Overview of Total Quality Management
The incorporation of total quality management (TQM) has an essential role to in the growth of the contemporary management. Quality is regarded as a significant strategic factor in attaining the success of a business and in the current global market; success is what makes a business standout from all the other businesses that are functional. The key slogan for all the companies is to look for a competitive edge in the market with the help of liberalisation, knowledgeable customers and globalisation. Goh, (2015) has cited that in future, there will be two kinds of company- companies that have incorporated total quality management and the companies that are out of business and this is applicable for organizations globally irrespective of whether they are big or small companies and are coming from the service or the manufacturing sector. In the current time period, it is seen that most of the organizations have incorporated quality strategies and have made total quality management a successfully granted part for most of the tool kit of the managers.
This report would therefore look to provide an overview, description, assessment and the possible contextual factors with regards to total quality management so that a precise idea about total quality management and how it has an impact on the performance of a company can be understood in an effective manner.
Total Quality Management explains the approach of the management to their long term success with the help of satisfying their customers (Govindan et al., 2015). In the process of total quality management, all the employees and the management of a company needs to participate in order to enhance the products, processes, culture and the services within which the company operates.
Total quality management can be overviewed as a management process for a customer oriented company that associates all the employees towards sustainable development. It comprises of the data, effective level of communication and strategies in order to integrate the discipline within the operations and culture of the company (Kwon et al., 2014).
There are several aspects in accordance to which total quality management is associated to and all these factors provide proper explanation and description of total quality management process. Hazen et al., (2014) agreed to the fact that total quality management concentrates on six significant components and they are reduction in cost, commitment and leadership of the top management, customer satisfaction, teamwork, training and organizational culture. The availability of these elements plays a key role in the development of an effective total quality management process.
Components of Total Quality Management
Total quality management can be explained as a set of mechanisms and process that are exploited in order to mitigate or eliminate differences within the process of production and service delivery process in order to enhance reliability, effectiveness and quality. Jiménez-Jiménez et al., (2014) cited that total quality management is an integrated management philosophy for the sustainable development of the process and product quality in order to attain satisfaction among the customers. Aquilani et al., (2017) explained that total quality management is a process that is featured by the practices, principle and mechanism.
The researchers were able to point out three elements that most of the quality model has in general and they are sustainable development; focus on the customers and teamwork. Each one of the principles is incorporated with the help of a set of practices and these processes, on the other hand are assisted by an extensive set of mechanisms. On the other hand, the weakness of total quality management is the absence of a systematic scale development and validity of the content. Benavides-Velasco et al., (2014) recognised ten total quality management factors like the commitment of the company, human resource management, product design, training, operational process, quality information system, utilisation of the technology, function of the quality department, quality policy and integration among the suppliers. The researcher even constructed a measurement that can be used in order to assess the extent to which these practices associated to total quality management are incorporated by a company. According to Sadikoglu, & Olcay (2014) the total quality management philosophy can be imagined as developing a house with the commitment of the top level management which would act as a base. On the basis of a solid foundation, four pillars are framed that are inclusive of the measurement of the quality, process management, focus over the customers, training of the employees and control.
Akgün et al., (2014) constructed a total quality management framework in order to assess the effect of the total quality management process on the quality performance of an organization. It indicated that the quality processes can be differentiated into nine segments that include commitment of the workforce, individual training, usage of benchmarking, utilisation of the principles of just in time, shared vision, innovative and modern manufacturing process, customer focus, effective relations with the suppliers and utilisation of teams.
Calabrese & Corbò (2015) assessed the relationship among total quality management and the performance of an organization by investigating six practices of total quality management. These practices have been categorised into two sections: organic components and mechanistic components. The organic components are people management and leadership and on the other hand, the mechanistic components are process management, planning and strategies, customer orientation, assessment and data. The segmentation is based on Goh’s (2015) suggestion that total quality management needs to be a combination of the individuals which is regarded as the soft component and the technical processes that is regarded as the hard component. Goh (2015) concentrated on the human factor of total quality management as the human orientation of total quality management towards the organizational evaluations will permit effective total quality management in the real practice.
