In today’s world, organizations require total quality management, which gives them a clear path to achieving their goals and market excellence. How can this be achieved? What are the stages that institutions follow to implement total quality management? Are there specific principles that employees must adhere to in order to achieve comprehensive quality goals? Let’s discover all this and more in the article.
The concept of total quality management
At the organizational level, Total Quality Management is a general management philosophy. Its primary goal is to achieve the goal that the organization was established to achieve, and it takes customer satisfaction as a means to achieve this, as its employees constantly join forces to implement plans that raise the level of services and goods provided to customers and make them better in terms of accuracy and quality, with the aim of preventing negatives that may hinder the organization and directing it towards development and overall growth.
The importance of total quality management
The importance of quality management stems from the goal it seeks to achieve, which is to satisfy customers, satisfy market needs, and reach the final goal that the organization seeks to achieve.
Quality management elements
The American Institute for Quality identified the following elements, which we must pay attention to if we want total quality management to succeed and reach our goals:
- Generality of quality management: It is not concerned with one department alone; rather, it is an integrated system that covers all departments of the organization and their functions.
- Studying decisions and basing them on clear information and solid foundations.
- The plan includes all employees, so solidarity among them is necessary. Negatives in the work environment must be eliminated to empower them and give them self-leadership.
- The customer is the foundation because he determines whether the quality process is successful or not.
- Monitoring and measuring the implementation level are essential to enable employees to measure their progress and move towards the goal without obstacles.
- Strong relationships between organizational members are crucial, and constructive communication between departments and individuals should not be neglected.
- The actions and decisions aim to achieve customer satisfaction, so the main focus is his satisfaction with what is presented to him.
Quality management tools
They are tools that improve the ability to measure the level of employees and enhance their skills and abilities by measuring the suitability of their products to the market and their satisfaction with customers. They are necessary for a comprehensive quality management system and are known as the Seven Basic Tools of Quality. Among these tools are the following:
Frequency distribution “histogram”
The frequency distribution method is used to determine the quality of the products provided by the organization. It relies on statistical information organized into lists to identify and avoid the problems facing these products, enhance their quality, and offer targeted customer marketing opportunities.
Scatter plot
monitoring an organization’s products and services by organizing them into digital data and measuring them. It depends on placing the required products’ manufacturing and marketing processes and specifications under control and measurement to link digital variables to reach the relationship between the available steps and specifications and the product’s performance in the market and developing it to achieve customer satisfaction.
Check sheet
Using this tool, information about the production process is collected and its similar characteristics are determined, which makes errors more visible, helps reduce them, and raises the efficiency of production operations.
Control chart
A measure used to reveal factors that may affect customer satisfaction with a product, not because of the product itself but rather because of external factors such as price changes or the customer’s inclination for a more efficient competing product, etc., which contributes to determining the optimal time to develop capacity or produce more successful alternatives.
Pareto analysis
This type of measure is used to identify the obstacles facing quality and arrange them in descending order according to their appearance, from the most frequent to the least frequent. Thus, the organization can focus on the challenges that appear most frequently in the products and devise ways to eliminate them first, then allow problems that only recur sometimes.
Ishikawa diagram (cause and effect)
It is known as a cause-and-effect diagram and resembles a fishbone. It collects all the possible causes for the emergence of a problem, revealing the relationship between each cause and the results that are achieved in reality or the problems that appear.
Flow chart meters
This method aids in monitoring the production route of a commodity and the actions it takes to identify and promptly rectify any errors it encounters.
Quality management tasks
Several basic tasks must be implemented by total quality management to ensure its success in achieving its goal, and among these tasks are the following:
Customer acquisition
The primary goal of the total quality system is customer satisfaction. Since customers have many opportunities to obtain their satisfaction and loyalty, it is no longer easy to obtain them. Therefore, total quality management must devise new methods for constructive communication between customers, know what they need, and provide it in products and services.
Reduce the negatives.
It means adhering to all strategies and standards that can be implemented to make the production process more efficient and avoid errors.
Raising the level of productivity
Productivity is improved by educating employees about what they provide to the organization and giving them sufficient motivation to feel a sense of belonging and unite with its goals. This increases productivity while maintaining the required quality.
Reaching excellence:
Striving to create a unique product capable of satisfying the customer is an important goal that total quality management seeks to achieve. It relies on visual identity and connection with customers to improve the quality of products and enable customers to get what they need.
Reducing risks
Quality management is particularly concerned with this task, as it studies the potential negative effects of a particular decision or event on the organization’s ability to achieve its goals. The task of quality management is to discover those possibilities and reduce the chances of their occurrence.
Quality management objectives
Quality management seeks to help the organization achieve its purpose through some smaller goals. The following are some of the objectives of total quality management:
- Maintaining quality standards for services and products.
- Providing a work environment that contributes to the development of its employees and enables them to participate and self-lead.
- Motivating employees and increasing their efficiency and productivity.
- Use time in the best possible way.
- Improving the control of production processes and utilizing them to develop products
- Achieving sufficient flexibility to keep pace with market changes.
- Raising the efficiency of teamwork in the organization’s departments.
