TQM focus on Customer Satisfaction

Are you struggling with customer’s satisfaction?

Then you definitely know concepts of TQM (Total Quality Management). TQM focus on customer satisfaction and delight.

Remember, I define Total Quality management as a continuous effort by the management and employee of a particular organization to ensure long-term customer loyalty and customer satisfaction.

Remember, one happy and satisfied customer brings ten new customers along with him whereas one disappointed individual will spread bad word of mouth and spoil several of your existing as well as potential customers.
Nirav Trivedi

Let us understand the importance of Total Quality Management through a case study.

Imagine what would happen if an emergency service neglected to attend to issues of quality. The following scene illustrates how professionals in the public sector make quality a priority:

The warning bell in the District Fire Hall sounds as Mr.Patel shakes himself awake. It is 3:00 am and two alarm fire is burning out of control in a retired people’s home a mile away.

The on-duty fire crew slowly pull themselves from their warm home a mile away. The on-duty fire crew drag themselves from their warm coats and fumble for their coats and boots.

“Where are my gloves ?” wonders Mr. Patel as he saunters towards Engine #1. Recently he noticed that the old fire engine has been giving signals of battery failure. Should report that”, thought Mr.patel idly.

Mr. patel gives a final try to secure a water hose on the truck. A loose nozzle falls falls from the attached hose and clatters to the floor. “Should fix that,” he mutters, as he climbs into the cab and yells for everyone to climb aboard.

The crew grumbles as they climb on the tail board. Joe appears, looking sleepy and confused.

“Hey, Desai, this is the real thing, “yells Mr. Patel, slightly annoyed.

Mr. patel, turns the key to start the engine and it grinds hesitantly, then dies. “Should get this fixed,” Mr shah growls. “Okay, everyone, battery trouble. Unload and reload on Engine # 2

Engine #2 swings slowly from the firehouse. Joe hangs precariously from the safety bar scratching his head. “I sure thought this was a false alarm”.

According to this case the district fire brigade was facing many problems like

No clear guidelines for quality standards
Poor maintenance
Poor team spirit
Inadequate training
No sense of urgency
Lack of communication
Unconcerned leadership
No preventive thinking

What is TQM [Total Quality Management]

First of all, let us understand what is quality?

Quality can be defined as an attribute which differentiates a product or service from its competitors.
Quality refers to the superiority or inferiority of a product or service.
Business marketers need to emphasize the quality of their brands over quantity to survive the cutthroat competition.

TQM

TQM is the totally integrated effort for gaining competitive advantage by continuously improving every fact of an organization’s activities.

It can be defined as

TOTAL – Everyone associated with the company is involved in continuous improvement including its customers and suppliers if feasible.

QUALITY – Customer’s expressed and implied requirements are met fully.

MANAGEMENT– Executives are fully committed

Total Quality Management provides the overall concept that fosters continuous improvement in an organization. in short, TQM focuses on customer delight

The Total Quality Management philosophy stresses a systematic, integrated, consistent, organization-wide perspective involving everyone and everything.

It focuses primarily on total satisfaction for both internal and external customers, within a management environment that seeks continuous improvement of all systems and processes.

The key aspects of Total Quality Management are the prevention of defects and the emphasis on quality in design.

Concept of Total Quality Management

THE QUALITY MANAGEMENT CHAIN

There is a series of supplier/customer relationships that serves as important interfaces in the quality chain.
Failure to meet requirements in one part of quality chain will affect the other
For example – if the sales department has promised a certain delivery date, and the production department fails to comply, then both the internal and external customer will be dis-satisfied. The cause of nonconformance could be production, marketing, or both due to poor communication. To avoid this Total Quality Management needs to be practiced throughout the organization.

Eight stages of the industrial cycle

marketing
Engineering
purchasing
Manufacturing Engineering
manufacturing supervision and Shop floor operation
mechanical inspection & functional test
Shipping
installation and Services

A product should go through the above-mentioned stages before reaching the consumer’s hand.

To make sure that the right products are produced at the first time with defects, coordination between all the stages is important. As a result Total Quality Management - tqm focus to ensure that customers will get what they want right first time, each time and every time.

Quality improvement guideline

Total quality management ensures that every single employee is working towards the improvement of work culture, processes, services, systems and so on to ensure long-term success and for this there is a list of tools and techniques suggested by the ISO 9004-4 as follows: