Principles of Quality Management

Introduction

The concept of quality management is increasingly becoming important to the management and leadership in organizations. It is essential to understand the distinct disciplines of rules of management to give an organization the capacity to meet its challenges and effectively solve distinct issues through the enhancement of a profound environment. The quality management principles play a significant role within firms that struggle to meet their needs for their consumers and their aim to advance their process, services, and products continuously. In quality management, there are eight principles that have been based on the ISO 900 standard and that have been facilitated by management and leadership to enhance implementation of quality management throughout the organization.

Quality management can be defined as the fundamental and comprehensive rule used for operating and leading an organization. This is used with an aim for continually improving the performance of an organization over a long-term through focusing on how well they can address the needs of their customers while they also address the needs of the stakeholders. These principles include the principle of process approach, system approach, leadership continuous improvement, customer focus, the factual approach, the involvement of people and mutually beneficial supplier relationship. This paper aims at exploring the relationship between these principles and evaluating their importance on the operation and performance of an organization.

The report will reveal the positive relationship between leadership, management, and the organization performance. These findings will show a significant relation between the infrastructure practice and the performance of an organization. The proposed model of the report will be an overview of the eight qualities of management and their appraisal. The report will then analyze different research papers of the four principles of quality management and identify the research paper that has a significant contribution. In this group, the four principles to be analyzed include; the principle of customer focus, leadership, continual improvement and system approach for the organization in the quality management.

Overview

These principles are used to guide the development of a popular quality standard of leadership and management in an organization. They are useful resources that look into improvement and management quality program. These eight principles are used as a guide for organizations in improving their standard. The eight principles include;

Customer Focus

For this principle, the organization depends on their customer. In this concept, the organization should understand the current needs for their customers and focus on how to meet their customer’s demands through striving to exceed the expectations of their customers. The customer focus enables organizations to increase their market share and revenue through obtaining fast and flexible resources for the organization in order to respond to market opportunities. The organization will also be able to improve their customer loyalty through repeat businesses.

Leadership

In this principle, leaders establish a direction in the organization for the followers to be unified and work towards the same purpose to accomplish the goals of the organization. They maintain and also establish an internal environment for the organization in which the people can be involved fully for the achievement of organization’s objectives. The people in the organization have a motivation and also comprehend the objectives and aims of the organization. Through leadership roles evaluated by the organization leadership, the employees will be able to align and implement their operations in a unified way.  It is important for the different levels of the organization regarding communication. This is because it will contribute to reduced miscommunication within the organization and easier solving of issues.

Involvement of People

In this principle, it is important to understand that people at all levels in the organization are considered essentials of the organization and that their involvement contributes to different abilities that improve the performance of the organization. Involvement of people is important for an organization regarding commitment, motivation, innovation, creativity and furthering the objectives and goals of an organization. It also contributes to the accountability of the overall performance of the organization. Involving people in the organization will facilitate continual improvement due to some people being eager to contribute and participate in the success of the organization.

Process Approach

The desired achievements of an organization are only achieved if the activities of an organization managed as a process. The interrelated processes are important in understanding the system that the organization desires to operate with to improve its performance.  A process is important in enhancing a quality management strategy due to the ability of competently relating tasks and resources in an organization. It enhances management of activities, measures the capability of activities, identifies the linkages between operations and also enables deployment of resources effectively. This will shorten the cycle and also lower cost due to the effective utilization of resources and improved consistently. This facilitates quality management and predictable results with improved opportunities.

System Approach

According to the principle system approach, understanding, identification and managerial practices should be an interrelated process through a system that will contribute to the effectiveness of an organization and how efficient to the achievement of objectives. This is beneficial to an organization regarding alignment and integration of processes that will enable achieving desired results. This will also contribute to focus on the effort of key processes in the organization. It is also efficient in that it gives confidence to the shareholders regarding effectiveness and consistency of the organization.

Continual Improvement

Continuous improvement is an objective of every organization. This relates to the performance of the tasks, consistency to and also achievement of high-level duties at all times. Every successful organization has an ongoing aim or focus on improving its operation. This is essential for every organization to maintain their performance levels and react to any changes in external and internal conditions. Through continual improvement, the organizational capabilities are improved through performance advantage, alignment of activities and flexibility for more opportunities.

Factual Approach to Decision Making

In every organization, it is important to base effective decisions on the analysis of information and data (Sousa, 2003 p.12). This important to makes decisions that are informed and that have factual records hence increasing the ability to support a decision from a past decision that had been made. It is also relevant for increased ability to change and challenge opinions through the review of factual information for decision making.

