A HOLISTIC APPROACH IN IMPLEMENTING AND SUSTAINING TQM PROGRAMS Pui-Mun Lee School of Business SIM University Singapore Email:
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ABSTRACT The catalyst to successful execution of TQM is wholehearted participation by all employees in the organization. It requires a change in employees’ attitudes and a firm belief that quality does pay, which in term requires long term societal education and change in cultural mindset. This paper evaluates the fundamental requirements of a holistic approach to implementing and sustaining TQM programs in organizations. The paper provides a model on nurturing and cultivating a quality mindset in the society. It also looks into how organizations could build upon such a model to embark on their internal implementation of TQM programs. Key Words: Total Quality Management, Quality Culture, Business Excellence INTRODUCTION Its been more than 20 years since Total Quality Management (TQM) came into being as a management philosophy that helps organization to systematically create processes and systems that ensure quality products are designed and built or quality services are consistently been provided. The catalyst to successful execution of TQM is wholehearted participation by all employees in the organization. It requires a change in employees’ attitudes and a firm belief that quality does pay. TQM is partly philosophical and partly practice-oriented. It requires a mindset ready to embrace the notion of building quality products and providing quality service as a norm in job requirements. It also requires workers to possess a core skill set that include knowledge of techniques on collecting and analyzing relevant data to provide solutions that could continuously improve organization processes. The successful implementation and adoption of total quality management in business organizations require careful planning and enormous amount of time and effort. There are as many failures as successes in the journey to achieve quality excellence in organizations all over the world. Many organizations did not realize that implementing and sustaining TQM requires more than just internal effort. It requires long term societal education and change in cultural mindset. Organizations operating in societies without the right cultural mindset and educational support have to devote substantial resources trying to inculcate their employees with the correct mindset. Many organizations did succeed, which gave their TQM programs a solid foundation but there are also many organizations which did not achieve desired results, resulting in failures of their TQM programs. There are also equally many other organizations who do not know where to begin or how to sustain TQM programs in the long run. The paper provides a model on nurturing and cultivating a quality mindset in the society. It also looks into how organizations could build upon such a model to embark on their internal
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implementation of TQM programs. Building on such a model, a multi-tier approach to implementing quality management programs is advocated.
A MODEL FOR NURTURING BUSINESS EXCELLENCE In the context of TQM research, some have argued that culture is a constraint to TQM implementation and organizations need to adapt their TQM practices to suit the culture of the region in which their operations are based [1]. Others have proposed active government support in order to ensure success of TQM programs [3]. Within the organization, there are some TQM implementation frameworks been introduced to help organizations systematically plan their TQM programs [2,6,7]. Most frameworks are conceptualized on the basis that TQM programs can only succeed after most employees in the organization have achieved a mindset that views quality management activities as routine work and an inherent part of their job responsibilities. The notion of long term societal education and change in cultural mindset is not commonly addressed in TQM research. Yet, it can be logically deduced that without a supportive workforce in general, building TQM programs will be costly, time consuming and litter with obstacles. This paper advocates a model on nurturing and cultivating a quality mindset in the society. It also looks into how organizations could build upon such a model to embark on their internal implementation of TQM programs. The model (Figure 1) maps the transformation process needed to nurture a cultural mindset within the society that is receptive to TQM philosophy and TQM activities, thus achieving an “enlightened workforce.” The Partnership Framework Government (facilitator)
Educational Institutions (nurturer)
The Initiatives Quality Education and Quality Awareness programs (in schools) National vision and goals on quality Global benchmarking
Business (driver)
Quality forums and national centers for generating quality policies/ideas
The Motivators Support and guidance on implementing quality programs Training roadmap for TQM skill set in workforce Rewards for producing quality products and services
Enlightened Workforce
