International Journal of Advanced Engineering Applications, Vol.7, Iss.3, pp.

42-47 (2014)

An explanatory study of quality management

Lavlesh Kumar Sharma1, Ravindra Mohan2
1
Student of M.Tech.r
2
Asst. Prof. Department of Mechanical Engineering, S.A.T.I. Vidisha (M.P.), India
AbstractThe Prime objective this study is to explore the features and foundational understanding in a very simple
manner and to analyze the effects of Total Quality Management on improvement efforts and to polish the individual
performance. ISO 9000 standards have their significant applications in all kinds of organizations. The systematic
approaches to achieve the Quality standards are well designed with their corrective action for control of entire quality
efforts plus promotion, co-ordination and assurance. Many ISO 9000 certified organizations are not yet fully
appreciated by the top management and sometimes it seems lack of desperation in understanding of Quality
Management, although standardization comes into existence due to its definitive acceptance to make easier layout to
control and assure Quality. It happens due to lack of knowledge about these standards at all levels of management.
Since Quality is that parameter of consumer demand which may only be Quality achieved by the involvement of all, as
referred in Total Quality Management (TQM). This paper explores the fundamentals of Quality Management step by
step and provides the basic guidelines to make all of the employees comfortable regarding Quality standards. This
paper gives some suggestions on improvement efforts and individual performance and revealsthe effects in theoretical
& practical understanding of this concept along with other advancements such as Lean, Six-sigma,Jidoka, Continuous
improvements techniques implementation.
Key words TQM, Quality Management, ISO 9000, improvement efforts

1. BACKGROUND
Quality Management works for all kinds of organizational jobs with their respective prime Quality
responsibility and willing to provide corrective action as on its priority basis responsibility. Organizational
jobs are meant for Engineering, Manufacturing, Planning, Procurement, Calibration, Configuration,
Management calibration, Contracts, Quality control and Finance.
We know for corrective action, management must have the better understanding and knowledge
about quality for consumer satisfaction. Quality is perceived as a level of satisfaction of a consumer
derives out of its use at a given price (cost) and at a given time (delivery). Same time Quality inspection is
one of the important tasks. It is that part of Quality management which strictly be placed, inspection means
to examine products or services carefully and to test characteristics and other physical parameters. For the
organizational inspection; top management, production inspection supervisor and inspection personnel are
appointed but they can work effectively without Quality control education through lectures, sensitivity
methods, guided conferences, problem solving conferences, incident process, case studies and role playing
etc. in an organization. An organizational culture focused on Quality may be achieved by applying key
systems and tools from the Total Quality Management (TQM) throughout the organization. TQM is a cost
effective system for integrating the continuous quality improvement efforts of people at all levels in an
organization to deliver products and services which ensure customer satisfaction through statistical control,
procedure design, Human Resource management, policy deployment, and Training and education
techniques. As far as Indian industries at micro and medium scale are concerned, they are basically
focused on profits but the concept of profit gaining without thinking about other aspects of industrial
market has been obsolete with increasing consumer demand parameters, although more and more
companies strive to maintain competitiveness, the concepts of TQM have been received increased attention.
Customer demand and satisfaction is the most priority of Quality Management but Corporate image and
culture, advanced technologies, satisfying of shareholders/stakeholders, profitability, communication,
global market and competition etc. should also be focused as the ingredients of Quality Management. Since
there is need of evaluation to maintain the degree of compliance and to evaluate all the aspects
professionally; Quality audit is not only fault finding but take corrective action. Audits are systematically
performed to carry out prevention/appraisal activity by examination and evaluation of policies, records,
practices and other activities, whether certain applicable elements of quality have effectively implemented
in accordance quality measures and trends to keep a process under control. In such a competitive context an
organization must have a high level of literacy and understanding for rapid changes in technologies coupled
with increasing consumer demand for quality products. Thus a professional individual is one who
constantly acquires new technologies by education and learning. As researchers know learning is lifetime
experience and learning model includes:
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International Journal of Advanced Engineering Applications, Vol.7, Iss.3, pp.42-47 (2014)

a)
b)
c)
d)

Need to learn
Desire to learn
Gain Knowledge
Enjoy implementation

Learning of quality aspects such as Expanding Knowledge, Extraordinary Skills, Professional, and
Personal development is the process to have by means of training, classes, workshops, seminars, short
courses, conferences, trade shows, certification and professional examinations. An organization embodies
the collective knowledge, values and vision of the people. An organization can only survive by generating
values which takes place by comprehensive study of input, conversion and output; all three stages of
production system to fulfill consumer desire.

