EGERTON
UNIVERSITY
KISII UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE
FACULTY OF
COMMERCE
UNIT ;TOTAL
QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM)
CODE ;BBAM/BCOM
472
INSTRUCTOR ;MADAM ODERO
TASK ;ROLE OF LEADERSHIP IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF TQM
GROUP MEMBERS REGISTRATION NO.
1. PETER OMBIJA
OKELLO C11/60238/08
2. ANNE
MUTHONI
C11/60182/08
3. KEVIN MUMBO C11/60246/08
4. LYDIA
GICHOHI
C12/60323/08
5. RACHAEL
MUTHONI C11/60192/08
6. MICHAEL
SAWE
C12/60317/08
7. WILFRED
MAGUT
C12/60290/08
8. PHILEMON
MIRANYI C11/60193/08
9. Monica njambi
njenga c11/60178/08
10. naomi muthoni c11/60191/08
THE
ROLE OF LEADERSHIP IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM) IN
ORGANIZATIONS.
Introduction
Globalization in the
business theater is driving companies toward a new view of quality as a
necessary tool to compete successfully in worldwide markets. A direct outcome
of this new emphasis is the philosophy of total quality management (TQM). In
essence, TQM is a company-wide perspective that strives for customer
satisfaction by seeking zero defects in products and services.
Total quality management or TQM is defined as
an integrative philosophy of management
for continuously improving the quality of products and
processes.TQM functions on the premise
that the quality of products and processes is the responsibility of everyone
who is involved with the creation or consumption of the products or services
offered by an organization. In other words, TQM capitalizes on the involvement
of management, workforce, suppliers, and even customers, in order to meet or
exceed customer expectations
Making quality
improvements was once thought to be the sole responsibility of specialists
(quality engineers, product designers, and process engineers). Today,
developing quality across the entire firm can be an important function of
leadership. a failure on leadership's part to recognize this opportunity and
act on it may result in the loss of TQM implementation responsibilities to
other departments with less expertise in training and development. The ultimate
consequence of this loss is an ineffective piecemealing of the TQM strategy. Thus,
leadership should act as the pivotal change agent necessary for the successful
implementation of TQM.
What
is the role of leadership in TQM Implementation?
Leadership can act as
senior management's tool in implementing TQM in two fundamental ways. First, by
modeling the TQM philosophy and principles within its departmental operations, leadership
can serve as a beachhead for the TQM process throughout the company. Second, leadership,
with senior management's support, can take the TQM process company-wide by
developing and delivering the long-term training and development necessary for
the major organizational culture shift required by TQM.
Implementing TQM
requires a team effort headed by your organization's leadership team. Each
person involved in change management has their responsibilities, and it is
important for the entire organization to understand the role of leadership in
TQM to make delegating responsibility more effective.
1) Involvement
TQM of any kind of new
company policy or program requires participation from all of the departments
that will be affected. Company leadership needs to identify what those
departments are and create an implementation team that consists of
representatives from each affected group. Management needs to create a
structure that identifies various group leaders, the responsibilities of those
group leaders and an accountability system that insures that the implementation
team meets its timetable for getting the new program or policy in place.
2) Interest
Implementing TQM within
a company requires a feeling of urgency on the part of the entire company. It
is the job of management to create that urgency by explaining to the staff why
the implementation is necessary. Leadership needs to help the employees
understand how the company benefits from the new implementation, but it also
needs to get the organization to see the setbacks of not making a change.
3) Monitoring
TQM within a company is
not an exact process. It is a dynamic procedure that needs to be monitored by
management and altered to meet implementation goals. it is the responsibility
of leadership to put a monitoring system in place, analyze the data that is
being generated during the implementation and make any necessary changes to make
the implementation more efficient.
4) Next step
Implementing TQM is
often done in phases. The company leadership needs to be able to identify when
each phase of TQM is complete and be ready to transition the company to the
next phase. For example, if the company is bringing in a new software program
for customer management, then the first phase of the program may be to
implement it in the sales department. Management needs to identify when the
proper alterations to the software have been made that will allow it to be
implemented in other parts of the company.
Implementing
a TQM system has become the preferred approach for improving quality and
productivity in organizations. TQM, which has been adopted by leading
industrial companies, is a participative system empowering all employees to
take responsibility for improving quality within the organization. Instead of
using traditional bureaucratic rule enforcement, TQM calls for a change in the
corporate culture, where the new work climate has the following characteristics:
(i)
an
open, problem-solving atmosphere;
(ii)
participatory
design making;
(iii)
trust
among all employees (staff, line, workers, managers);
(iv)
a
sense of ownership and responsibility for goal achievement and problems
solving; and,
(v)
Self-motivation
and self-control by all employees.
The TQM approach involves more
than simply meeting traditional rejection rate standards. The end result of TQM
is the efficient and effective use of all organizational processes in providing
consistent quality at a competitive price. The TQM philosophy is a long-term
endeavor that links people and processes in a system that alters the corporate
culture to become one where quality is the core aspect of business strategy.