Figure 1: A Model for Nurturing Business Excellence The model starts with the important partnership framework between business organizations, government, and educational institutions. The partnership should be one in which the business organizations are the driver, the government as the facilitator, and the educational institutions as the nurturer. This is the basic foundation for a holistic approach to TQM and the fact that many countries have been instituting national quality awards to recognize excellent organizations is a testimonial on the importance of government facilitation to promote quality. However, there is little evidence to show that educational institutions are actively involved in promoting TQM. Here, it is proposed that
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educational institutions be the third leg of the partnership framework and their role is to inculcate a mindset in students that embraces the need for quality and to strive for quality in all their endeavors. To sustain TQM programs in the long term, strategic initiatives must be applied nationally. Although the detail prescription of these strategic initiatives may differ across countries, the broad approach would apply. First, there must be quality-related education and quality awareness programs in schools. The purpose here is to nurture a mindset in the society to embrace the importance of quality and the requirement to produce quality work. Thus, young workers entering the workforce will have the cultural inclination to “talk and breath” quality and the willingness to perform activities related to TQM programs. Second, governments should set national vision and goals on quality. They could start with the civil service and also all suppliers of services and goods to governmental organizations. The purpose here is to lead by example. Third, national quality forums and quality centers should be established to generate policies and innovative ideas on quality. Besides the administration of national quality awards, these centers should promote research into quality issues and to fund innovative initiatives on quality by businesses. More importantly, the centers should provide support and facilitation for small organizations embarking on TQM programs. With the broad initiatives in place, workers entering the workforce will have a cultural mindset that allows them to be supportive of TQM activities. However, been supportive does not mean been enlightened. An enlightened worker is one that understands the importance of producing quality products and quality services. He/she is well trained to take on quality activities and is always willing to perform necessary actions to attain quality goals. To achieve this, businesses have to establish the motivators for workers. Top leadership support is a must for all TQM programs and necessary resources have to be allocated to sustain the long term nature of TQM program implementation. In many instances, organizations did not have budgets for long term resource requirements for TQM programs and eventually this will impede the deployment of TQM programs. Failing to factor in long term resource support for TQM program implementation will affect the effectiveness of such programs. Another motivator is establishing a training roadmap for TQM skill set. Many organizations provide ad-hoc training for workers based on what other organizations are currently doing or on the management buzzword of the moment. TQM is a quality journey that brings an organization through progressive improvement levels towards business excellence. To progress to different levels of TQM attainment, workers require different skills and thus, workers have to be progressive trained so that he/she will acquire a TQM skill set. Organizations should design training roadmap for individual workers as well as a skill competency framework to identify each worker progression on the training roadmap. One other important motivator is the reward system to recognize workers’ contributions to achieving quality products and quality services. Very often, many organizations’ reward system is tailored to financial results. Achieving good quality products and services may not be immediately reflected in an organization’s financial results although it reinforces customer goodwill and royalty. Sustained customer goodwill and royalty will eventually translate into higher revenue growth for the organization but as there is a substantial time lag between the workers’ contributions and the rise in revenue growth, organizations often do not identify the linkage between them. Thus, workers are not rewarded for their contributions to achieving quality products and services. This anomaly has to be corrected.
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PROGRESSIVE NATURE OF TQM PROGRAMS TQM programs have to cater to the progressive nature of a long term quality journey. As such, TQM implementation frameworks must have a simple and easily understood structure, is portable to all types of businesses, and requires a roadmap to facilitate management to plan and implement TQM activities [9]. In this paper, understanding the progressive nature of the quality journey, a multi-tier framework (Figure 2) that depicts a pyramid approach towards achieving successful implementation is proposed. The framework consists of five layers in which implementation activities at the bottom layer is relatively easy to attain and the level of difficulty in successful implementation increases as an organization moves up the pyramid. The notion of a pyramid is to emphasize the message that undertaking the quality journey shall always be an uphill task for any organizations.
