TQM Contemporary Management Philosophy: Total

TQM

Contemporary Management Philosophy:

Total Quality Management

The philosophy of Total Quality Management (TQM) offers contemporary managers a battery of techniques to increase organizational productivity and to minimize production defects. Yet, since the height of its popularity in the 1980s and 90s, TQM has become more of a buzzword, used by managers unschooled in the true TQM methodology, and the phrase has become so ubiquitous it is easy to forget what the acronym actually signifies. Essentially, the underlying philosophy of TQM that quality is not an abstract concept rather quality is an error-free objective that can be managed by human design. Quality is a process, not a result, and leaders should accept no deviations from quality standards, moreover leaders should be setting higher and higher organizational benchmarks for employees to achieve, every day, even if the organization is at the forefront of its competitors.

A devoted adherent to the principles of Total Quality Management (TQM) would define the different letters of the TQM acronym as thus: Total means that quality involves everyone and all activities in the company; quality means conformance to requirements and meeting customer requirements, management means adhering to the principle that quality can and must be managed by human design. Hence "TQM = a process for managing quality; it must be a continuous way of life; a philosophy of perpetual improvement" (Hansen, 1999). "There's no doubt about it: Quality and productivity go hand in hand," said the vice president of quality at Convex Computer Corporation, small company based in Richardson, Texas that still enthusiastically implemented TQM in the 1990s (Rothman, 1994: 2).

Some of the most famous companies that have implemented TQM include organizations as diverse as the Ford Motor Company, Phillips Semiconductor, SGL Carbon, Motorola and of course, the Toyota Motor Company, where the TQM philosophy began (Hansen, 1999). In 1991, in a rare display of unity, the CEOs of American Express Company, IBM Corporation, the Procter and Gamble Company, Ford Motor Company, Motorola Inc., and Xerox Corporation sent an open letter to the Harvard Business Review in 1991, writing "we are absolutely convinced that TQM is a fundamentally better way to conduct business and is necessary for the economic well-being of America. TQM results in higher-quality, lower cost products and services that respond faster to the needs of the customer" (Zabaracki, 1998: 1) This collective enthusiasm caused many smaller and not-for-profit organizations to look into learning about TQM.

Rather than principles alone, TQM is also defined around a series of organizational activities and steps that good managers should follow. Activities foundational to TQM include meeting customer requirements for excellence, reducing the development cycle times of innovative products, implementing just-in-time or demand flow manufacturing to avoid shortages during times of high demand and stockpiling up of what will become obsolete goods during times of lesser demand, and reducing product and service costs. In terms of the human implications of TQM, improvement teams and improved administrative systems training is also vital (Hansen, 1999).

In that TWM does have principles, it is very customer-oriented, stating: "quality can and must be managed," because "everyone has a customer and is a supplier" (Hansen, 1999). TQM began in the 1950s, when the Japanese manufacturing industry, still reeling from the after effects of losing World War II, asked W. Edwards Deming, an American statistician and management theorist, to help them improve their war torn economy (Masters, 2003). By implementing Deming's principles of total quality management (TQM), Japan experienced dramatic economic growth in most of its industries, and the philosophy of teamwork proved especially congenial to the Japanese cultural ethos. It was especially successful at Toyota, and is seen as partly responsible for the company's domination of its American competition, including the once untouchable General Motors.

In the 1980s, when the United States began to see a reduction in its own world market share in relation to Japan, particularly in the automotive industry, American business "rediscovered" Deming, and "quality management experts, Joseph Juran and Philip Crosby, also contributed to the development of TQM theories, models, and tools (Masters, 2003). Today, TQM is now practiced in [American] business as well as in government, the military, education, and in non-profit organizations including libraries" (Masters, 2003).

The TQM ideal that everyone has a customer and is a supplier is not as strange as it may sound, despite the diversity of its current applications. In its original incarnation at manufacturing companies like Toyota, the customer was the ordinary driver and the supplier was the car production plant. But even in a service-oriented business like a hospital, the customer can be defined as the patient, the product the quality of care, and the supplier those persons who help dispense the care, including physicians, nurses, and other members of the hospital's administrative and care giving staff.

