This refers to a market approach whereby the organization’s attitude and culture aims to achieve long term success through customer satisfaction. This culture involves every member of the firm participating actively in the improvement of quality of goods, services and processes of the business to enhance consumer satisfaction. It centres its’ efforts in doing away with waste and inefficiencies by getting things done right at the first instance. This creates an all-inclusive and effective working culture.
Notably, the total quality management founded on eight essential elements that include, but are not limited to “ethics, trust, training, team work, leadership, recognition, integrity, communication and team work”. These can further be grouped functionally. They are classified according to a house structure based on functions; namely, the foundation, the bricks, the mortar and roof.
Critical Success Factors of Implementation of Total Quality Management in Hong Kong Industries
Surprisingly, the article identifies the increased failure of businesses managed though the Total Quality Management to benefit from the competitive advantage against their competitors. This is because the implementation of this approach in businesses is a fairly new concept (Antony, Leung, Knowles and Gosh, 2002). Its implementation is defeated by failure to plan for the long term and failure of commitment by managers who do not fully grasp or comprehend the working of this approach.
Despite these challenges, businesses which incorporate TQM are observed to achieve improved communications in its departments, higher levels of employee involvement in business operation, increased productivity and efficiency by reduced redoing of tasks, improved customer satisfaction and better competitive advantage over other competing firms.
The study conducted identifies the strengths and weaknesses of using the Total Quality Management in Hong Kong industries. The results reported showed that there are three core strengths in using this approach in business. For instance, the training of the human resources greatly contributes to the success of this management approach. Well trained employees in a firm contribute to its success and therefore, managers ought to develop their employees through trainings. This development of the employees fosters productivity and improved morale.
In addition, the paper identifies open culture, as being an important factor in facilitating communication in the business environment. This has the positive effect of generation of quality data and efficient reporting. This openness facilitates top to bottom communication, bottom to top communication as well as interdepartmental communications. This fosters better comprehension as information and data are freely accessible and available to the employees and managers.
Similarly, for this approach to succeed, the managers should accept their responsibilities and handle out their duties with commitment. The managers are an integral factor in the success or failure of this approach, as more improvements are expected in their long term business plans. The supervisors of the employees also need to be brought on board. They should strive to come up with competitive and sound policies that implement this approach. In addition, the managers ought to consider cultural issues that arise in the work place and make considerable adjustments in their plan to accommodate them (Tari, Molina and Castejon, 2007).
Particularly, the paper identifies inherent demerits of using this approach in businesses. One of these disadvantages is that there is a lack of awareness of quality at the management level (Kumar et al., 2009). This approach has focused solely on the training of employees and left out the training of the managers. This compromises quality at the higher level. To remedy this, there should be rigorous training to the management so as to improve on quality on this level.
Furthermore, there is less involvement of the employees in the decision making process, as managers delegate less. This culture can be attributed to organizational mistrust and the passive and negative attitude of the employee to take up tasks that involve problem solving or decision making decisions. In relation to this, there exists certain studies on the effect of employee relations to the business performance and the findings are that employee morale and improved motivation have a positive effect to the operations and performance of firms. This in turn increases the quality of the firm’s products and enhances productivity while reducing errors by the employees (Kumar, Choisne, Grosbois and Kumar, 2009)
Studies have shown that the implementation of the total quality management approach in the business has a positive effect to the business in its operation as well as its organizational performance. It creates an effective relationship between the operations of the business and its actualization of the business goals and hence improves their performance. This positive effect gives the business comparative advantage over other businesses since there is effective operations, and avoids repetition of tasks (Ismail, 2009). The eight essential elements of TPM are important for the success of the business performance.
In addition, studies show that there exists vital relationships between the TQM practices and the performance of firms. However, there are certain setbacks in optimizing the some of the aspects of these relationships that include suppliers, tools and techniques. This situation exists because the TQM mainly focuses on the employees and not the tools nor the techniques of business operation. Better results would be achieved, if this key criterion would be incorporated in the business (Valmohammadi, 2011).
In conclusion, the implementation of this management practice offers efficiency and productivity and has certain advantages. They are openness, which facilitates better communication within the business and quality data and reporting. A business also profits from the training of the employees who in turn become more productive and efficient. The business also stands to benefit from the commitment of top management to its implementation.
On the other hand, the implementation of this approach, and its success lies in a myriad of factors, especially commitment and understanding of the approach by the top management. There is also the set back that training is only focused to the employees and not the management. This deficiency brings problems as managers do not commit to things that they have little knowledge about. This leads to failure to make sound long term plans to implement this approach. In addition, the employees are not fully involved in the development and the implementation of the approach, and this goes against openness, which is vital for effective communication within the business.
References
Antony, J., Leung, K., Knowles, G., & Gosh, S. (2002). Critical success factors of TQM implementation in Hong Kong industries. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 19(5), 551-566.
Ismail Salaheldin, S. (2009). Critical success factors for TQM implementation and their impact on performance of SMEs. International journal of productivity and performance management, 58(3), 215-237.
Kumar, V., Choisne, F., de Grosbois, D., & Kumar, U. (2009). Impact of TQM on company's performance. International journal of quality & reliability management, 26(1), 23-37.
Tari, J. J., Molina, J. F., & Castejon, J. L. (2007). The relationship between quality management practices and their effects on quality outcomes. European journal of operational research, 183(2), 483-501.
Valmohammadi, C. (2011). The impact of TQM implementation on the organizational performance of Iranian manufacturing SMEs. The TQM Journal, 23(5), 496-509.
