The Importance Of Total Quality Management

1. INTRODUCTION

Feigenbaum (1961), defines quality as the total composite product and service characteristics of marketing, engineering, manufacture, and maintenance through which the product and service will meet the expectations of the customer. While the British Standards Institution (1991) defines quality as the totality of features and characteristics that bear on the ability of a product or service to satisfy a given need. However, the Oxford dictionary vaguely defines quality as “A degree of excellence”. In contrast, Garvin (1984) highlights that most existing definitions of quality fall into one of the categories listed below:

a) The transcendent approach of philosophy.

b) The product based approach of economics.

c) The user based approach

2. TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM)

Hellman and Lui, (2013) state that Total Quality Management (TQM) is an enhancement to the traditional way of doing business. Furthermore, it is a proven technique guaranteeing survival in world-class competition. The culture and actions of an organization can be transformed by changing only the actions of management. Total Quality Management (TQM) is a comprehensive and structured approach to organizational management that seeks to improve the quality of products and services through ongoing refinements in response to continuous feedback. An analysis of the three words can be broken down as follows:

• Total - Make-up of the whole

• Quality - Degree of excellence a product or service provides

• Management - Act, art, or manner of handling, controlling and directing (Hellman and Lui).

2.1 DYNAMICS OF TQM IN THE ORGANISATION

TQM is an art of managing the whole to achieve excellence. TQM is also defined as both a philosophy and a set of benchmarks that represent the foundation of a continuously improving organization. It is an application of quantitative methods and human resources to improve all the processes within an organization and exceed customer needs at present and in the future. TQM integrates fundamental management techniques, existing improvement efforts and technical tools under a disciplined

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