Nor is the use and application of TQM limited to large organizations, for example, at Convex, a company of 1,200 employees with 50 work teams, each member takes personal responsibility for functions such as assembly and product engineering and sees him or herself as a supplier either of entities within the organization of essential services, or of customers outside the organization. The organization has committed itself to constant metrical analysis of internal and external satisfaction, as "annual surveys, focus groups, and user groups solicit customer feedback, and Convex employees are empowered to act on customer concerns without waiting for approval from layers of management" (Rothman, 1994:2). (Processes, not people, are the focus of TQM. Neither customers nor employees seen as problems that must be eliminated, rather faulty organizational processes must be fixed and every employee is responsible for quality maintenance and improvement. Problems must be prevented, not just fixed Hansen, 1999). However, TQM has had its opponents, many of whom see it only as the latest of many organizational fads (Zabaracki, 1998: 1). This may arise from misunderstanding what TQM really means, as quite often the words quality or improved management may be used rhetorically, without the full implementation of the defect-free TQM philosophy, which demands metrical analysis and a reformation of how the company approaches individual and team reward systems.

More seriously, TQM has also been criticized as treating people as just a cost factor of production, with low investment worker task skill gains. In the United States, in companies implementing TQM, investment in individual workers averages only 1-2% of sales, compared with these corporations' international competitors in Europe. While internationally, worker training averages 1 out of every 8 hours, U.S. figures "don't come close to this" statistic (Holoviak, 1995:1).

In short, TQM, as put into practice in the United States, has not really improved worker quality and training, which should ideally be part of the process of improvement, not merely eliminating defects from products. Also, despite its emphasis on work teams, individuals rather than teams ultimately receive paychecks and bonuses, and workers may feel as if the company does not care about them, as their performance rating is dependant upon others in a TQM system. "When a worker realizes he or she is just another factor in the production mix it's very hard to emotionally commit to company success. it's not uncommon for U.S. companies to manipulate labor costs to manufacture bonuses for executives or to bolster quarterly earnings to encourage a rise in stock prices," and cutting the cost of labor is seen as a bottom-line improvement, even though this can cause poor morale and ultimately hurt corporate productivity, innovation, and hamper meaningful and creative change (Holoviak, 1995: 2).

IBM in particular has fallen under fire for merely implementing TQM metrics, not management: "IBM it's ROI, not people or training...The new president of IBM came out and publicly pledged the company's prime commitment will be return-on-investment and not employee growth, training, or development. For that matter neither was product quality or customer service pledged ahead of stock price. Our cost cutting is highly effective for short-term profit gains; there is no argument here. The real long-term cost is low skilled or poorly integrated workers with modest job motivation" who do not feel a need to 'give back' to the company that hired them, merely cash their paychecks (Holoviak, 1995: 2).

But it could be argued that although metrics such as limiting labor costs important in TQM so that quality can be quantified and measured to ensure that quality improvements are continuous and that the quality standard is defect free, management is also supposed to be "involved" and show leadership to plan and organize for such quality improvements (Hansen, 1999). Although some ideals of TQM can be difficult for employees to meet, such as the fact that goals are based on requirements, not negotiated. And product life cycle costs, not front end costs are acceptable, companies that stress the bottom line alone go against the fully-fledged human investment principles of true TQM where bolstering even the weakest link of a team results in greater cohesion, a better bottom line, and ultimately, a worker who exceeds the quality standard being honored. Also, as even critics of TQM must admit, in Japan during the height of the TQM craze, worker attrition from companies was at an all-time low, and few employees, once securing a job, feared for their long-term employment (Holoviak 1995: 2) final and compelling argument for TQM's application is that it can be used in nonprofit organizations such as libraries. In fact, the local public library, increasingly threatened by competition from other entertainment sources such as expanded home entertainment systems, deluxe bookstores with cafes, and the Internet, could do well to adopt TQM principles. "A library should focus on providing the best services possible, and be willing to change to serve its customers. To determine if changes need to be made, a library administrator might ask: What are our niche markets? What do the customers come in for? How can I look at the efficiency of my library? How do we serve the current customers that exist today? (Masters, 2003, citing Total Quality Management, 1995). In short first learn about the customer, in this case the library patron and then solve the problems with attendance.