Mutually Beneficial Supplier Relationships

Having a mutually beneficial relationship and interdependent between an organization and its supplier enhances the ability to increase value. This is due to the speed and flexibility that is created due to joint responses in the changing market and also increasing customer expectations and needs. This also facilitates optimization of resources and cost for the organization.

 

Bibliography

Customer Focus

Article 1. Sousa, R. 2 Agus, A., 2004. TQM as a focus for improving overall service performance and customer satisfaction: An empirical study on a public service sector in Malaysia. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 15(5-6), pp.615-628.

003). Linking quality management to manufacturing strategy: an empirical investigation of customer focus practices. Journal of operations management, 21(1), 1-18.

Quality management is considered an applicable approach in organizations hence being advocated allover. The quality management has been differing with the contingency approach in the manufacturing strategy in operation management (OM). This has been looked into both external and internal consistency between manufacturing strategy choices. The paper was aimed at investigating through a case study method that looks into the customer focus practices. This study has strongly aimed at focusing on customer focus practices in plants’ manufacturing structure that have enabled identification of mechanisms that inform the implementation of quality management programs.

Article 2. Agus, A., 2004. TQM as a focus for improving overall service performance and customer satisfaction: An empirical study on a public service sector in Malaysia. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 15(5-6), pp.615-628

The focus on quality management has aimed at the relationship on the overall performance of the TQM practices that have significantly impacted a positive effect on the performance of an organization. The results of the study have highlighted positive, strong association between the principles of quality management and satisfaction of customers that have emphasized on the quality that would result to the gains of the organization. The findings indicate that employee factor is very significant to the implementation of management. This is because it is accompanied by customer focus, training, and high management commitment. These results have exhibited a unique facilitation towards quality management that has enhanced service performance and customer satisfaction.

Article 3. Lagrosen, S., 2001. Strengthening the weakest link of TQM–from customer focus to customer understanding. The TQM Magazine, 13(5), pp.348-354.

This paper contains discussion of how the total quality management has been used in the concept of further developing more room for innovation through a profound way of understanding customers and their needs and situations.  This has been based on three themes of aligning process, customer understanding and supporting the people. This has suggested that even if the customer focus has revered, the methods through which understanding the customers’ situation have been insufficiently integrated into TQM. This deficiency has been amended through contributions from consumer behavior theories, inductive analysis methods, and qualitative marketing research.

Article 4. Mehra, S. and Ranganathan, S., 2008. Implementing total quality management with a focus on enhancing customer satisfaction. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 25(9), pp.913-927This paper has aimed at examining the role of quality management that enhances customer satisfaction. This was done through research studies of total quality management, meta-analysis and customer satisfaction that were summarized, tested and quantified to show a clarification of the TQM impact. Therefore, it was found that the total quality management substantially improves the satisfaction of customers. The scope of TQM applicability has aimed at achieving high customer focus and increasing the customer satisfaction. Total quality management implementation is an aim to enhance customer satisfaction. This will increase the reputation of customers to the organization.

Article 5. Dervitsiotis, K., 2003. The pursuit of sustainable business excellence: Guiding transformation for effective organizational change. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 14(3), pp.251-267.

This paper is intended to be practical on the principle of customer focus. It is designed to source ideas and reference for managers that wish to implement quality service. This is a way of aiming at a competitive advantage for their organization.  The paper outlines a sustainable program that is designed for increasing customer satisfaction. Technology has enabled the creation of a customer orientation that has been identified and recognized by leaders.  This paper can be used to measure how customers are focused on organizations and developing a plan action to improve the service excellence for their customers. Focusing on successful service organization increases the level of customer service and the innovative ways to increase customer experience.

 

Leadership

Article 1. Evans, J.R. and Lindsay, W.M., 2002. The management and control of quality (Vol. 5, pp. 115-128). Cincinnati, OH: South-Western.

This paper has been intended to deal with the leadership principle and its role in quality management systems for managers and other leaders in the organizations. Leadership acts as a great management tool when it comes to implementing the quality management as a successful method that is used to achieve high productivity and performance in organizations. A failure on the leadership may lead to a loss in the entire total quality management implementation. This is because leadership is the vehicle for achieving excellence in quality management.

Article 2. Lakshman, C., 2006. A theory of leadership for quality: Lessons from TQM for leadership theory. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 17(1), pp.41-60.

