TQM

Assignment-1
Reviews on TQM Blogs

Submitted To:

Submitted By:

Dr. Gunmala Suri

Gurleen Kaur
MBA-IB (4th Sem)
Roll No. 10

Blog1: Investing in Quality: Total Quality Management on 18 March, 2015 by Patricia

Barlow Accounting, Leadership and management

This blog discusses about what is TQM, what are the 2 main areas where investment can be
done and why TQM is important.
TQM is a management approach that centres quality at the heart of every part of the
organisation. Big names like Ford and Xerox have invested in a TQM system, and it is now
used widely among government departments and educational institutions.
Investments in quality usually focus either on preventing future issues, or reviewing products
and services to ensure high quality.
1. Prevention includes:

Training staff to ensure they are competent, therefore preventing expensive mistakes

Improving the design of a product, therefore reducing the number of rejects

Maintaining machinery, which in turn reduces the amount of downtime when things
go wrong

2. Appraisal
As well as preventing costly issues, TQM involves regular auditing and inspection to make
sure products and services meet high standards. This could include inspecting finished goods,
raw materials, or even work in progress. It can also involve reviewing the service that staff
deliver on a day-to-day basis, to ensure a quality service to customers.
Why use TQM?
For many organisations, the cost of new preventative measures and extra auditing will be
high. However, in most cases, TQM will save more money than it costs. TQM often falls
largely within the remit of finance departments, due to the amount of financial planning and
reporting it involves. Organisations often find that the following benefits outweigh the initial
investment.

Reducing the costs of failure, including product replacement and even legal costs

Improving reputation, and consequently increasing sales

Increasing staff motivation, which in turn decreases staff turnover and associated costs

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Blog 2: Statistical Thinking to Improve Quality on JULY 15, 2008 by Gordon M. Clark
This blog examines the use of data analyses and statistical tools in a framework of statistical
thinking to improve quality. The following principles form the basis for statistical thinking:
All work occurs in a system of interconnected processes, Variation exists in all processes, and
Understanding and reducing variation are keys to success.Statistical thinking significantly
improves the effectiveness of data analyses and statistical tools.
Interrelationship Digraph Source
This posting gives the background and source of the interrelationship digraph.

It

differentiates this source from the Seven major SPC Tools and the Magnificent Seven.
GOAL/QPC, an educational consulting company, noticed a new book proposing seven new
QC tools. This book (Mizuno, 1988) was eventually translated into English. GOAL/QPC
created the Memory Jogger Plus+ (Brassard, 1989) featuring these new tools. They called
these new tools the Seven Management and Planning Tools to differentiate them from the
Seven Major SPC Tools. The Seven Management and Planning Tools are:
1. Affinity diagram
2. Interrelationship digraph
3. Tree diagram
4. Prioritization matrices
5. Matrix diagram
6. Process decision program chart (PDPC)
7. Activity network diagram
Montgomery (2005, page 148) identifies Seven Major SPC Tools. He calls them the
Magnificent Seven. They are:
1. Histogram or stem-and-leaf plot
2. Check sheet
3. Pareto chart
4. Cause and effect diagram
5. Defect concentration diagram
6. Scatter diagram
7. Control chart
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Blog 3: Building a Culture of Total Quality on MARCH 13, 2014 by DR. JON
WARNER in QUALITY AND TOTAL QUALITY
This blog discusses about how important it is to create a positive climate in which quality is
taken seriously across an entire organization which takes considerable hard work as well as
lots of time and commitment. An organizational culture is typically most significantly shaped
by the following elements:

The enterprise vision and strategic goals

The Organizations values

Cultural Role Models

Organizational customs and practices

The organizational communication system

A quality culture therefore has to recognize each one of the above elements and feature
strongly in all of them. Those organizations which can successfully develop and maintain a
total quality culture will usually make considerable efforts to ensure that new and positive
approaches which support the initiative are taken in all of the following areas:

Leadership

Strategic Planning

Customer Focus

Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management

Workforce Focus

Operations Focus

Results
The Baldridge framework, which applies largely to US companies, for example, provides
guidance on creating an optimal culture in all six of the above categories and awards prizes
every year to organizations that are most effective in their efforts
In the final analysis, building a TQM culture cannot be done in a cookie-cutter kind of way,
and each organization will have to determine how ready it is to undertake this often long and
difficult journey and where it therefore best needs to invest its early efforts. However, the
culture of the enterprise must be open and willing to undertake the change and this means that
a focus on what leaders spend their time talking about is extremely important at the earliest
possible stage.

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Blog 4: The Cost of Poor Quality - Little Things Add Up by Clayton Taylor
When we look at making improvements to our services, one thing that should be on the top of
our lists is finding ways to provide world-class service at the lowest possible cost. When
discussions around cost reductions come up, efforts tend to be on finding large, highly-visible
savings opportunities. While it is always nice to make substantial cost reductions all at once,
cutbacks of this nature tend to be short-term or one-time only decreases.
In process improvement, these costs that come from inefficiencies and process failures are
referred to as the cost of poor quality (COPQ). Alone, many of these costs a few pennies
here and there, or a couple of seconds of time - would be too small with which to bother.
However, when you multiply these few pennies or few seconds of time by many, many
repetitions over time, they add up to large expenses and lots of lost productivity; all of which
have a negative impact on customers and operations.
The cost of poor quality can often be traced back to uncontrolled variation in a process, and
different types of waste or wasteful practices like:

Unnecessary processing or steps in a process

Delays / waiting

Idle inventory / resources

Producing more than needed to meet demand

Transporting materials or information over long distances

Unnecessary or excessive motion / movement of staff

Rework / fixing defects

The cost of poor quality goes beyond the process itself, and can also be assigned to activities
related to finding, fixing, and preventing poor quality in services, as well as losses due to
negative impacts to the organizations brand or reputation and the loss of customers.

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Blog 5: Approaching the Food Waste Problem with Lean Six Sigma and Statistics on 18
November, 2015 by Carly Barry
According to this blog published on FOOD TANK, over 22 million pounds of food is wasted
on college campuses each year. Now thats a lot of food waste!
Students all over the country are noticing excessive food waste at their schools and are
starting programs to bring awareness and improve the problem. Naturally, many of these
programs have roots in Lean Six Sigma. In one example, a group of students at Rose-Hulman
Institute of Technology lessened to the food waste problem at their school by completing a
Lean Six Sigma project that followed the DMAIC framework.
According to a July 2012 article in FOOD POLICY, U.S. food waste on the consumer level
translated into almost 273 pounds per person in 2008. Evans students converted this number
into pounds per day, and to determine the amount of waste per meal, they divided the figure
by 2.5 meals per day (they did not count breakfast as a full meal because it typically does not
see as much waste as lunch or dinner). The students ended up calculating an average food
waste amount of 4.78 ounces per meal. So their goal became to reduce edible food waste per
student by one ounce per meal during the schools lunch period.
Using Lean Six Sigma tools, such as process maps and CT Trees, as well as using Minitab for
data analysis, Rose-Hulman students reached an impressive outcomegreatly surpassing
their original goal.

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References

http://blog.readytomanage.com/building-a-culture-of-total-quality/

https://www.babington.co.uk/blog/leadership-management/total-quality-management/

http://www4.asq.org/blogs/statistics/statistical_thinking_tools/magnificent_seven/

https://service.asu.edu/blog/cost-poor-quality-little-things-add

http://blog.minitab.com/blog/real-world-quality-improvement/approaching-the-foodwaste-problem-with-lean-six-sigma-and-statistics

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