TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT:Planning for Quality, Controlling for Quality

Introduction to Business MGT 211

Lesson 37

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

The advice of U.S. business consultant W. Edwards Deming on quality was heeded more

widely in Japan than at home until recently. Now U.S. companies are increasingly customer-

driven, quality initiatives exist at all levels of the corporation, and more measurements are

used to document progress objective and identify areas for improvement. Rather than

occasional, quality efforts are now continuous.

Managing for Quality

Total Quality Management (TQM) (or Quality Assurance)--the sum of all

activities involved in getting high-quality products into the marketplace.

Customer focus is the starting point and includes methods of determining what

customers want, then causing all the company's activities and people to be

directed toward fulfilling those needs and creating customer satisfaction.

Planning for Quality--To achieve high quality, managers must plan for

production processes (including equipment, methods, worker skills, and

materials).

1. Performance Quality--the performance features offered by a

product.

2. Quality Reliability--consistency of a product's quality from unit

to unit.

ii.

Organizing for Quality--Although everyone in a company contributes

to product quality, responsibility for specific aspects of total quality

management is often assigned to specific departments and jobs.

iii.

Quality--Directing for quality means that managers must motivate

employees throughout the company to achieve quality goals.

1. Quality ownership means that quality belongs to each person

who creates it while performing a job.

iv.

Controlling for Quality--Managers must establish specific quality

standards and measurements.

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