TQM and Deming's 14 Points in Business and Education

Introduction to Total Quality Management

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management philosophy and paradigm that focuses on a continuous improvement approach to doing business. TQM embraces a wide scope of management approaches centered on strategies to manage people and organizations. Using a new management model, the TQM paradigm focuses on quality and evolves from continuous improvement, which has become the primary dimension of modern business operations. Under the TQM paradigm, the quality of products and services is paramount.

Total Quality Management embraces the following philosophies:

• Focusing on meeting customers' needs by delivering high-quality products and services at a cost that delivers value to customers;
• Driving a continuous quest for quality improvement in all operations;
• Emphasizing high-level participation and teamwork among all employees.

TQM also rests on several universal quality management beliefs:

• Quality is measured by the satisfaction of customers and owners;
• Quality improvement within an organization must be continuous;
• Strategies to enhance quality improvement when producing products and services must be regularly analyzed;
• Employee skills, development, and improvement are critical to fostering quality improvement and innovation;
• Sustainable total quality management cannot be achieved without visible, active, and enabling leadership at all levels.

TQM is credited to W. Edwards Deming, an American statistician who helped Japanese manufacturing companies rise to prominence. Deming's principles are credited with the success of Toyota, the Ritz-Carlton, Harley-Davidson, Procter & Gamble, and other leading organizations. Deming's theory of management is based on fourteen principles that organizations can employ to enhance quality improvement.

Deming's 14 Points Overview

Deming's fourteen points are as follows:

1. Create constancy of purpose to improve the quality of products and services. The aim is to stay in business, provide jobs, and remain competitive.
2. Adopt the new philosophy and stop tolerating poor quality. In the current economic age, Western management must awaken to its responsibilities and implement changes in leadership.
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for mass inspection by building quality into the product in the first place.
4. Minimize total costs and end the practice of awarding business on price alone. Seek long-term supplier relationships by reducing the number of suppliers and building loyalty and trust.
5. Constantly improve the production process, the planning system, and quality and productivity in order to reduce costs.
6. Institute training and development on the job, as well as modern methods of supervision.
7. Encourage employees to speak up and drive out fear, so that everyone can work for the company without anxiety. Supervision should help people do a better job and enhance the effective production of goods and services.
8. Break down barriers between departments. Employees in sales, research, marketing, production, finance, and procurement must work as a team.
9. Eliminate exhortations and slogans directed at the workforce. The workforce should aim for zero defects and improved productivity.
10. Eliminate work standards based on numerical quotas on the factory floor, and substitute genuine leadership.
11. Remove barriers that prevent employees from taking pride in their work. Management by objective must be implemented thoughtfully.
12. Institute education programs and encourage self-improvement for everyone.
13. Put everyone in the company to work to accomplish the transformation, and design a structure that empowers people at all levels.
14. Place all employees within the system to work together and accomplish the transformation.

References

English, L. (2011). Applying Deming's 14 Points to information quality: The 14 Points of Total Information Quality Management. Information Impact International, Inc.

Jensen, P. A., & Robinson, J. K. (1995). Deming's quality principles applied to a large lecture course. Journal of Engineering Education, 84(1), 45–50.

Reid, R. D., & Sanders, N. R. (2010). Chapter 5: Total Quality Management (4th ed.). Wiley.

Redmond, R., Curtis, E., Noone, T., et al. (2008). Quality in higher education: The contribution of Edward Deming's principles. Journal of International Educational Management, 22(5), 432–441.