Tqm Essay, Research Paper

The Granddaddy of Total Quality Management(TQM):

Dr. W. Edwards Deming was known as the ?Granddaddy? of total-quality-management. Total Quality Management (TQM) can provide organizations with the incentive for positive change, stirring the workforce and creating an environment that gives a company the competitive edge. To succeed, however, TQM has to be more than a catchword. If it is looked upon as a nuisance or an excuse for employees to take advantage of the employer, it won?t work. TQM must become a way of corporate life. That has been the goal of Deming for over forty years.

W. Edwards Deming organized a worldwide consulting practice for many years.. His clients included manufacturing companies, telephone companies, railways, carriers of motor freight, consumer researchers, census methodologists, hospitals, legal firms, government agencies, and research organizations in universities and in industry.

The impact of Dr. Deming’s teachings on American manufacturing and service organizations has been profound. He started changes with his TQM ideas that are improving the human resources departments around the United States. President Reagan even awarded the National Medal of Technology to Dr. Deming in 1987. He received the Distinguished Career in Science award from the National Academy of Sciences in 1988.

Dr. Deming received many other awards, including the Shewhart Medal from the American Society for Quality Control in 1956 and the Samuel S. Wilks Award from the American Statistical Association in 1983.

The American Statistical Association established the annual Deming Prize for improvement of quality and productivityin 1980. Dr. Deming was a member of the International Statistical Institute. He was elected in 1983 to the National Academy of Engineering, and in 1986 to the Science and Technology Hall of Fame in Dayton. He was also inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1991.

Dr. Deming?s numerous awards were well deserved. His education has lasted throughout his life beginning with his doctorate in mathematical physics from Yale University in 1928, in addition, he has earned honor degrees from the University of Wyoming, Rivier College, the University of Maryland, Ohio State University, Clarkson College of Technology, Miami University, George Washington University, the University of Colorado, Fordham University, the University of Alabama, Oregon State University, the American University, the University of South Carolina, Yale University, Harvard University, Cleary College, and Shenandoah University. Yale University also awarded him the Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal. And Rivier College awarded to him the Madeleine of Jesus Award.

A multiple of books, films, and videotapes outline his life, his theory, and the practice of his methods worldwide. Of his books, Out of Crisis and The New Economics have even been translated into many foreign languages.

Dr. Deming is well known for his work in Japan, where from 1950 forward he taught top management and engineers methods for management of quality. This training helped change the economy of Japan. In recognition of his contributions, the Union of Japanese Science and Engineering (JUSE) instituted the annual Deming Prizes for achievements in quality and dependability of product, and as a result, the Emperor of Japan awarded the Second Order Medal of the Sacred Treasure to Dr. Deming in 1990.

In Out of Crisis, Dr. Deming outlines his fourteen points for management. He understood that a manager of people needs to understand that all people are different. Not rank people but understand that the performance of anyone is governed largely by the area that he works in, and is the responsibility of management. Below we can see what Dr. Deming taught in his style of management.

Deming?s 14 Points of Management:

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and to stay in business, and to provide jobs.

2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.

3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.

4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move toward a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.

5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.

6. Institute training on the job.

7. Institute leadership. The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of overhaul as well as supervision of production workers.

8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.

9. Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encountered with the product or service.

10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.

11. a. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership.

b. Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leadership.

12. a. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.

b. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, inter alia, abolishment of the annual merit rating and of management by objective.

13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.

14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody’s job.

If a company works hard to implement Dr. Deming?s ideas on management, they are likely to see an improvement in their all around environment. Training employees in order to fill a position skillfully and efficiently, benchmarking to identify areas that need improvement, and rethinking their approach to performance appraisal, are all indications of total-quality management that can result in a successful enterprise for all those involved.

Deming, W. Edwards. Out of the Crisis. Cambridge: MIT/CAES. 1986

Deming, W. Edwards. The New Economics, second edition. Cambridge:

MIT/CAES. 1994

Sherman, Arthur, George Bohlander, and Scott Snell. Managing Human

Resources. Cincinnati: South-Western College. 1998