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Total quality management is a business philosophy with worldwide appeal. Organizations around the world are hiring consultants to conduct TQM seminars. These companies want to increase their employees' quality awareness and change their attitudes.
They organize quality action teams, expose workers to statistical process control (SPC), and initiate gain-sharing--all to spur growth, profitability, and customer satisfaction. But for many, the wait for results has been long and frustrating. In some cases, high expectations have given way to doubt and skepticism.
Contrary to what some people may think, the lack of results isn't because the philosophy is flawed. Just the opposite. The basic tenets of TQM are sound--to gain competitive advantage by reducing costs (specifically to eliminate nonconformance costs, which are caused by deviations from performance standards) and to maximize the quality of products and services. The flaws lie in the implementation.
Many TQM efforts don't meet expectations because people fail to distinguish between philosophy and strategy. A disappointing outcome is usually due to weak tactics and the lack of a strategic framework.
The philosophical aspect of TQM deals with culture, attitudes, and behavior. The rest involves strategy and tactics. Strategy and tactics have to do with executing the necessary steps to achieve an organization's goals and gain competitive advantage--generally defined as lowering costs and improving quality.
First, you have to sell the philosophy. That means gaining commitment to satisfying customers. It means achieving growth and competitive advantage. The objective is to introduce all employees to the benefits of the TQM philosophy, which emphasizes customer needs over output. It's to encourage employees to work as teams, to improve the quality of products and services, and to try to "get it right the first time."
But you must follow philosophy with a strategic framework for implementation. If you don't, the results are predictably poor--even when the TQM philosophy takes hold and there's a serious effort to implement it.
As the chief operating officer of a Midwest manufacturing firm says, "We've been committed to TQM for almost two years and though we can identify problems quicker, we don't seem to be able to solve them any more effectively."
SCENARIOS TO AVOID
The lack of results is typical of situations in which the quality of TQM training is incomplete....