Quality management is the process by which you can drive systematic, continuous improvement throughout your business and increase customer satisfaction. But how does it work? Here’s a primer on total quality management, property and assurance quality, and a quality management system.
Total Quality Management
Total Quality Management (TQM) works to keep a company successful by doing whatever it takes to improve customer satisfaction. Of course, that satisfaction is ingrained in employees and business processes long before any product or service reaches its customer. How does a company or organization ensure that its processes and people are geared toward success and customer satisfaction? TQM can help with that.
What is Total Quality Management (TQM)?
Total quality management (TQM) is the ongoing process of detecting and reducing or eliminating manufacturing errors, streamlining supply chain management, improving the customer experience, and ensuring that employees are adequately trained. Total quality management aims to hold all parties involved in the production process accountable for the overall quality of the final product or service.
Understanding Total Quality Management (TQM)
Total quality management is a structured approach to overall organizational management. The focus of the process is to improve the quality of an organization’s outputs, including goods and services, through the continual improvement of internal practices. The standards established as part of the TQM approach can reflect both internal priorities and any existing industry standards.
Industry standards can be defined at several levels, including compliance with various laws and regulations governing the operation of a specific business. Industry standards can also include the production of items to an accepted standard, even if the standard is not supported by official regulations.
History of Total Quality Management
The roots of total quality management can be traced back to the economic instability of the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was at this time that the dominance of North America and Western Europe was challenged by competition from the East, specifically Japan’s skill at making high-quality inexpensive products.
While the origin of the term is not clear, many think it was inspired by the books Total Quality Control by quality control expert and businessman Armand V. Feigenbaum and What Is Total Quality Country? The Japanese Way by organizational theorist Kaoru Ishikawa.
Total Quality Management Principles
Just as the definitions of total quality management (TQM) differ, so do its principles. However, we’ve compiled a list of the most important TQM principles for you to review below.
- Customer Focused: The customer defines quality, and all efforts to achieve success in the organization lead to customer satisfaction.
- Total Employee Involvement: An organization’s efforts are not limited to a single department. To be successful in its goal of customer satisfaction, all aspects of the business and each employee must share a common goal.
- Process Oriented: Process thinking is fundamental to TQM. The internal steps a company takes directly result in the external output delivered to customers.
- Integrated System: Regardless of the organization’s size or complexity, all of its distinct parts must work together.
- Strategic and Systemic Approach: Using strategic planning to create a strategic plan that integrates total quality management as a core component of the company is a way to structure TQM into an organization’s mission.
- Continual Improvement: Customer satisfaction is the mantra for total quality improvement, but it is not a one-time goal. Improving quality for the customer is a process that never ends.
- Fact-Based Decision Making: In order to know if an organization is meeting its objectives, data on performance must be collected and analyzed accurately and without bias.
- Communications: Without an effective communication plan, it is impossible to maintain a successful TQM approach. Communication plans ensure that each department is aware of their and others’ responsibilities, allowing them to coordinate operations to achieve their common goal.
Total Quality Management Implementation in Four Steps
To get started with total quality management, top management must first learn about the methodology and commit to it as one of the organization’s strategies. The organization as a whole must then evaluate its quality management system and customer satisfaction.
PDCA is one of the simplest ways to implement TQM. PDCA stands for Plan, Do, Check, and Act. It is a four-step management method for controlling continuous processes and product improvement.
#1. Plan
Planning entails identifying and comprehending the problem or opportunity in relation to TQM. Create ideas based on the information you’ve gathered and create an implementation plan for the best ones.
#2. Do
With a planned solution, you can now test it and create a pilot program to see if the quality improvements you expected are achieved. Keep track of the outcomes.
#3. Check
In this section, you will compare the results of your pilot program to your expectations. If you meet those requirements, proceed to the next step. However, if you fall short, you must return to step one.
#4. Adjust
You can fully implement the solution after testing it and being satisfied with it. This process, on the other hand, is a loop with no beginning or end. Success is simply a new starting point from which you will try to improve.
Quality Management Property
Professional management companies in the real estate and management industries frequently use the business name “Quality Property Management.” Quality, which is best defined as “a degree of excellence,” refers to the company’s dedication to providing exceptional services to its customers and clients.