Despite the inference of the leadership principle for quality management for organizations, the theories of leadership have not declared focus on the leadership quality and role as quality managers.  The aim of this article is to develop a theory of leadership to enhance quality management. This has focused on leader values, traits and behaviors that are underlying on the basis principles of quality management.  Implementation of leadership roles as the core principles of quality management add value to leadership as a contribution to the practice and implications of quality management in organizations.

Article 3. Omar, H.O., 2017. Transformational Leadership in Quality Management (Doctoral dissertation, University of Montana), pp 78-86

This paper has reviewed the principles of transformational leadership with ideal quality management and an evaluation of the effects of transformational leadership in quality management system. Transformational leadership is considered as a leadership style that involves the leader in striving to meet the goals by meeting and learning the personal needs of their followers. It enables the development of skills that meet essential needs for the followers and encourage in the production of a greater level to meet the goals and objectives of the organization. Transformational leadership has helped enhance quality management through focusing its leadership attention on personal development, training and personal development of followers. This will help move an organization forward through assisting each in the organization.

Article 4. Javed, S., 2015. Impact of Top Management Commitment on Quality Management. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 5(8).

This article is important because of its contribution towards quality leadership in management. The basic purpose of this article is to develop great leadership theory that has focused quality management in any organization. The theoretical framework of quality leadership has been based on three core principles that include the customer focus, participation, and continuous improvement. This article is also important for quality management and leadership because it has taken into account another role of leadership as a quality manager. The paper has also researched transformational leadership and how it has appealed followers towards intellectual stimulation and high moral values.

Article 5. Chowdhury, M., Paul, H. and Das, A., 2007. The impact of top management commitment on total quality management practice: an exploratory study in the Thai garment industry. Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, 8(1/2), p.17.

 

This article has discussed the total quality management that gives specifications of leadership actions at each step. Quality leadership has changed and evolved over the past decades creating new quality values. To be a good leader, there must be knowledge, commitment, and patience. Skill is also important in working to achieve goals and also an accumulation of relevant experiences. The basis of good leadership includes selfless devotion and strong character to an organization.

 

Involvement of People

Article 1. Kehoe, D. F. 2012. The fundamentals of quality management. Springer Science & Business Media.

This article gives guidelines for creating the effective and competence involvement of people. People are the toughest resource to control and manage. The involvement of people in the delivery of products and services to customer satisfaction is the key to a quality management system. Human factors pose the greatest influence when designing of quality management system. Involving people has enhanced a strong continual improvement regarding effectiveness and efficiency of operations of the organization and enhancing the satisfaction of a customer. To continually make improvements in their effectiveness, an organization should document, establish, maintain and implement processes or involvement of people and competence acquisition.

Article 2. Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.

According to Goetsch (2014), it is essential to facilitate the improvement processes. All individuals in an organization are effective and hence have to be involved. The involvement of people is very crucial. This is because it allows more abilities that are used for the benefit of the organization and driving a solid workforce that heavily relies on the involvement of people.  People assist in quality management through taking ownership and responsibility for effective problem resolution. Each person in the organization should have the chance to improve their experience and skill and aid the organization to meet its goals.

Article 3. Welikala And, D. and Sohal, A.S., 2008. Total Quality Management and employees’ involvement: A case study of an Australian organisation. Total Quality Management, 19(6), pp.627-642.

When people are involved, they share knowledge, experience, and group for implementation of effective tasks in an organization. Being among the eight principles of quality management, it is a key to successful implementation of a quality system in human resource. This is the backbone of many services in the company. It is important to identify the members that are hardworking and loyal and appreciate them accordingly. It is also important to challenge efforts through giving more than you are expected of and delivering on promises. Awareness of all levels of an organization is important, but it depends on how an individual wants it to happen and what they should be made aware of.

Article 4. Pun, K.F., Chin, K.S. and Gill, R., 2001. Determinants of employee involvement practices in manufacturing enterprises. Total Quality Management, 12(1), pp.95-109.

Having faced competitive environment and dynamics in manufacturing, the enterprise success relies on the entire workforce to generate new ideas, making relevant timed decisions. This paper has looked into determinants of employee involvement and has discussed the employee involvement practices. It was found out that rewards, commitment, promotion and motivation are the most effective factors in improvement bringing along quality improvement and attainable employee satisfaction in the manufacturing enterprise.

Article 5. Arumugam, V., Ooi, K.B. and Fong, T.C., 2008. TQM practices and quality management performance: An investigation of their relationship using data from ISO 9001: 2000 firms in Malaysia. The TQM Journal, 20(6), pp.636-650.

