Business
What is Total Quality Management?
In today’s world it is very important for businesses to be competitive. In most industries, there is competition from all angles and the costs of not being productive and competitive with others in that industry are very high. “Total quality management refers to management methods used to enhance quality and productivity in organizations, particularly businesses” (Mote). Total quality management is a lateral approach that includes all departments and employees within an organization and encompasses suppliers, clients and consumers (See Mote). Dr. W. Edwards Deming is generally credited with the creation of the total quality management system. Unlike many of his other management predecessors, Deming developed a statistically controlled management process with the intention of giving managers a guide as to when to intervene in an industrial process. This statistical process control was first introduced by Deming into Japan’s manufacturing sector. The method of quality management helped to propel Japan into a dominant manufacturing force in the 1980s. Deming firmly believe that the emphasis for productivity in business within an organization should be on quality instead of quantity. To reward companies for advancements in quality, the Deming Prize was established in 1950; once given only to Japanese companies which make significant advancements in the area of quality, the prize is now available to non-Japanese companies as well.
Strategic Quality Planning
There is a definite relationship between strategic planning and Total Quality management. “When an organization chooses to make quality a major competitive edge (differentiation), it becomes the central issue in strategic planning. This is especially reflected in vision, mission and policy guidelines of an organization” (Mote, 2008). During the strategic planning process, statements of quality are often developed by which the organization plans to set its standard of quality. These statements often include: a vision statement, a mission statement, and a quality policy statement. Furthermore, the article Total Quality management states that there are seven essential steps in the strategic quality planning process, these steps include: 1) discover consumer needs; 2) consumer positioning; 3) predict the future; 4) Gap analysis; 5) Closing the gap; 6) Alignment; and 7) Implementation (See Mote, 2008).
House of Quality
The article “An International study of Quality Improvement Approach and Firm Performance” points out that there are a number of different ways to define and measure quality depending on one’s viewpoint (See Adam, 1997). One standard for the design and assessment of quality within a business or organization if ‘the House of Quality.’ There are some essential components of the Hose of Quality and steps which must be taken to help get it established. “The general format [of the House of Quality] is made up of six major components. These include customer requirements, technical requirements, a planning matrix, an interrelationship matrix, a technical correlation matrix, and a technical priorities/benchmarks and targets section” (Tapke). The first step to forming the House of Quality is to clearly assess and identify consumer needs; this is also known as assessing the ‘Voice of the Consumer’. In assessing the Voice of the Consumer it is important to both clarify and specify the consumer’s needs. It is very important for the producer to accurately identify the consumer’s needs so that the producer can supply the right products to fit those needs. Market research and studies are a good way for organizations to accurately gauge the consumer’s needs within a particular market. After identifying the consumer’s needs, the product that the producer plans to supply to the consumer must be developed in a way to meet those needs. This step is called the technical design process. Next, the planning matrix which helps to compare how well the design team is meeting the consumer’s needs compared to competitors within the same industry, needs to be undertaken; comparing how well the team is doing compared to industry competitors is essentially assessing the ‘Voice of the Market’. Following the planning matrix, a way of gauging how well the product meets its set performance requirements needs to be established; this step is the interrelationship matrix. “The main function of the interrelationship matrix is to establish a connection between the consumer’s product requirements and the performance measures designed to improve the product” (Tapke, p.3). Finally, a technical correlation matrix which measures design conflicts and a technical properties matrix must be established. “The technical correlation matrix, which is more often referred to as the Roof, is used to aid in developing relationships between customer requirements and product requirements and identifies where these units must work together otherwise they will be in a design conflict” (Tapke, p. 4). The technical properties matrix, on the other hand, “provides a technical performance achieved by competitive products and the degree of difficulty in developing each requirement. The final output of the matrix is a set of target values for each technical requirement to be met by the new design” (Tapke, 4). Thus, these two matrices help to establish a hierarchy of importance to specific goals of the product design which may come into conflict while using both the Voice of the Consumer and the Voice of the Market to encourage product improvement.
Works Cited
Adam, Everett E., Lawrence M. Corbett, Benito E. Flores, Norma J. Harrison, T.S. Lee, Boo-Ho
Rho, Jaime Ribera, Danny Samson, and Roy Westbrook. “An International Study of
Quality Improvement Approach and Firm Performance”. May 1997. Web. 6 March 2
2014.
Mote, Dave. “Total Quality Management.” 4 October 2008. Web. 6 March 2014.
Tapke, Jennifer, Allyson Muller, Greg Johnson, and Josh Sieck. “ House of Quality: Steps in
Understanding the House of Quality.” Web 6 March 2014.