Companies in the industry frequently include the phrase “quality property management” in their tagline or mission statement to reinforce their promise to clients to provide a superior level of service and product. Residential and commercial property management, real estate acquisitions and dispositions, mortgage services, relocation assistance, and other services may be provided by these management companies.
It is critical to find a property management company that provides quality services to ensure that your investment property, home, or portfolio is well cared for. To ensure the success of an income property or the sale of a home, quality property management services are frequently required.
Quality Management Assurance
Quality assurance (QA) is a quality management process that involves establishing standards, guidelines, and procedures to prevent quality issues and maintain the integrity of the product or service throughout its development.
Also, Quality control (QC), another component of a quality management system, is frequently confused with quality assurance (QA). A quality management system is a collection of methods and tools that enable organizations to manage all aspects of quality management, including quality planning, quality assurance, quality control, and quality improvement.
Guidelines for Quality Assurance
Quality assurance is based on two principles. One is “fit for purpose,” which means the product or service fulfills its intended function. The other is “right the first time,” in which any errors are corrected right away.
The goal of using the two aforementioned principles is to make the product or service work correctly all of the time through the management of project constraints. To that end, quality assurance entails the management of the quality of raw materials, assemblies, products, and components; production-related services; and the management, production, and inspection process.
Techniques for Quality Assurance
Quality assurance is especially important in product development and manufacturing. It should be implemented by any company that manufactures goods or provides services, and various quality assurance methods have been developed over time. Here are a few of them so you can decide which one is best for your company.
#1. Total Quality Management (TQM)
A company-wide QM mindset is developed through the use of Total Quality Assurance, a quality assurance approach. That is, all departments and individuals involved in activities that affect QM, such as supply chain management or inventory management, are trained to maintain quality standards and strive for continuous improvement.
#2. Failure Analysis
Failure testing is a straightforward quality assurance method that involves subjecting products to extreme stress conditions such as temperature, pressure, or tension until they break. This procedure reveals flaws in the product. Furthermore, data is collected throughout the process so that quality assurance measures can be implemented to improve the product.
#3. Process and Product Quality Assurance (PPQA)
This quality assurance approach focuses on establishing quality standards and procedures at the organizational level in order to measure, evaluate, and resolve QM issues. This method is based on a thorough gap analysis of the various business processes associated with quality assurance.
#4. Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)
Capability maturity model integration is a popular method in software development that first assesses your company’s level of quality assurance maturity. The goal then is to train your team members to progress through the CMMI maturity stages until you’ve established a solid quality assurance process.
#5. Statistical Process Control (SPC)
This quality assurance method entails using various statistical tools to identify quality issues and measure the effectiveness of business processes and teams to improve any production cycle flaws.
Quality Management System
A quality management system (QMS) is a formalized process and set of tools that document each step, the desired outcomes, ways to improve, and the results.
Others provide a quality management system standard for cross-industry certification. Some quality management systems are tailored to specific organizations. For example, the ISO 9000 and ISO 9001 are internationally recognized frameworks for quality management and describe seven quality management system principles:
- Customer-centricity
- Leadership
- Engagement of people
- Process approach
- Improvement
- Making decisions based on evidence
- Relationship management
Similarly, the CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integrated) framework is based on the premise that organizations that are willing to invest time and resources in process improvement are more mature and capable than others. It describes maturity and capability at various stages, ranging from “Incomplete” to “Defined.”
Whichever quality management system (QMS) you use, you’ll want to use intelligent, enterprise quality management software to handle some of the heavy liftings – and scour large datasets – for you. We’ll get to those shortly, but first…
Why are Quality Management Systems Important?
Implementing a thorough and standardized quality management system is the only real way to ensure continuous measurable improvement in your business systems. A quality management system promotes compliance, organizational buy-in for change, transparency, and, ultimately, customer satisfaction through documentation and planning.
The right technology to implement QMS also ensures that opportunities do not fall through the cracks – and the more robust the system, the more you can track.
In fact, there are three distinct advantages to implementing a quality management system within your company:
#1. Consistency
By documenting, testing, and improving your organizational processes, inconsistencies are effectively eliminated. A growing business will inevitably become more consistent, and consistency is frequently associated with cost-cutting efficiency.
