The fundamentals of Total Quality Management
Total Quality Management (TQM) can be described as a philosophy that has a scientific point of view and that clearly emphasizes on the improvement of the organization so that a superior value can be provided to the customers. The present generation of the TQM is based on the approaches and the quality theory. The basic or the fundamental theme of the TQM are the three major principles, which are the process involvement, employee involvement and eh customer satisfaction (Oakland 2014). The success of the organizations depend mainly on how the organization meets the needs of the customers. For each and every type of the entities, there are two different types of the customers like the external customers (the consumer or the user of the product or the service) and the internal customers (the employees). While it is important to note that TQM as a management system is not a program that will put the customer satisfaction before profit (Bon et al. 2013). Rather the system consists of the integrated philosophies, processes and tools that will be used to accomplish the objectives of the business and this will be achieved by the happy employees and the delighted customers. The practices, processes and the activities of the construction industries are entirely project based. While at the same time the practices, processes and the activities are the temporary endeavours based upon which the results or services, unique product is achieved. Successful management of the project can be described as the achieving the objectives of the project within the technology level, desirable performance level, and within the cost and time limits. Moreover, effective utilization of the assigned resources along with the proper acceptance by the customer (Talib, Rahman and Qureshi 2013). This study will provide a research proposal on the effect of total quality management on the project performance
- To identify the TQM practices that have a greater impact on the project performance.
- To determine the assessment of the project performance in the organizations
- To determine the TQM and its impact on the level of customer focus within the purview of the construction organization.
- To determine the influence of the total quality management on the project management practices.
Quality management is also called as the total quality management and both the concepts of the total quality management are essential to determine and define the concept of the quality management. The ISO 8402 describes that the quality management includes all the activities of the management function and it is actively used to determine the responsibilities, objectives, quality policies. Moreover, this is implemented by the ways and means like the quality improvement in the quality systems, quality assurance, quality control and quality control. Thus, it can be said that quality is perceived as the centre point of the team work and by many contractor quality is defined as the measure of the team work (Mir and Pinnington 2014). Thus, this proves that the team work is essential for the achievement of the total quality management in an organization. The total quality management consists of the different subsections namely the total, quality and management. The total here means that the everyone in the organization will be included in the creation and maintenance of the quality of the products and the services that are offered by a specific organization. The total aspect deals with the comprehensive way of dealing with the different sets of the complex interactions and involves everyone. The second one is the quality and it includes the organization through which the collective and the individual actions of the customer needs are met at the lowest cost and also within the stipulated time limit. Moreover, it also includes the quality and the perception of the customer (Yunis, Jung and Chen 2013). Total quality refers to the fact of achieving the desired quality according to the requirements. While the management part deals with the management of the system and it must be emphasized on to the continuous improvement and it will not include the quick fixes. Thus, this requires each and everyone that are involved and part of the organization will be held responsible for the managing their own job and only due to this the quality can be achieved. Total quality management is thus a management system which is basically focused on the organization and it involves all the employees that will have a role in the improvement of all the aspect of the organization. The total quality management system will emphasize on the meeting the needs of the customers and the owners by rendering quality services at a cost that serves the value of the customers/owners; it is driven by the quest for the continuous improvement in all the operations (Jiménez-Jiménez et al. 2015); it is driven by the persistent improvement in all the operations; recognizes that the everyone in the organization re either customer/owners that are either external or internal; views the organization as an internal system that aims towards the individual departments and also maximizes the performances; focuses on the way the tasks are accomplished rather than emphasising on what tasks are accomplished; focuses on the team work and the high level of participation by each and every employees (Hassan et al. 2014).
