Question

Your company has a Quality Control ( QC ) department who assist you in TQM activities. To promote TQM in your organization, please list for the QC department, your understanding on the following :

• What are the determinants of quality ?
• What are the consequences of poor quality ?
• What is TQM ?
• List the elements of TQM ?

Answer 1

The determinants of quality are the performance of the product, conformance of the product with design and processes, customer satisfaction. The determinants include that the product is upto the standards planned for its performance as per the planned design, warranty, durability and functions.

The consequences of poor quality are the product will not be able to satisfy the customers. The product will not last as planned for its performance and durability. The product will not be safe to use as it does not meets the design parameters. The product sales will be not as per the target sales plan and the company will face losses of the investment made towards the product.

TQM is an integrated approach for managing the quality of a product as per the set quality standards and customer satisfaction. Total quality management is implemented through processes, people and evaluated for compliance with the defined quality standards with continuous improvement.

The integrated systems collect the data, evaluate it with the defined standards and correct as per the expected quality levels to achieve customer satisfaction. The TQM process is customer centric process with involvement of the employees, suppliers and high levels of customer service designed as per quality benchmarks.

The elements of TQM are customer orientation, process oriented mechanisms, design and production process control, integrated systems, employee empowerment, supplier commitments, continuous improvement, communication and feedback loops, effective decision making and commitment of top management.

With the help of these elements TQM systems work with a planned approach. It is important to understand the customer needs and design a process that can effectively deliver performance to satisfy customers. Continuous analysis is done to collect data for gathering information and feedback for continuous improvement in processes. The processes are all integrated and suppliers are also advised on expected quality and performance for achieving the pre defined quality standards.