Total Quality Management in Construction

Berry, L. L. (2000). Cultivating service brand equity. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 28(1), 128-137. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1177/0092070300281012

Producing a quality product, whether a tangible item or a service, is the goal of all organizations, how this goal is achieved will be the challenge. Quality of the end product has been an obstacle in America for decades. In the post World War II era as production of products in America rose, the quality of those products diminished. At the same time other countries such as Japan were not experiencing the same quality issues.

Oakland, 1989 (cited Lakhe and Mohanty, 1993: p9-10) has defined Total Quality Management (TQM) as an “approach to improving the effectiveness and flexibility of business as a whole. It is essentially a way of organizing and involving the whole organization; every department, every activity, every single person at every level”.

If an organization has a track record of effective responsiveness to the environment, and if it has been able to successfully change the way it operates when needed, TQM will be easier to implement. If an organization has been historically reactive and has no skill at improving its operating systems, there will be both employee skepticism and a lack of skilled change agents. If this condition prevails, a comprehensive program of management and leadership development may be instituted. A management audit is a good assessment tool to identify current levels of organizational functioning and areas in need of change. An organization should be basically healthy before beginning TQM. If it has significant problems such as a very unstable funding base, weak administrative systems, lack of managerial skill, or poor employee morale, TQM would not be appropriate.5

TQM was met by some resistance especially from line managers and supervisors. This was because the importance and aim of TQM was not clearly communicated to the supervisors and also, they were not involved in the TQM approach.

In supporting the second objective, the questionnaire on barriers of TQM implementation was conducted. The research findings is taken together the various literatures had been discussed in Chapter 2 on the unfavourable circumstances that become hindrance to the TQM practices that summarised as following:

Received 18th December, 2010 Received in revised form 21st January, 2011 Accepted 29th February, 2011 Published online 13th March, 2011

Total quality management is defined as a companywide effort to continually improve the ways people, machines, and systems accomplish work. Management gurus William Edwards Deming, Joseph Moses Juran, and Philip Bayard Crosby and their philosophies on improving quality and performance excellence lead to frameworks. The U.S. Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and the international ISO 9000 certification and the Six Sigma concept are frame works known worldwide. By implementing these frameworks and concepts, companies have improved overall quality from the products and services as well as improving the employees and customers standard of living. When the company goes to implement total quality management, some of its core values are driven in order to improve the quality of the company. Those values are having “methods and processes designed to meet the needs of internal and external customers, giving every employee in the organization training in quality, having quality designed into a product or service so that errors are prevented from occurring, rather than being detected and corrected in an error-prone product or service, the organization promotes cooperation with vendors, suppliers, and customers to improve quality and hold down cost, and managers measure progress with feedback based on data.” (Page 41 – 42, Noe)

Total Quality Management (TQM), is a management system that involves all organization functions, which focuses on meeting customers’ needs and organizational objectives which involve all employees continual improvement, and that seeks to improve the quality of products and services through ongoing refinements in response to continuous feedback (Rouse, 2005)

Quality and total quality management, the main difference is that perception and activities. (Goetsch, 2010)

"TQM is a management approach for an organization, centered on quality, based on the participation of all its members and aiming at long-term success through customer

ISO 8402 defines Total quality management(TQM) as a “management approach of an organization centered on quality, based on the participation of all its members and aiming at long term success through customer satisfaction and benefits to all members of the organization and to society.” Total Quality Management (TQM) is a comprehensive approach is utilized by any organization that needs to upgrade the quality of its products or services through a process of continuous feedback from its consumers. It creates a framework where initiatives for effective quality and productivity can be implemented, that would help to raise the competitiveness of any organizations. Dr. W. Edwards Deming in 1930 from the help from Bell telephone company statistician Walter A. Shewhart devised a management process which is statistically controlled. This process is a combination of Shewhart statistical

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a systematic approach that organizations take in order to implement constant organizational improvements. There are 8 essential points that help an organization achieve it TQM goals: Training, executive management, Customer Focus, Decision Making, Methodology Tools, Continuous Improvements, Company Culture and Employee Involvement. It is important for any modern organization to understand the importance of TQM as consumers demand better products and services. TQM can differentiate an organization and can give it a competitive advantage.

Numerous definitions have been given on Total Quality Management (TQM) by quality gurus, practitioners and academician. Besterfield defined TQM as both a philosophy and a set of guiding principles that represents the foundation of a continuously improving organization. It integrates fundamental management techniques, existing improvement efforts and technical tools under a disciplined approach (D.H. Besterfield, 1995). Using a three-word definition, Wilkinson and Wither defines TQM as below

When employees want it to work, TQM will work. Unfortunately, this also works in reverse. Richard L. Williams states, “TQM doesn’t come from the efforts of a few committed individual. It happens only when the vast majority -if not everyone- in an organization demonstrates a daily commitment to TQM principles.” W. Edwards Deming, an industrial engineer, realized that it was in fact the employees that controlled the process. Deming believed TQM had to be the foundation of every company and from there he developed his “Fourteen Points.” The first point emphasized the importance that profit was the outcome of great quality. From there, the entire company needed to adopt a new quality philosophy where responsibility was assumed by all in the company. If not, there would be no long-lasting results. Many believe that quality is something that can be done “after the fact,” yet it is quite the opposite. Quality must be the foundation, not a simple add on to a company’s daily processes. While focusing on quality, supplier interests, concerns, and commitment to the highest customer satisfaction should be the focus of attention. One of the most important points requires employees to internalize that what is good enough for today is not good enough for tomorrow. Continuous improvement is imperative. In order to do this, training for employees must be specific in order to yield successful production. Leadership must be effective and constantly evolving