Enhancing Total Quality Management Programs

Traditional Total Quality Management Programs (TQM) can be enhanced through the Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) business management system so that the enterprise as a whole benefits financially.

Total Quality Management TQM Enhancement Objectives

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management program for making continuous product/service improvements through workforce involvement. Armand Feigenbaum in 1951 first published the book Total Quality Control, which could be credited with initiation of the Total Quality Management (TQM) movement.  Others who have significantly impacted the quality movement in Japan and the West are: Phil Crosby, W. Edwards Deming, Kaoru Ishikawa and Joseph Juran.

A basis for TQM is that everyone is responsible for product and process quality. With TQM, customer expectations are to be met or exceeded through the involvement of:

  • Management
  • Suppliers
  • Workforce
  • Customers

Key components to TQM are:

  • Process management
  • Customer involvement
  • Supplier quality management
  • Information feedback
  • Committed management
  • Supportive organizational culture

TQM objectives include:

  • Employee participation
  • Continuous improvement
  • Elimination of waste
  • Fast response
  • Data-based decision making
  • Product development application

TQM is to be a way of life for a company; however, companies often have difficulty implementing. A key point is that TQM needs to be introduced and led by top management; however, often this has been lacking in TQM deployments.

Often people suggest that Lean Six Sigma is the same as total quality management (TQM).  This could be challenged. However, before making any generalities about the advantages of Lean Six Sigma, it should be emphasized that there have been implementation and success/failure differences for both TQM and Lean Six Sigma.

TQM did not systematically address the following itemized list with as much detail as Lean Six Sigma. Lean Six Sigma addresses most of the points in this list; however, Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) addresses all these items so that the concepts in Six Sigma/Lean Six Sigma are taken to the next level. IEE addresses many business management scorecard and improvement issues, as described in the 1-minute video:

 

Enterprise performance management reporting software: deliver on your core values

 

Some inherent advantages of using an IEE implementation are:

  • Focus is given to bottom-line benefits for organizations, where project monetary benefits are verified by finance. At the executive level, this breeds excitement since improvement work is being aligned to the primary measure of success.
  • A support infrastructure is created where specific roles exist for people to be full-time practitioners (e.g., Lean Six Sigma Black Belts) and other support/leadership roles (e.g., Lean Six Sigma Champions, Green Belts, and others).
  • Practitioners follow a consistent project execution roadmap; e.g., as described in the Integrated Enterprise Excellence 5-book series.
  • Rather than a quality program, it is a business strategy that helps drive the business to the right activities correctly.  This point needs to be communicated and understood at the deployment onset.
  • Projects are pulled for creation by the metric improvement needs that drive the business. However, often companies create a Lean Six Sigma push for project creation, which may not be the best utilization of resources for the business as a whole.
  • Voice of the Customer focus is given at both the satellite-level business metrics and 30,000-foot-level project execution metrics.

 

Total Quality Management TQM Enhancement through the IEE System

For additional information about Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) see:

 

Contact Us to set up a time to discuss with Forrest Breyfogle how your organization might gain much from an Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) Business Process Management System and its enhancing of total quality management programs.