EVOLUTION OF TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

A. History of Total Quality Management

The history of total quality management (TQM) began initially as a term
coined by the Naval Air Systems Command to describe its Japanese- style
management approach to quality improvement. An umbrella methodology for
continually improving the quality of all process, it draws on a knowledge of the
principles and practices of:

 The behavioural sciences

 The analysis of quantitative and non-quantitative data
 Economics theories
 Process analysis

Evolution of Total Quality Management

1. Customer Craft and Inspection Era

 Until the nineteenth century, skilled craftsmen manufactured goods in

small volume. They handcrafted and all together to form a unique products
that was only informally inspected. Population growth and industrialization
brought about production in larger volume. Manufacturing in the
industrialized world tended to follow this craftsmanship model to the
factory system, with its emphasis on product inspection, started in Great
Britain in the mid- 1750’s and grew into the industrial Revolution in the
early 1500s.

2. Mass Production and Inspection Era

 In the 1800s, there is increased specialization, division of labor, and mass

production required more formal inspection. Inspectors examined
products to detect and separate from good and bad.

3. Formalizing the inspection Function

 By the early 1900s, gauging had become more refined, and inspection was even
more important. It was prominent in Henry Ford’s moving assembly line and
Frederick Taylor’s system of shop floor management in 1922. G.S Radford
formally linked inspection to quality control. For the first time, quality was
regarded as an independent function and a distinct management responsibility.

4. The Statistical Control Era

 In 1931, Walter Shewart gave quality a scientific tooling with the

publication of his book Economic Control of Quality of Manufacturing
Product. Shewart was one of a group of people at Bell, Laboratories
investigating problems of quality. The statistical quality control approach
 sthat Shewart advocated is based on his views of quality. Statistical
quality control requires that numbers derived from measures of processes
or products be analyzed according to theory of variation that links
outcomes to uses.

5. Shewarts View of Quality

 Shewart offered a pragmatic concept of quality. “The measure of quality

is a quantity which may take on different numerical values. In other words,
the measure of quality, no matter what the definition of quality may be, is
a variable”. Shewart’s emphasis on measurements in his definition of
quality obviously relates to his prescriptions for statistical quality control,
which requires numbers.

6. Quality Assurance Era

 During the quality assurance era, the concept of quality in the United
States evolved from a narrow, manufacturing- based discipline to one with
implications for management throughout a firm. Statistics and
manufacturing control remained important, but coordination with other
areas, such as design, engineering, planning, and service activities, also
became important to quality.

7. Total Quality Control and Quality Drive Culture

 The beginning of the 20th century marked the inclusion of “processes” in

quality practices. A “process” is defined as a group of activities that takes
an input, adds value to it and provides an output, such as when a chef
transforms a pile of ingredients into a meal.

8. The Strategic Quality Management Era

 The present quality era, Strategic Quality Management, incorporates

elements of each of the preceding eras, particularly the contributions of
Shewart, Deming, Juran and Feiganbaum. So many elements of previous
eras are incorporated into strategic quality management that the last two
decades nay at first appear to just a repackaging of old ideas.

B. Advocates of TQM and their contribution to the new management thought

To fully understand the TQM movement, we need to look at philosophies

of notable individuals who have shaped the evolution of TQM. Their philosophies
and learnings have contributed to our knowledge and understanding of quality of
TQM.

1. Walter A. Shewhart

 He developed control charts that are used to identify whether the

variability in the process is random or due to an assignable cause, such
as poor workers or miscaliberated machineries.
  He stressed that eliminating variability improves quality. His work
created the foundation for today’s statistical process control and he is
often referred to as the “grandfather of quality control.”

2. William Edward Deming

 He is often the “father of quality control”

 He outlined his philosophy on quality in his famous “14 points”. These
points are principles that help guide companies in achieving quality
improvement. The principles are founded on the idea that upper
management must develop a commitment to quality and provide a
system to support this commitment that involves all employees and
suppliers.

Deming’s 14 Points on Quality Management

1. Create constancy of purpose for improving products and services.

2. Adopt the new philosophy.
3. Create dependence on inspection to achieve quality.
4. End the practice of awarding business on price alone; instead, minimize total cost
by working with a single supplier.
5. Improve constantly and forever every process for planning, production and service.
6. Institute training on the job.
7. Adopt and institute leadership.
8. Drive out fear.
9. Break down barriers between staff areas.
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortation and targets for the workforce.
11. Eliminate numeric quotas for the workforce and numerical goals for management.
12. Remove barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship, and eliminate the annual
rating or merit system.
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self- improvement for everyone.
14. Put everyone in the company to work accomplishing the transformation.

3. Dr. Joseph M.Juran

 He has the most influence on the theory of quality management after

Deming among other gurus.
 His emphasis was more on managerial aspect in quality.
 He is best known as “the father of modern quality management”.
 He was also the second American guru who invited by JUSE to teach
and guide “quality control courses” to Japanese industry leaders in
1954. His lectures were introduced and emphasized on the managerial
dimensions of planning, organizing, an controlling, and focused on the
responsibility of managements to achieve quality and the need for
setting goals, that is why he emphasized managerial approach to
similar analogy for better quality results by three basic processes or
“Jurans Trilogy” that make a successful framework for TQM to obtain
quality goals and improving quality.

4. Philip Bayard Crosby

 He is best known for his concept of “Zero Defects”, he believed that an
efficient quality management must be “based on prevention based
 system”, and claimed that mistakes can be happened because of lack
of knowledge and the attention of employees in the organization.
 He emphasized when the quality improvement can be happened that
management of the firm focuses more on prevention by the attention
and awareness of employees, reduction of the cost, the emphasis on
controls rather than the inspection efforts, and finally “ Doing them right
the first time.”

5. Dr. Armand V. Feigenbaum

 He was the first guru who introduced the concept of “Total Quality
Control”.
 He was one of the foundations of modern management and has been
widely accepted as a viable operating philosophy in all economic
sectors.
 He advocated the inspection for quality control “after the fact rather than
build it in at an earlier stage of the process.”

6. Kaoro Ishikawa

 Is best known for the development of quality tools called cause- and-
effect diagram, also called fishbone diagram or Ishikawa diagram.
These diagrams are used for quality problem solving.
 He was the first quality guru to emphasize the importance of the “
internal customer”
 He also stressed the importance of total company quality control, rather
than just focusing on products and services.
 He is the proponent of the implementation of quality circles which are
small teams of employees that volunteer to solve problems.

7. Genichi Taguchi

 Is a Japanese quality expert known for his work in the area of product
design
 He estimates that as much as 80 percent of all defective items are
caused by poor product design.
 He is known for applying a concept called design experiment to produce
design- a design that results in a product that can be perform over a
wide range of conditions.