibility: 

TQM clearly states that everybody is responsible for the quality of products and services. As of now, every organisation is committed to the quality. TQM assumes that quality is a measurable commodity, and in order to improve, we need to know what the current quality levels are and we need to have some idea that what quality levels we want to provide. 

Continuous improvement and learning: 

TQM always seeks for the continuous improvement in every aspect of an organization.  Continuous improvement is part of the management of all systems and processes. Achieving the highest levels of performance requires a well-defined and well-executed approach to continuous improvement and learning. 

Root cause corrective action: 

Organisation may have to deal with several complications every day. Therefore it is very necessary to identify and prevent them by specifying the root causes of problems and implementing corrective actions that address problems at the root cause level.

We shall continue this discussion in the coming articles.

If you have any queries, please comment.

Thank You.