The major ingredients in TQM are shown in the following diagram.
a. Strategic Commitment:
A vital element of any total quality management programme is the commitment of top management to the success of the programme. Such commitment is important for several reasons. First, the organizational mission and goals must change to include quality as a high priority goal.
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This can only be done by top management. Second, the organization culture must change so that all persons in the organization recognize quality as the ultimate goal of their efforts. Third, pursuit of total quality requires some high capital expenditure which can only be authorized by top management. Hence, quality improvement necessarily requires commitment from top management.
b. Employee involvement:
TQM requires that all employees be involved in every step of the production process. Studies have shown that a high degree of worker involvement reduces the number of quality problems.
Most of the quality problems have to do with materials and processes and these problems can only be eliminated by serious and sincere commitment of all workers who understand the shortcomings of the system.
Techniques for building employee involvement include:
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i. Building communication networks with open channels including all employees.
ii. Supportive supervisors.
iii. Delegating responsibility to people who are closer to the theatre of operations.
iv. Developing a highly motivational workforce.
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v. Formal techniques such as quality circles.
A quality circle is a small group of employees, including workers and supervisors who volunteer to meet regularly to solve work related problems. Their suggestions and recommendations are taken very seriously by the top management.
c. Technology:
New forms of technology are very useful in TQM programmes because of precision and consistency that the new advanced equipment creates in the products. Automation, computers and robotics perform the jobs more accurately than people and make fewer mistakes.
This results in better quality products. Hence, investment in higher- grade machines capable of doing jobs more precisely and reliably is justified as the quality of the output is highly improved.
d. Materials:
The output cannot be of high quality unless the input is also of high quality. All raw materials for production and all finished goods for final assembly are acquired from outside suppliers.
Accordingly, it is necessary to have a kind of partnership with suppliers. Many firms have increased the quality requirements they impose on their suppliers as a way of improving the quality of their own products.
Suppliers are often involved with buyers, as members of quality improvement teams. Such partnership is crucial in some industries. Most automobile manufacturers, for example, depend on suppliers for more than 70 percent of the parts they use in their automobiles.
e. Methods:
Methods are operating systems used by the organizations during the actual transformation process. Improved methods result in improved quality. Methods can be improved by methods analysis, which focuses on how a task is accomplished. How a task is done makes a difference in performance, safety and quality.
Methods engineers are charged with ensuring that quality and quantity standards are achieved efficiently and safely. American Express Company has found ways to cut its approval time for new credit cards by more than half.