Inputs
1) Capital &
Money
2) Raw Material
3) Human
Resource
4) Information
&Knowledge

Environment
1) Customer
2) Shareholders
3) Suppliers
4) Distributors
5) Government
6) Competitors

Conversion
Process
1) Human
Skills
2) Machinery
3) Computers

Outputs
1) Finished
Goods
2) Services
3) Dividends
4) Salaries
5) Values for
Stockholders

Fig. 1 production system to fulfill consumer desire

Milton Rokeach created the Rokeach Value Survey (RVS) which consists of two sets of values
with each set containing 18 individual value systems. One set is called Terminal values and other set is
known as Instrument values. As far as organizational culture is concerned; for Quality Management, the
values are fully responsible in meting the consumers demand. Quality Management aims for continuous
improvement which can only be possible by creating organizational culture formation which has a number
of important characteristics for example observed behavioral regularities, philosophy, norms,
organizational environment. Quality Management should always be committed to create a culture of total
involvement of employees, good communication among them, feeling respect dignity and comfort to all,
adherence to important values, recognition and promotion of innovative and creative ideas. Quality
Management should also be focused on corporate culture learning organization for systematic problem
solving, experience, transforming of ideas, transferring of knowledge, learning from others,
experimentation as per the market. To structure organizational business policies regarding Supplier
relationship, Customer relationship and vendor recognition, Quality Management should be emphasized on
redesigning jobs, superficial corporate planning, and the subjective preference of the executive. Due to
human resource planning as one of the essential and indispensable ingredient of corporate planning it is the
main objective to put some standards for Human Resource. Several factors on priority basis are responsible
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International Journal of Advanced Engineering Applications, Vol.7, Iss.3, pp.42-47 (2014)

for creating a human resource environment which deals with literacy level and educational strategy, socioeconomic awareness, technological development, mobility of employees, communication, and other human
being related development matters like living standards, health and welfare, sports, religion, custom, social
issues etc. As shown in figure: Human Resource environment priority is meant as technological factors,
social factors, political factors and economic factors respectively.

Human
Resource
Environment

Technological
Social
Political
Economical
Fig. 2 Factors for human resource environment
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Modern industries have their refined structure as the product of industrial revolution that happened
at the close of 18th century. During that time industries started to think in a broad spectrum about other
aspects of the industries especiallyrapid technological inventions at an unimaginable rate. And it started a
competitive market due to modernization automation and the introduction of quality as the need customer
satisfaction and long term loyalty. The Quality Management movement started in Japan during 1950s. As a
Quality Management perspective, the high rate of new product design and development indicated the
importance of designing quality into new products. Because design efforts often had a limiting impact
attainable, several researchers were stressed the importance of designing quality products (Juran, 1981;
Hauser and Clausing, 1988; Dean and Susman, 1989; Taguchi and Clausing, 1990; Juran and Gryna, 1993;
Boothroyd, Dewhurst, and Winston, 1994; Mizuno and Akao, 1994). During the 1980s as a result of the
success of Japanese firms at a global level hence it became increasingly popular in the United States and
Europe (Lawler, 1994).
For attaining a sustainable competitive advantage in the manufacturing context as a strategy, the
product quality is one of the major competitive priorities (Hill, 1994). And several researchers emphasize
on process quality management and quality assurance as a best suitable media for achieving high
manufacturing quality (Robinson and Schroeder, 1990; Benton 1991; Everett and Sohal, 1991; Chen and
Tirupati, 1995). As far as the inspection is concerned, it is the important part of Quality Management. But
the American Quality Foundation and Ernst and Young (1992) suggested that high quality performance
firms more focused in design management while low quality performance firms focused on inspections.
However the results of this study were published without disclosing its statistical analysis. Hence its
conclusion can not be generalized (Hendrick and Singhal, 1997) but it reveals the view of acceptance of
design management which might be a good deal with inspection.
Motorolas former chairman, Bob Galvin, believes that the gross national product of the USA
could go up by some 0.5-1% per year if there were a national policy on quality. Motorola initiated an
organized and systematic method for strategic process improvement that relies on statistical methods and
the scientific method to reduction or elimination in customer defined defect rates. Six-sigma is the
technique which was referred by Motorola as to have the benefit of zero defects (Linderman, 2003). Lean
manufacturing for continuous improvement with its several techniques may be compatible with Quality
Management System (Lavlesh, Ravindra Mohan, 2014). And most importantly TQM evolved from
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statistical process control and theories pioneered by Dr. Walter in the Bell T. Laboratories of AT & T in
1924. Modern TQM philosophy is well structured and applied by Dr. W.E. Deming who was the main
architect of the concept of total quality policy in Japan. Dr. Deming stressed that for the survival in the
market, quality consciousness is needed and corporations must focus their endeavors in the direction of;
Innovation of products and processes; Improvement of existing product and processes.
TQM build the development and the enormous spread of the ISO 9000 standards. Adopting these
standards enable an organization to fulfill consumer demand along with competitive quality under effective
control over procedures and systems (Dale, 1994). For many organizations attaining ISO 9000 certification
is a necessity in order to survive (Meegan and Taylor, 1997).
3. INTRODUCTION
This paper is introduced to enhance individuals spectrum regarding understanding of Quality as a
main function to attain. For a sustainable Quality Management, the background of quality management
which includes several things like Human resource, supplier relationship, Customer relationship, vendor
development and certification, several techniques to achieve continuous improvements, performance,
participative decision making, Shareholders etc. Managers are always having an intense hunger all creative
and innovative ideas, new perspective and fresh approaches. This study observes that manufacturings 5 Ms
(Men, Machine, Material, Method, and Money) have a relationship withF.W. Taylors 7Ss(Strategy,