Weaknesses of Total Quality Management
There have been several studies and researches that have been undertaken in the past that directly assesses the relationship among the organizational features and they are size of the company, type of industry, ownership and the practices of total quality management. Mehta et al., (2014) discovered that there are essential variations in the relationship among organizational performance and total quality management when the company size was considered, especially the impact on the development of the new products. The bigger organizations have been able to take advantage of total quality management than the smaller companies. These results are dependable with respect to some other researches. On the other hand, Chuang et al., (2015) explained that there were no significant operational variations in the incorporation of total quality management in accordance to the size of the company and that the smaller and the larger companies that manufacture improved quality products incorporated total quality management efficiently and equivalently. In a recent study, Mohammad Mosadeghrad, (2014) assessed the implementation rate of total quality management in the companies in New Zealand and the function the size of the organizations play in the ascertaining the rate of incorporation. In order to project the implementation of total quality management, autonomy of the workplace, utilisation of teams, size of the organization, standards of the performance and group solving of issues were the factors that was exploited and out of which the size of the organization was regarded as a variable that was moderating. The outcome of the research explained that the companies with higher degree of autonomy in the workplace, use of the performance standards, utilisation of group problem solving and teamwork were more dependent on incorporating total quality management and this aspect was seen mostly for the larger organizations than the smaller companies (Talib, & Rahman 2015). These outcomes have explained that although most of the smaller companies have certain weak points like the limitations in their market, insufficient resources and the absence of expertise in the management, they still had the benefits with regards to innovation and flexibility that could permit them to incorporate total quality management as efficiently as the bigger companies.
The organizational behaviour or culture is persuaded by the kind of corporate ownership. Hence, the management needs to have knowledge about how the strategy with regards to the total quality management can be incorporated in an effective manner. Fu et al., (2015) discovered no evidence that behaviour and the culture in the organizations that was owned by the Chinese had an influence on the employee involvement which is a kind of total quality management practice. The outcome of the Structural Equation Modelling assessment in order to assess the cultural values of the incorporation of the total quality management revealed that addictiveness, peace among the people and the universe and respect for the management had an influence on the total quality management dimensions. It is even essential to link the total quality management practices with the cultural values in order to attain the results of the business.
Relationship between Organizational Size and Total Quality Management
There are two different kinds of relationship between total quality management and the innovation. One of the relationships explain that total quality management assists in the development of innovating addressing that companies that incorporate total quality management will be successful towards innovation. The other aspect debates the fact that total quality management obstructs innovation (Chaudary et al., 2015). One of the essential aspects of total quality management is satisfaction of the customers. The firms that incorporate total quality management have to discover and explore ways in order to serve the needs of the customers and their expectations at their best. This generates the momentum for the organizations to be modernized and innovative in incorporating new and innovative services and products in order to satisfy the needs of the customers.
On the other hand there are negative thoughts on the same idea as well as Herzallah et al., (2014) debated that focus on the customers is associated more with the conformance of the product and does not concentrate on the innovation of the product. However, several results have indicated that total quality management assists in the innovation of the products in most of the companies.
There are several contextual factors that are associated with total quality management. It is seen that total quality management is helpful in developing the performance of the organization with the help of development of the productivity of the company. Total quality management improves the customer focus strategies of the company and thereby provides innovative strategies that would be helpful in satisfying the needs of the customers (Ahmad et al., 2014). Total quality management enhances the training and development of the employees and the management and thereby making them competent enough to tackle the current issues that are existent in the market. There is a development in the leadership skills as well along with the development of the process management. Hence, total quality management has a positive impact on the overall operations of a company irrespective of being a small or a large organization.
Conclusion
The assessment with regards to total quality management has provided a detailed insight on the process of total quality management and how the companies all over the globe have accepted it and have been using the same for better results in their operational activities. The results indicate that total quality management are helpful in improving the organizational performance of a firm along with their productivity and extent of customer satisfaction. The paper has even addressed that size of the company, type of ownership does not have an impact on total quality management. Total quality management enhances innovation and they are able to develop the operational strategy as well. The paper has therefore been able to address the impact of total quality management in an organization.
Impact of Ownership and Culture on Total Quality Management
Reference List
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