Quality Management and its role in team work
Project performance can be described as the temporary endeavour that has been undertaken so that unique services or products can be created. Projects have a clear deadline, the projects have a specifically aimed towards a specific goal, and the projects are novel and unique. It is important to note that the projects that are unpredictable and complex causes serious amount of challenge for the project based organizations. Furthermore, the organizations that are project based differ fundamentally with the ones that are standard organizations. Therefore, within the context of a construction project, the success of project can be described by the way the construction organizations are have set their objectives (Saeed and Hasan 2012). It is important to mention that the measure of success is different for different organizations and it entirely depends on their objectives. What might seem as success for one organization might be seen as failure for another organization. Therefore, it is important to note that the concept of success differs among the participants of the project. Furthermore, there lacks a common framework for the assessment and measurement of the project performance (Ng et al.2014). It is important to note that a universal checklist cannot be developed that will have all the characteristics of a project and will include the uniqueness, complexity, location and the size. Within the perspective of project performance, quality, cost and time are the iron triangle and these items are commonly referred to as the iron indicators that are parts of the performance indicators and also have the capability to measure the success of the construction projects. Overall satisfaction of the stakeholders and the customer satisfaction must be taken into consideration during the evaluation of the project performance (Sadikoglu and Olcay 2014).
The internal customers as well as the employees constitute the vital part of the total quality implementation and it has the capability of moving up or towards the down. The employees in such companies or organizations hold the future of the company in their own hands. It is important to mention that majority of the time the employees have the ample amount of knowledge regarding the needs of satisfying the customers as well have the quality solutions to the problems. Therefore, it is important to mention that the employee satisfaction drives the employees to remain satisfied and makes them loyal as well, on the other hand the employee retention is increased and it reduces the labour attrition. Thus, to emphasise the satisfied employees are actually the ambassadors of the company of their respective firms (Kerzner 2017). The loyal companies are actually the productive employees that will be creating the value for the companies. The cost of the turnover will include the training, hiring and recruiting of the employees and this will reduce the cost due to the employee loyalty. Therefore, the satisfied customers are the external loyal customers that will be avoiding any problematic issue for their business entity (Singh and Sushil 2013). It is estimated that a small rise in the customer loyalty will help in further increasing the margin of profit for the organization. Moreover, acquiring new customers will be costly affair and it will be very expensive and the loyal external customers will provide free advertisement. These are the vital ingredients for the survival of the business organizations and they are vital in the creation of value for the owners, and it will boost the longevity, growth and investment (Panuwatwanich and Nguyen 2017).
Project Performance in construction industry
Firms have arrived at the conclusion that the effective implementation of the total quality management has improved and enhanced the competitive advantages of the organizations and it has also provided strategic advantage with the marketplace. Researchers have highlighted that implementation of total quality management has improved the productivity, competitiveness and the quality of the firms by 20 to 30 percent that have been striving to implement it (Floricel, Michela and Piperca 2016). While study have highlighted that 90 percent of the improvement rate has been noticed in the implementation of TQM, improvement in the financial performance and operating procedures and employee relations (Babatunde and Sui Pheng 2015). The frameworks that have been playing the constructive role through the implementation of TQM are the establishment of the monitoring process, production of training plans, reviewing the organizational culture, top management, effective communication system, process improvement and process management through the productive study, reduction in the number of the suppliers, encouragement of teamwork, and customer feedback system (Mir and Pinnington 2014). The construction professionals implement the TQM at the different stages of the project. Studies have indicated that that the implementation of TQM has brought a high amount of success to the construction business through saving time, reducing costs, increasing customer satisfaction, improving quality of business. The reason due to which the construction companies were unable to accrue benefits of the TQM is because the TQM professionals were unaware of the TQM techniques and principles. Therefore, to bring the benefits of the TQM to the construction industry, efforts are required to spread the culture of the TQM among the TQM courses and the TQM professionals (Cheung, Yiu and Lam 2013).
From the above conducted literature review, it can be said that the TQM is highly beneficial for the companies that are willing improve their organizational performance and also enhance their project performance. It is important to mention that the employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction and delivering the quality work for the purpose of increasing the competitiveness of the organizations that are competing in a competitive world (Hassan et al. 2014). It is important to mention that there are several different types of the methodologies and process that can improve the performance of an organization but the total quality management system is a holistic way of approaching a problem and moving up. It has been highlighted through the studies that employee satisfaction is a major issue and the employees must work towards achieving the customer satisfaction. The employee are actually the ambassadors that work collectively towards achieving a common target of organizational development and achieving targets of the organization. It is important to mention that TQM highly enhances the project performance through the employee satisfaction and gaining the customer loyalty. The managers of the company as well as the leaders of the company are held responsible so that they can help in achieving the desired goals of the company (Lau, Tang and Li 2015).
