Total Quality Management

Total Quality Management

What is total quality management (TQM)? TQM is a culture that is common in many successful businesses today. To help clarify the meaning behind this term I will define TQM, describe the impact of globalization on quality, compare and contrast the different TQM styles, and last explain how TQM applies to my career in the Air Force.

Total Quality Management

Total Quality Management is a business management methodology that aligns the activities of all employees in an organization with the common focus of customer satisfaction through continuous improvement in quality of all activities, goods and services (Burrill, 1999). TQM creates a companywide focus on quality, merging the development of quality-oriented corporate culture with intensive use of management and statistical tools that are used for the designing and delivering of quality products to customers. A successful TQM system brings management together with a behavioral and cultural commitment to customer quality. Therefore it can be said that TQM becomes a system in itself involuntarily or by choice. Additionally, there are three management systems that must be lined up in a successful TQM plan which are organizational management system (OM), human resource management systems (HRM), and total quality management (TQM)(Hansen, 2005).

Globalization Impact

The impact of globalization on quality is just as important as when dealing with any supplier, in such a way that a customer needs assurance that the products of quality will be supplied. Therefore it is very important especially when customers and their suppliers are in differing countries. One method that is used in attaining quality assurance is the inspection of all incoming products; however this process is expensive and impractical. Another method which is more favorable is to have confidence in the quality systems of the suppliers. There are two ways to gain this confidence that is to for the customer to review each supplier's system, which is costly and time consuming. Though, it would be more practical for Defense Departments and major car companies to follow this route. The second and more practical method would be would be to insist that the supplier meet some standard that is acceptable to the customer. For instance, this method mentioned is provided by the Underwriters