Total quality management (TQM): Deming, Juran, Feigenbaum and ISO

In one line

Total quality (TQM, Total Quality Management) is a way of running the company in which the quality of the product, the process, the materials, the environment and the people is everyone's responsibility, with continuous improvement and a focus on the customer.

What it is

Niebel and Freivalds define it as a concept broader than the quality of results: it also covers the quality of the process, the materials, the environment and the people. For them, the total quality movement, like the work measurement movement, evolved from Taylor's scientific management principles (see Taylorism). After World War II, American companies worried more about meeting delivery dates than about quality, while Japanese companies, forced to compete with the established ones in the rest of the world, focused on the quality of their products over the following 20 years.

According to the book, the Japanese continuous improvement effort and quality circles were born from the philosophies of three people:

• W. E. Deming: a consultant to Japanese industry, he convinced top management of the power of statistical methods and of quality as a competitive weapon. He is known for his 14 points and for the Deming Prize, created by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers.
• J. M. Juran: one of the founders of statistical quality control, author of the Quality Control Handbook (1951) and of the 10 steps to improvement.
• A. V. Feigenbaum: introduced the company-wide quality control program (Total Quality Control), widely used in Japan in the 1950s.

Only in the late eighties did the concept gain acceptance in the United States, under the name Total Quality Management (TQM) or as company-specific programs such as Motorola's Six Sigma.

Deming's 14 points (summary)

Niebel and Freivalds list them in table 18.4 (summarized here):

1. Create constancy of purpose to improve products and services.
2. Adopt a new philosophy: management must take the lead in the change.
3. Stop depending on inspection to achieve quality: build it in from the start.
4. Stop awarding contracts on price alone.
5. Improve the production and service system continuously and forever.
6. Institute on-the-job training.
7. Institute leadership: help people and technology work better.
8. Drive out fear, so that everyone can work effectively.
9. Break down the barriers between departments.
10. Eliminate slogans and numerical targets imposed on the workforce.
11. Eliminate quotas and management by objectives, and replace them with leadership.
12. Remove the barriers that stand in the way of pride in a job well done.
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
14. Get everyone involved in the transformation.

Juran, for his part, proposes ten steps to improvement: create awareness of the need, set goals, organize to meet them, train, carry out projects that solve problems, report on progress, give recognition, communicate the results, keep score, and maintain momentum by building the improvements into the company's regular systems.

ISO 9000 and total quality

According to Niebel and Freivalds, ISO 9000 is a quality control standard that refers only to the company's procedures (contract review, development, production, installation and service), whereas total quality covers every aspect, including the workforce and the environment. That is why ISO 9000 is compatible with total quality and can be considered a subset of it.

Real example

Quality circles are the most concrete expression of the idea. The article in Contaduría y Administración (UNAM) documents the case of the "Producir es la meta" ("Producing is the goal") quality circle at Cerraduras y Candados Phillips, in Naucalpan (Mexico), in 1997. It applied the classic sequence of quality tools to a defect of marks on plates that forced extra polishing on 6 pieces per day out of every 2,000. When the causes were quantified, 80% of the problem was in an inadequate method for bending plates; redesigning the die cost $6,578 and took the extra polishing from 6 pieces per day to zero, with a reported annual saving of $143,284. The details are in the article on the 7 basic quality tools.

Benefits

• It involves all levels and not just the quality department.
• It gives a common philosophy to tools such as Pareto, Ishikawa or PDCA.
• It reduces the cost of poor quality by no longer depending on final inspection.

Limitations to keep in mind

• Without concrete tools and measurable results, it becomes a slogan: that is why it is combined with Six Sigma or with focused improvement projects.
• It requires sustained commitment from top management: Deming says so in his points 2, 7 and 14.
• It is a long process: there is no result in four weeks, unlike a kaizen event.

In summary

Total quality is the idea that quality is made by the whole organization, not by inspection. From it come quality circles, Deming's PDCA cycle and, later, ISO 9001 and Six Sigma. It is one of the foundations of Toyotism and of Lean.