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Basic Principles of Total Quality Management

The basic principles of Total Quality Management are to satisfy customers, satisfy suppliers, and continuously improve business processes. Customers want value and quality, and satisfying them leads to repeat business. Suppliers both internal and external should be satisfied to ensure quality inputs. Continuous improvement involves examining processes for flaws and bottlenecks to work smarter through suggestions and quality methods.

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3K views

Basic Principles of Total Quality Management

The basic principles of Total Quality Management are to satisfy customers, satisfy suppliers, and continuously improve business processes. Customers want value and quality, and satisfying them leads to repeat business. Suppliers both internal and external should be satisfied to ensure quality inputs. Continuous improvement involves examining processes for flaws and bottlenecks to work smarter through suggestions and quality methods.

Uploaded by

api-3754041
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Basic Principles of Total Quality

Management (TQM)
The basic principles for the Total Quality Management (TQM) philosophy of doing
business are to satisfy the customer, satisfy the supplier, and continuously improve
the business processes.

Questions you may have include:

• How do you satisfy the customer?


• Why should you satisfy the supplier?
• What is continuous improvement?

Satisfy the customer


The first and major TQM principle is to satisfy the customer--the person who pays for
the product or service. Customers want to get their money's worth from a product or
service they purchase.

Users

If the user of the product is different than the purchaser, then both the user and
customer must be satisfied, although the person who pays gets priority.

Company philosophy

A company that seeks to satisfy the customer by providing them value for what they
buy and the quality they expect will get more repeat business, referral business, and
reduced complaints and service expenses.

Some top companies not only provide quality products, but they also give extra
service to make their customers feel important and valued.

Internal customers

Within a company, a worker provides a product or service to his or her supervisors. If


the person has any influence on the wages the worker receives, that person can be
thought of as an internal customer. A worker should have the mind-set of satisfying
internal customers in order to keep his or her job and to get a raise or promotion.

Chain of customers

Often in a company, there is a chain of customers, -each improving a product and


passing it along until it is finally sold to the external customer. Each worker must not
only seek to satisfy the immediate internal customer, but he or she must look up the
chain to try to satisfy the ultimate customer.

Satisfy the supplier


A second TQM principle is to satisfy the supplier, which is the person or organization
from whom you are purchasing goods or services.

External suppliers

A company must look to satisfy their external suppliers by providing them with clear
instructions and requirements and then paying them fairly and on time.

It is only in the company's best interest that its suppliers provide it with quality
goods or services, if the company hopes to provide quality goods or services to its
external customers.

Internal suppliers

A supervisor must try to keep his or her workers happy and productive by providing
good task instructions, the tools they need to do their job and good working
conditions. The supervisor must also reward the workers with praise and good pay.

Get better work

The reason to do this is to get more productivity out of the workers, as well as to
keep the good workers. An effective supervisor with a good team of workers will
certainly satisfy his or her internal customers.

Empower workers

One area of satisfying the internal suppler is by empowering the workers. This means
to allow them to make decisions on things that they can control. This not only takes
the burden off the supervisor, but it also motivates these internal suppliers to do
better work.

Continuous improvement
The third principle of TQM is continuous improvement. You can never be satisfied
with the method used, because there always can be improvements. Certainly, the
competition is improving, so it is very necessary to strive to keep ahead of the game.
Working smarter, not harder

Some companies have tried to improve by making employees work harder. This may
be counter-productive, especially if the process itself is flawed. For example, trying
to increase worker output on a defective machine may result in more defective parts.

Examining the source of problems and delays and then improving them is what is
needed. Often the process has bottlenecks that are the real cause of the problem.
These must be removed.

Worker suggestions

Workers are often a source of continuous improvements. They can provide


suggestions on how to improve a process and eliminate waste or unnecessary work.

Quality methods

There are also many quality methods, such as just-in-time production, variability
reduction, that can improve processes and reduce waste.

In conclusion
The principles of Total Quality Management are to seek to satisfy the external
customer with quality goods and services, as well as your company internal
customers; to satisfy your external and internal suppliers; and to continuously
improve processes by working smarter and using special quality methods.

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