Figure 2: A Multi-Tier Framework for Implementing and Sustaining TQM Programs Societal Support When the model for nurturing business excellence is implemented, an enlightened workforce will have been created in time to come. With the cultural mindset been nurtured, then societal support would have been achieved. Thus, for TQM programs to be largely successful, the model for nurturing business excellence is an important first step. The workforce as a whole must have a mindset that understands the importance of quality workmanship and the need to be responsible for doing things correctly Without this broad-based foundation, the pyramid will not been sustainable and all subsequent efforts by the organizations to implement TQM programs will be highly ineffective. Foundation for Quality The success of any sustainable quality programs lies in the ability to build a solid foundation for quality awareness and quality appreciation. A quality management program should be introduced only after a quality foundation has been firmly established in the organization. To inculcate quality awareness and appreciation, an organization needs a three-prong approach; education, culture reinforcement and participation.
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In the area of education, employees have to learn the quality basics such as importance of quality, problem solving techniques, and data collection techniques. In culture reinforcement, the aim is to shape a quality culture throughout the organization. The basic elements of a quality culture are customer focus, pride in workmanship and personal responsibility. All employees must come to accept the fact that whatever work they do have to be directed towards satisfying customer’s needs. In the area of participation, the goal is to encourage employee involvement and a thinking workforce. To generate enthusiasm, a formal or informal realignment of workforce into teams is necessary. Teams and teamwork are the catalysts for effective employee involvement. Research has shown that teams, training and individual participation are best practices embraced by successful companies with excellent operational performance [4]. Reinforcing Quality Knowledge The stability of the quality foundation has to be strengthened continuously. As we know, a quality foundation in an organization relates to the form of behavior and mindset that employees collectively undertake. Behavior and mindset can change with time and likewise it can be reinforced when given the correct stimulus. The key to reinforcing quality knowledge is to regularly provide qualityrelated training to employees. Quality-related training should focus on advanced quality tools such as data management techniques (affinity diagrams, matrix diagrams, etc.), quality practices (benchmarking, process improvement techniques, concurrent engineering, etc.), and problem solving skills. At this phase, the organization should also be ready to set up a quality performance measurement model. Appropriate indicators should be established to measure quality performance throughout the organization. The quality indicators must be able to measure the extent of customer satisfaction and the extent of process improvement in terms of reduction in process output errors or defects. Quality Criteria It is at this stage where the organization should establish annual quality objectives and goals. Preferably, the organization should use a set of quality criteria that encompassed all areas of the organization’s operations. This in fact requires the organization to consider a comprehensive view of quality, which can be defined as a “reflection of the overall performance of a firm.” [8] Following in the footstep of the Deming Award, many countries had in recent years set up their own national quality awards. These national award schemes usually based its assessment on a set of quality criteria that encompasses all aspects of an organization’s operations. In most of these award assessment schemes, the quality criteria to be satisfied usually incorporates a variant of these seven categories; management leadership in quality, adequacy of strategic planning, a focus on customer, an ability to analyze and use information effectively for quality, good process management, effective human resource management and development, and stellar business results. Targeting these categories ensure that quality management is practiced in all areas of the organization. By using one of these sets of quality criteria related to the national awards, an organization will not find itself drifting aimlessly from one quality project to another but will be able to focus its quality activities in strategic operations to achieve business excellence.
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Continuous Benchmarking At the pinnacle of the pyramid, organizations should have an effective ongoing quality management program. Being effective here means that the organization has a rich quality culture, all employees have good quality knowledge and skills, teams are functioning in all aspects of the organization, quality activities are well focused in major operations of the firm, and quality performance is now consistently assessed against a set of holistic quality criteria. However, to sustain quality management programs, there must be motivation to continuously conduct quality activities. One such motivation is to set higher but achievable quality goals or objectives. An approach to ensure higher quality goals is benchmarking. Benchmarking is the process of identifying opportunities for improvement through searching for the best practices and then proactively adapting those practices into the company’s own business processes to attain superior performance [5]. The purpose of benchmarking is to continuously improve a key business process performance with the objective of achieving customer satisfaction that exceeds the satisfaction delivered by your competitors. As the organization moves along its quality journey, the emphasis will now be using all its quality knowledge and skills to conduct continuous benchmarking.
CONCLUSION A broad model to nurture business excellence is introduced and together with a multi-tier framework for implementing TQM programs, they represent a holistic approach to sustain TQM programs in the long term.
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