#2. Evidence-based change
You can remove the guesswork from determining what needs to change and what is working well by using TQM. A statistical quality control methodology leads to evidence-based decision-making.
#3. Increased profit
There are several documented reasons why QMS can lead to increased profits, the most notable of which are improved efficiency and a better reputation in your industry.
How to Choose A Quality Management System
In reality, when we talk about selecting a quality management system, we’re really talking about selecting a business intelligence software suite. That’s because a QMS is more than just a set of guidelines, and secondly, the type of data capture that modern businesses should want to do is frequently too large (and too constant) to be done manually.
Extreme sampling can make it more difficult to find significant trends that inform smart coaching, but if an organization only considers a small sample of interactions, the insights it discovers may be misleading or inaccurate. So, for most organizations, a software-based QMS powered by AI and with real-time data capture is the best way to implement quality planning and management.
Here are four factors that should go into your decision when choosing your quality control tool:
#1. Industry relevance
Not every type of QMS applies to every industry, so be wary of relevance. While ISO 9001 certification can be applied to any industry, IATF16949 certification is only available to the automotive industry, and food is measured against the ISO 22000 standard.
#2. Performance and Scalability
Any decent quality improvement software should be able to scale with your business and monitor any process, no matter how big or small. The ability to run in real-time and with large datasets is advantageous, as is the ability to visualize data clearly.
#3. Intelligence
AI and machine learning can assist modern QMS in completing tasks at a scale that humans cannot, but they can also provide QM across traditionally qualitative vertices. In a call center, for example, you’ll want your software to be able to understand the sentiment, points of friction, and emotion – not just the number of resolutions.
#4. Suggestions and actionability
Finally, you’ll want your software-based QM suite to be able to suggest actions that can improve quality. This entails providing a comprehensive view of the overall operation, as well as one that is detailed enough to make practical, actionable suggestions that improve customer satisfaction.
Quality Management Systems in Practice: 7 Steps to Success
Take the ISO 9000 and ISO 9001 QM frameworks, two of the most well-known QMS, and examine how their seven QM principles translate to tangible business improvements…
#1. Customer-centricity
Nothing in business is more important than your customers. Customer focus, then, entails auditing every touchpoint of the customer experience and making improvements wherever possible in order to better meet customer expectations.
#2. Leadership
There’s a reason this comes before employee engagement on the list: great operational efficiency and enthusiasm should come from the top down. In practice, this usually entails being able to establish and monitor clear goals and objectives for employees.
#3. Engagement of people
Employees prefer to be involved in processes and to be able to define their own goals. Furthermore, employees will always feel more engaged if they are provided with the proper tools for the job.
#4. Process approach
Streamlining and formalizing business processes. No organization should fly by the seat of its pants; instead, it is critical to try to capture a best-in-class version of everything that happens on a regular basis and work toward outperforming it.
#5. Continuous enhancement
Improving the various aspects of your company’s operations is not a one-time task. Instead, it should involve constant and continuous evaluation, as well as a routine of taking action based on new learnings.
#6. Evidence-based decision making
The generation of data and insight that fuels decision-making is an important part of standardizing your quest for improvement. Onboarding the right tools for the job, whether it’s social listening capabilities or contact center agent scoring, is a part of that.
#7. Relationship management
Any relationship that your business requires to function, whether it be with suppliers, dealers, retailers, or any other third party, must be monitored, managed, and meaningfully improved over time.
What are the 4 types of quality management?
Many industries use four types of quality processes: ISO 9001, AS9100, Six Sigma, and CMMI.
What are the 4 components of quality management?
To be effective, quality control management can be divided into four key components: quality planning, quality control, quality assurance, and quality improvement.
What are quality management examples?
Toyota is a well-known example of total quality management. Toyota introduced the Kanban System to improve the efficiency of its assembly line.
What are the 5 Cs of quality management?
Your business requirements should be clear, concise, concrete, complete, and consistent.
What are the 5 principles of quality management?
TQM is based on five principles:
- Produce quality work the first time.
- Pay attention to the customer.
- Develop a strategy for improvement.
- Continuously improve.
- Encourage respect for one another and teamwork.
What is the importance of quality management?
Companies can improve the dependability, durability, and performance of their products with the aid of quality management.
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