- Reducing spending by improving the product to meet customer needs.
- Reducing errors and defects in products.
Principles of Total Quality Management
Total Quality Management adopts several principles that contribute to achieving its goals, including:
- Understanding what quality is and the goal of following its standards and adhering to its strategies.
- Use total quality management tools effectively and skillfully.
- Interest in gaining customer satisfaction.
- Build strong relationships through constructive communication.
- Interconnection between everyone while providing the necessary support to every employee.
- Raising the efficiency of workers and improving their productivity.
- Commitment to continuous development.
- Realistic decisions to be implemented.
Characteristics of quality management
With some of the characteristics provided by total quality management to organizations, the entire system can transform into a new form that is more powerful, durable, and better in terms of meeting the requirements of employees and customers. Among these characteristics are the following:
- Leadership is a characteristic that prevents isolation and a lack of effective communication between the boss and the subordinate, thereby improving the company’s ability to overcome the obstacles facing its various departments.
- Using realistic plans has the benefit of creating a clear vision for your future.
- Sustainability of development is another characteristic that teaches you not to think that achieving an excellent product is the end of the path, but rather that you must keep up with market changes and produce another, more distinguished product.
- Teamwork is the most essential characteristic of total quality because it helps confront problems and extract effective solutions.
- Records and documents are the first aids in collecting, analyzing, and comparing information, and they are also a prominent contributor to the use of comprehensive management tools. Therefore, the recording feature is essential in the lease to achieve comprehensive quality.
Types of Quality Management
Quality management is divided into two main sections that explain the difference between quality management and total quality management:
| Quality management for customers:
This means that the organization works to satisfy the customer’s needs and help him obtain the product he wants, as this method helps the organization achieve continued success. Total-quality tools and strategies are used to follow established plans, adhere to principles, and continue supporting that goal. This type is known as total quality management because it is a comprehensive approach that includes continuous improvement of all aspects of the production process to achieve the organization’s goal.
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Quality management of production:
In this type, the focus is on what the organization offers to customers, with the goal of improving and enhancing its efficiency and ability to satisfy them. This type focuses on developing workers’ efficiency and productivity to produce unique and excellent products capable of meeting users’ requirements without exaggerating resources. This type is called “total” quality management because it focuses only on improving production and bringing it up to standards. It is specific to one aspect of total quality management.
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Stages of total quality management
Total quality management goes through several application stages in institutions, starting with transforming the leadership system and leading to achievement, improvement, and continuous development. These stages are summarized as follows:
- Educating the organization’s leaders about all the details required to start work and their commitment to cooperating to provide information.
- Determine what customers need and how to deal with an unstable market.
- Develop plans and strategies to contribute to the success of quality management plans.
- Follow up on the implementation of plans to measure their success and perhaps make some adjustments to increase the chances of success.
- Collecting information about successful products, measuring their success, and developing new products to make them more successful and distinctive.
- Measuring results and comparing them with the standards that must be met continuously.
Obstacles to implementing total quality management
Sometimes, some institutions fail and cannot implement total quality management, which hinders their success in achieving the purpose of their existence. Failure to implement total quality is due to the following reasons:
- The tendency toward individual achievement and selfishness among employees.
- The length of the total quality management implementation period affects the efficiency of adhering to its stages.
- A lack of stability in management means a lack of stability in work plans.
- Lack of awareness of how to deal with market variables or identify and monitor customer trends.
- Lack of interest in developing human resources.
- Lack of conditions conducive to the development of workers or tools and equipment.
- Lack of financial support directed to the institution and lack of motivation for workers to raise their productivity and capabilities.
Benefits and advantages of total quality management for organizations
When your organization follows a comprehensive quality management system, there are some advantages that you can benefit from:
- Ridding the market of useless products and improving the quality and efficiency of the products.
- Customer satisfaction with the organization is high due to its continuous development of products.
- Enhancing innovation and creativity and improving the work environment make the company an attractive environment for those seeking work and investors, thanks to its continued success.
- Arriving at optimal plans to save resources and utilize time in the best possible way.
Disadvantages of a Quality Management System
Among the most important disadvantages that may appear even with the application of quality management systems in institutions are the following:
- Wasting resources cannot be avoided entirely, at least at the beginning of the process.
- Some aspects increase the organization’s costs, such as examining products, preparing reports on them, collecting information from markets, etc.
- Some employees do not benefit from awareness of the importance of quality or do not find sufficient encouragement to adhere to it.
- A quality system is an ongoing process that requires a long time to implement, which may increase costs and opportunities for errors.
- Large organizations may be unable to implement total quality management processes, negatively affecting their results.
Conclusion
Total quality management philosophy provides organizations with more accessible ways to achieve continuous achievements, is widely beneficial, and provides all departments and leadership of the organization with strength and optimal ways to exploit resources. This is exactly what makes your request to try the Qoyod accounting program for free a successful step towards an effective management method, as it enables you to track the institution’s financial performance while providing comprehensive training courses on comprehensive management programs for institutions of all types. In addition to adhering to sound accounting regulations, request your free trial now, start implementing comprehensive quality for your organization, and enjoy success and excellence.
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