The importance of employee and customer satisfaction in Total Quality Management
The methodology is to ensure the proposed study conforms with the objectives that have been outlined. The subtopics that will be covered in the methodology chapter are the population, sample, and the research design. Moreover, the descriptions of the data collection procedures and the research instruments are the techniques that will be employed for the statistical analysis (Kumar 2019).
The research will be designed so that the objectives can be achieved. A cross sectional study will be used for this type of study because information will be derived from the population sample at one point of time. The cross sectional study is selected because the study will not analyse and examine any trends. Moreover, this study will involve data collection from a large number of organization so as to promote the representative sampling. While at the same time, there will be resource constraints, and lack of sufficient time. In this study process, data will be collected through the usage of questionnaire surveys and the questionnaires will be distributed through online surveys and email. The questionnaires will be distributed among the leaders of the organizations that specialize in construction, their employees and the potential customers. The customers of the company are the ones that use the services and products of the construction company. It is important to note customers and the employees of the construction companies will be especially targeted to find out the customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and the opinions of the leaders so that they behind the scene issues can be highlighted and whether the TQM is applied in the organization or not and whether the TQM is helpful towards enhancing the project performance. Thus, the sample size selected for the study will as follows: A total of 300 employees and 200 customers will be surveyed through the questionnaires. Two different online surveys will be conducted through the online questionnaires and one online link will be shared with the employees and the customers that will have different set of questionnaires. While a different set of questionnaires will be sent through the e-mails for assessing and collecting data from the leaders of the companies. 50 different construction companies that will be used for assessing its leaders. furthermore, the age group of the employees considered for this assessment is 28 to 50, the age group of the customers has been selected to be from 30 to 50 years and the age group of the company leaders will be between 40 to 55 years. The responses will be analysed using the SPSS software and data will be represented in tables.
Impact of Total Quality Management on productivity, competitiveness, and financial performance
The entire study will include the human subjects and due to this, ethical consent will be taken in to consideration. This will be done so as to minimize the concern of sharing information with the other unauthorized person or organization. It is important to mention that the ethical consents will be sought from the all the participants of the study. An authority of Albania will also be used to govern the ethical conditions of the study and permissions will be granted from this organization to conduct the research (Stahl et al. 2014).
The expected outcomes of the research can be summarised as under: it can be expected that the organizations use and implements the TQM in their organizational process for the purpose of product delivery and attaining a competitive image. The expected usage of the TQM in the project will positively boost the performance of the company and it will give a positive advantage to the organizations over the other market competitors. secondly, it is important to mention that the implementation of the total quality management will positively impact the employee satisfaction and the employee retention. Employees will stay motivated and they will be able to handle the customers in an effective way. It is important to mention that the one of the major outcome will be the satisfied customers and satisfied employees will work towards the making the customers (Yang 2013).
Conclusion
From the above discussion it can be concluded that, TQM consists of the integrated philosophies, processes and tools that will be used to accomplish the objectives of the business and this will be achieved by the happy employees and the delighted customers. The organizations that are project based differ fundamentally with the ones that are standard organizations. Therefore, within the context of a construction project, the success of project can be described by the way the construction organizations are have set their objectives. employee satisfaction drives the employees to remain satisfied and makes them loyal as well, on the other hand the employee retention is increased and it reduces the labour attrition. Thus, to emphasise the satisfied employees are actually the ambassadors of the company of their respective firms. The loyal companies are actually the productive employees that will be creating the value for the companies.
References
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Kerzner, H., 2017. Project management metrics, KPIs, and dashboards: a guide to measuring and monitoring project performance. John Wiley & Sons.
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