The involvement of people has been ignored and neglected by many organizations that have implemented quality management. This paper has presented an Australian organization that has been recognized as a quality organization and has discussed some issues that are close to the involvement of people. The study shows that employee involvement is a major contributor to total quality management. Lack of involvement of people has led to non-sustainability in the organization hence emphasizing the importance of involvement of people in achieving quality. This suggests that involvement of people is crucial in quality management achievements.

 

Continual Improvement

Article 1. Zarbo, R. J. 2012. Creating and sustaining a lean culture of continuous process improvement.

According to this paper, the organization is not only to improve services and products to meet their needs but will also aim at addressing the future expectation and needs. The organization has to improve continuously the adequacy, suitability, and efficiency of the quality management system. Continual improvement is one of the surest and constant ways of improvement in an organization. This is a recurring activity that enhances the performance of an organization.  Therefore, continual improvement is an ongoing effort that is used to improve an organization’s product and service.

Article 2. Oakland, J.S., 2014. Total quality management and operational excellence: text with cases. Routledge.

Continual improvement plays an important role as a principle in the total quality management. It is an important part of keeping the organization competitiveness and achievement in a permanent objective for the organization. Improvement activities have recurred to increase the ability to improve quality. The continual improvement principle underlies in the lots of recommendations and requirements of the ISO 900. This principle requires support from the management to enhance dedication for the implementation and development of the system of quality management. Organizations must build suitable conditions that facilitate continual improvement implementation through tool and methods of application.

Article 3. Hoyle, D., 2001. ISO 9000: quality systems handbook.

Innovation, competitiveness, and performance are defined as the goals that define an organization. Continuous improvement becomes relevant to organizations achieving their goals under the keywords that are used to define goals. This paper has focused on analyzing the way six sigma has been applied to higher education and the integration with quality management systems.  The use of IO 9000 and the six sigma has a played role in the success and higher education institution development.

Article 4. Rampersad, H.K., 2001. Total quality management: an executive guide to continuous improvement. Springer.

The continuous improvement role is considered to be among the relevant principles in the strategy of quality management and has also enabled a core objective to enhance improvement of practices and operations within the organization.  Continual improvement is a permanent objective in every organization.  This should be implemented across services, products, systems, and processes within the organization. Every employee should be equipped with relevant training, education, and resources for various tools and strategies for continual improvement.

Article 5. Bhuiyan, N. and Baghel, A., 2005. An overview of continuous improvement: from the past to the present. Management decision, 43(5), pp.761-771.

This paper has reviewed how organizations has utilized various ways to address the improvement needs for various organizational levels. The paper has conducted a research in the field of continuous improvement. The paper has revealed an overview of the continuous improvement and the evolution supplicated in different methodologies that have enhanced continuous development in organizations. This has provided an overview of the evolution, history and the existing continuous improvement.

 

Most Significant Contributions

Customer Focus

Goetsch &Davis (2014, p.294) have offered a practical application of the principle of customer focus of quality management in the real world. It focuses on the continuity of developing people, products, and processes in the work environment. This has covered a quality and global competitiveness for customer satisfaction. This paper has offered future managers with knowledge that they require for organizational excellence. Having customer focus as a principle in the management of an organization is a strong contributor to the overall success of a business and ensuring that the organization has put all aspects of customer satisfaction first. This enables achievement of work goals and provision of consistent customer satisfaction.

Leadership

In leadership, Omar (2017, p. 80), has made great contributions in the evaluation of effects of the management system and striving to meet the personal needs of the follower. It has revealed the impact of leadership as a principle in quality management and the numerous roles of a leader in assisting others in an organization. Transformational leadership in this paper has appealed the followers and instilled high moral values in them.

 Involvement of People

According to Welikala & sohal (2008, p. 636), when the involvement of people is implemented they increase performs, share knowledge, make better decisions and facilitates quality operation in the organization. This paper has made a major contribution to the principle of involvement of people. The article has analyzed the benefits of involving people and how they influence the organization. It has also revealed the importance of each and the need of ensuring that they take ownership and be responsible for their tasks in the organization. Every person in an organization has to contribute to the progress and strategies of an organization. The paper has also revealed that it is important to share knowledge and skill with employees involved so aid them in meeting their goals.

