When we define something is fad or real we show take what both short-term and long-term effects into account. And what is the target of this theory?TQM is total quality management, and the point at total quality.
From consensus view of market or business the critical thing is customer satisfaction. Thus, what is satisfaction? From my point of view satisfaction is the object or product I bought which fulfill its utility and at the same time fulfill my expectation of use this object or product. And another question coming, how the product fulfills consumers satisfaction? It will depend on the uses and quality of the product. So thats means the objective of producer is to fulfill the customers expectation of quality and uses.
A good quantitative definition of Total Quality Management is: A process designed to focus on customer expectations, preventing problems, building commitment to quality in the workforce and promoting open decision making. And it include many methodology to aide this definition such as JIT, kaizen, benchmarking, reengineering, six sigma and ISO 9000 est. following lets exam these methodologies ,if the organization follow these methodologies can they achieve the goal of fulfill or excess the consumers expectation of quality?First let exam just in time:Definition of JIT is from narrow sense of JIT is a process where goods, components, parts or documents are at necessary place just at necessary time, in boarder sense JIT means moving material to correct place and this move only take place at correct time and place. And from long term examination people get many critical point of JIT this theory can reduce direction or indirection extra labor cost, floor and warehouse space, wastage est. . And corporate with new communication technology will greater help JIT, and improve efficiency.
From the history point of view, after 1973 oil shock many Japanese companies has been adopted this approach and most famous Japanese moto company following this approach is Toyota. Kaizen:It is a Japanese management philosophy, It seeking radical improve in all areas of business such as billing, engineering, planning est. It focuses on small, gradual, frequent improvement and financial investment minimal. The first and foremost of kaizen philosophy is the quality of the people. This philosophy has been adopted and is used by many firms in u.
s. a and around the world, for example kaizen has been successfully applied in the Mercedes-Benz truck factory in Brazil, resulting in reduction of 30% in manufactory space, 45% in inventory 70% in lead time, efficiently save time and cost. Benchmarking and reengineering:Both of these are effected approach for breakthrough, it reinforce company competitive advantages and through comparing with best in class company discover its own weakness and strength in order keep or reposition status in the market. These two methods have been used before TQM birth, many association of different field gather the specific information of their own filed or other field which can help them to compare and improve. Six sigma:This word has already been considered as saint words for their company, the famous companies who employ this methodology are GE and Motorola.
Through this methodology management is distilled to quantitative sense easy to measure and then easy to control. ISO 9000:Is a family of standards represent an international consensus on good management practices with the aim of ensuring that the organization can time and time again deliver goods and service to meet consumers quality requirement, the objective is to promote the development of standards and related activities in the world with a view to facilitating international exchange of goods and services. According to define these methodologies, the usage and its history we know the common goal of these methods is try to improve quality of product and service in order to keep or excess consumers quality requirement and both of these methods have already exist half century and still to be consider as companys successful bible, and as time goes on more and more company belief total quality management and strive to give worldwide quality certification, the aim is to let customer recognize the quality of their and this quality are considered to be world quality level. If TQM only is fad ,it wont exist so long time more than half century, if TQM only is fad, how to prove those successful company such as Sony, GE, Motorola and Toyota ? just because lucky? If successful depends on luck it wont goes further as those successful company.
Thus, Total Quality Management is not fad but a real philosophy of management.