Strategy
Structure
System
Style
Shared values

Men
Machine
Material
Method
Money

Sills
Stay
Fig. 3 7Ss and 5Ms

Structure, System, Style, Shared Values, Sills, and Stay concept. Quality management considers
all 7s by conceptualizing 5 Ms in the centre as shown in figure: 3, because these are the main ingredient in
an organization to complete three stages namely Inputs, Conversion methods and Outputs.
As an important aspect of organization, Human Resource System should be integrated to other
systems of an organization as a collective, collaborative, comprehensive and continuous improvement plan,
although we have several approaches for Human Resource Planning like Result oriented approach,
integrated approach and win-win approach etc. for working economically, effectively and efficiently.
Researchers know a Human Resource Environment deals with some factors which are the main
consideration to Quality Management Policy because Quality system depends on these in the form of
internal and external quality assurance, both are influenced by the given factors as shown in figure: 4. As a
handbook of TQM the basic concepts of ISO 9000 supports the given concept in figure: 4.

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Human
Resource
Environment

Technological
Social
Political
Economical

Quality Management
Quality System
Quality Assurance & Quality Control

Project
Process
Add Value for
1.
Offerings2.
3.
4.

5.

Customer
Personnel
Owner
Supplier
Society

Fig. 4 Basic concepts of ISO 9000

Because of the comprehensive use and great importance of the ISO 9000 standards, it is essential
to understand and apply the standards correctly. The standards are general by nature and therefore many
difficulties and complexity of processes and techniques may lead misunderstandings when they have been
applied in a particular case. ISO 9000 Standards have their importance due to many virtues as using as
Flexible Structure to give general guidance on how to understand and use ISO 9001-9004 documents, and
to give definitions and explanations relating to the basic concepts of quality management and assurance; as
promoting mutual understanding to recognize all principles related commitment, certification to first,
second, and third party for fulfilling technical, economic, and social purposes; as wide definitive
acceptance to add values to stakeholders in business organization as a network of processes in accordance
ISO 9000, for project management to apply quality concepts by emphasizing into the lifecycle phases for
customer satisfaction as overall objective of Quality Management. ISO documentations provides the basic
guidelines to employees for eliminating deficiencies in an organization, In such a competitive market lack
of knowledge among employee about quality standards may lead towards the failure in meeting customer
desire. Quality Management and quality Policy enclose all the activities within an organization. The quality
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system is a means of quality management to implement quality policy. It consists of quality control aspects
(operational techniques) and internal quality assurance aspects (to make management confident for
achieving quality policy). External quality assurance aspects deal with particular quality system and
management as required by a contract to met customer satisfaction and give confidence.
4. CONCLUSION
Findings in this study indicate that to attain superior quality to met customer desire. An
organization need to train and educate its employees for total involvement in achieving quality because all
factors influencing employees and employees influence the whole conversion process. Hence an
organization needs to balance its design and process management efforts by ensuring its total involvement
by individuals at all levels as required for participative decision making although ISO 9000 for TQM plays
a significant role in supporting and guiding a continuous improvement. Keeping the Quality Management
System aligned with continuous improvement and advanced technologies will be the great challenge of the
future.
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