How to succeed with TQM

Total Quality Management (TQM) is focused on reducing waste and increasing business. TQM uses different management tools to determine the level of quality a product much reach before it is able to be sold to the customers. TQM is commonly used in conjunction with other business process improvement methods like Six Sigma.

When it comes to successful implementation of TQM, a business must address the following questions:

• Are our customers satisfied with our products?
• How can we increase customer satisfaction?
• What is our relationship like with our suppliers?
• What is continuous process improvement?

Unlike other business process improvement methods, TQM is focused on the customer. The customer is the individual that pays for you to stay in business so their satisfaction is critical.

In addition to pleasing the customer that actually paid for the product, TQM goes one step further and focuses on pleasing the user of the product. This individual may not have paid you directly but they are still using your product and it needs to meet their quality expectations.

Some of the other customers you need to consider are the workers that purchase your products, other companies that purchase them, and all the people that touch your product until it eventually ends up in the hands of the final owner.

Your suppliers also determine your success with TQM. You need to establish a good relationship with your suppliers in order to get the highest quality materials to make your products. Always pay your invoices on-time and provide clear instructions about your needs.

Suppliers not only refer to the companies that ship you your products, they are also your employees. Your employees are the individually that actually assemble the final product so you must make sure they are satisfied. Find ways to make their job easier by offering them better machines and tools to perform their job. You can also increase employee morale by praising them for their hard work and provide them with fair compensation.

When employee morale is higher, you will obtain increased productivity. This also helps you weed out the good workers from the bad ones. To find your good employees, hire managers that have successful people skills. They will be able to find ways to help their employees work harder and satisfy their needs.

The difference between TQM and other business process improvement strategies is that it is constantly changing. You should never settle and get comfortable, look for ways to constantly improve your products or services. Since you have new competitors springing up all the time, it is important to use TQM to stay ahead of them.

One way to stay ahead is to work smarter. So many businesses are concerned with getting more out of their employees and working them harder. This is actually causing you to lose money because the workers will slow down due to burn out. It is the same philosophy as running a machine for 24 hours straight, eventually it will overheat and produce defective products.

Look for ways to help your employees perform their jobs easier, not harder. Examine the way they work and find ways to improve the way they work. Some of the bottlenecks with the company can easily be avoided with a few small changes.

Ask your employees to input their ideas. Employee involvement is one of the biggest factors to successfully implementing TQM. Listen to their suggestions and look for ways to actually fix some of the things they point out. Since employees are performing the process on a daily basis, they will have first-hand experience with some of the wastes you can eliminate from the process.