Continual Improvement

Bhuiyan & Baghel, (2005, p. 764), have made a great contribution in continuous improvement in organizations through revealing an overview of the history, evolution and the existing continuous improvements in organizations. This has analyzed the methodologies that organizations are using currently in this field and how it is continuing to be effective to the organization. This paper has also covered the technologies that have been used for improved activities in the operations. This has also included the various tools necessary for improvement that have been useful to those interested such as six sigma and total quality management.

Analysis and Interpretation

The quality management principles apply to organizational improvement. When building an organization, the quality management principles are relevant to proactively address the customer’s expectations and needs. For instance, the customer focus is a strong contributor to the success of the business. A strong customer focus will facilitate the effectiveness of an organization. It enables to understand the existing needs and the future needs of customers. Leadership establishes direction and vision for the organization. Through leadership, an organization can set challenging goals, establishing trust, model the values of the organization and recognize the contributions of employees. Involvement of the people is the engagement of individuals within the organization. This ensures that the abilities of people are valued and used and that they are made accountable for their work. Through the involvement of people, there are open discussions, problem-solving, knowledge sharing, and learning. Continuous improvement facilitates organizational capabilities and performance. People are empowered to make improvements and measure the improvements consistently. They can align improvement activities that can, therefore, be celebrated for enhancing capabilities in an organization.

Conclusion

Quality management has become increasingly important in the management and leadership of organizations. The quality management principles have been revised by ISO 9000 and are standard for organizational improvement. As well as being guiding principles, they are also used as resources for management used by managers to improve their quality management program in their organizations. Three principles offer timeless ideas that align with all the stakeholders in the organization including suppliers, employees, and customers. This report has covered an overview of the eight principles revealing its benefits. It has then explained four principles using different research papers that have offered different information about the principles. This information has varied and related at some point but has revealed the role of quality management which is striving to continuously improve their products and processes and also strive to meet their customer needs and expectations.

 

 

 

References

Agus, A., 2004. TQM as a focus for improving overall service performance and customer satisfaction: An empirical study on a public service sector in Malaysia. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 15(5-6), pp.615-628.

Sousa, R., 2003. Linking quality management to manufacturing strategy: an empirical investigation of customer focus practices. Journal of operations management, 21(1), pp.1-18.

Mehra, S. and Ranganathan, S., 2008. Implementing total quality management with a focus on enhancing customer satisfaction. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 25(9), pp.913-927.

Lagrosen, S., 2001. Strengthening the weakest link of TQM–from customer focus to customer understanding. The TQM Magazine, 13(5), pp.348-354.

Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson. Pp. 278-310

Lakshman, C., 2006. A theory of leadership for quality: Lessons from TQM for leadership theory. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 17(1), pp.41-60.

Omar, H.O., 2017. Transformational Leadership in Quality Management (Doctoral dissertation, University of Montana).

Javed, S., 2015. Impact of Top Management Commitment on Quality Management. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 5(8).

Welikala And, D. and Sohal, A.S., 2008. Total Quality Management and employees’ involvement: A case study of an Australian organisation. Total Quality Management, 19(6), pp.627-642.

Pun, K.F., Chin, K.S. and Gill, R., 2001. Determinants of employee involvement practices in manufacturing enterprises. Total Quality Management, 12(1), pp.95-109.

Hoyle, D., 2001. ISO 9000: quality systems handbook.

Zarbo, R. J. 2012. Creating and sustaining a lean culture of continuous process improvement.

Dervitsiotis, K., 2003. The pursuit of sustainable business excellence: Guiding transformation for effective organizational change. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 14(3), pp.251-267.

 

Chowdhury, M., Paul, H. and Das, A., 2007. The impact of top management commitment on total quality management practice: an exploratory study in the Thai garment industry. Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, 8(1/2), p.17.

Rampersad, H.K., 2001. Total quality management: an executive guide to continuous improvement. Springer.

Oakland, J.S., 2014. Total quality management and operational excellence: text with cases. Routledge.

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Arumugam, V., Ooi, K.B. and Fong, T.C., 2008. TQM practices and quality management performance: An investigation of their relationship using data from ISO 9001: 2000 firms in Malaysia. The TQM Journal, 20(6), pp.636-650.

Evans, J.R. and Lindsay, W.M., 2002. The management and control of quality (Vol. 5, pp. 115-128). Cincinnati, OH: South-Western.

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Bhuiyan, N. and Baghel, A., 2005. An overview of continuous improvement: from the past to the present. Management decision, 43(5), pp.761-771.

Kehoe, D. F. 2012. The fundamentals of quality management. Springer Science & Business Media.