In
cultivating the TQM philosophy, strategy implementation must involve a focused
effort on the part of every employee within the organization. It cannot be
applied successfully on a piecemeal basis. TQM requires that management, and
eventually every member of the organization, commit to the need for continual
improvement in the way work is accomplished. Business plans, strategies, and
management actions require continual rethinking in order to develop a culture
that reinforces the TQM perspective. The challenge is to develop a robust
culture where the idea of quality improvement is not only widely understood
across departments, but becomes a fundamental, deep-seated value within each
function area as well.
Leadership
therefore can jumpstart the TQM process by becoming a role model. This means
that leadership has two specific tasks: "serving our customers, and making
a significant contribution to running the business." this emphasis on
customer oriented service means that leadership must see other departments in
the firm as their customer groups for whom making continuing improvements in
service becomes a way of life.
In their
efforts to achieve TQM, leadership can demonstrate commitment to TQM principles
by soliciting feedback from its internal customer groups on current hr
services. Leadership should include suggestions from its customers in setting
objective performance standards and measures. In other words, there are a
number of specific TQM principles that leadership can model.
The
current emphasis on quality as a competitive strategy has produced many views
regarding the actions necessary to achieve it. Leaders in the quality movement
(Deming, Juran, Crosby, Feigenbaum have proposed similar approaches which share
certain themes. these themes can be summarized as five basic principles:
- focus on customers' needs;
- focus on problem prevention, not correction;
- make continuous improvements: seek to meet customers' requirements on time, the first time, every time;
- train employees in ways to improve quality; and,
- Apply the team approach to problem solving.
To institute TQM as a
philosophy within an organization, all employees must come to realize that
satisfying customers is essential to the long-run well-being of the firm and
their jobs. No longer is the customer-driven focus exclusive to the marketing
department. But customer satisfaction can only be achieved after first defining
the customer groups. The new perspective here is that all employees exist to
serve their customer groups, some internal and some external to the firm. The organisation
has internal customers to satisfy, which indirectly provides ultimate
satisfaction to external customers.
The TQM
approach entails identifying the wants and needs of customer groups and then
propelling the entire organization toward fulfilling these needs. A customer's
concerns must be taken seriously, and organizations should make certain that
its employees are empowered to make decisions that will ensure a high level of
customer satisfaction. This can be achieved by promoting an environment of
self-initiative and by not creating a quagmire of standard operating procedures
and company policies. Flexibility is the key, especially in a business
environment that is diverse and constantly changing, as most are today. In
modeling these aspects of the TQM process, leadership would need to identify
human resource concerns of other departments and undertake to continually
improve its performance, especially in any trouble areas that come to light.
Based on
this "customer first" orientation, organizational members are
constantly seeking to improve products or services. Employees are encouraged to
work together across organizational boundaries. Underlying these cooperative
efforts are two crucial ideas. One is that the initial contact with the
customer is critical and influences all future association with that customer. The
other idea is that it is more costly to acquire new customers than to keep the
customers you already have. Exemplifying TQM here would mean that leadership
would need to train itself, focusing on being customer-driven toward other
departments
Quality
improvement programs typically involve the directed efforts of quality
improvement (QI) teams. Using teams and empowering employees to solve
quality-related issues using such tools as statistical process control (SPC)
represent fundamental changes in how many businesses operate. The focus of SPC,
also known as statistical quality control (SQC), is defect prevention as
opposed to defect correction. Defect prevention results from continuously
monitoring and improving the process. In this context "process"
refers to service delivery as well as manufacturing. To ensure that output
meets quality specifications, monitoring is performed by periodically
inspecting small samples of the product. SPC alone will not ensure quality improvement;
rather, it is a tool for monitoring and identifying quality problems.
The
effective use of quality improvement teams, and the TQM system as a whole, can
be reinforced by applying basic principles of motivation. In particular, the
recognition of team accomplishments as opposed to those of individuals, and the
effective use of goal setting for group efforts, are important in driving the
TQM system. Leadership is in a position to help institutionalize team
approaches to TQM by designing appraisal and reward systems that focus on team
performance.
For many
companies, the philosophy of TQM represents a major culture shift away from a
traditional production-driven atmosphere. In the face of such radical
operational makeovers, a determined implementation effort is vital to prevent
TQM from becoming simply latitudinal and the teams approach just another
management fad. Senior management must take the lead in overt support of
TQM.
Summary and Conclusion
In summary,
leadership’s role in the TQM implementation process include:
1. Initiating
agreement on goals and measures that cascade throughout the organization;
2. Providing
the agreed resources (people, money, training, machines, etc.);
3. Assigning
authority and establish deadlines to put resources into motion;
4. Monitoring
progress in achieving goals, not to apportion blame, but to aim for
improvement; and,
5. Measuring
improvement and reward both the achievement of goals and the ways they are
achieved.
Beyond
modeling TQM, leadership, with senior management's support, can play a leading
role in implementing a quality strategy across the firm.
References
1.
D.D. Sharma (2001), Total quality management;principles,practices and cases,
Sultan Chand and
Sons.
2.
Ahire S.L, (1997),Management Science-TQM Interfaces, An Integrative Framework.
3.
Cua K.O.K.E,Mckone, and R.G
Schroeder,(2001),relationship between
implementation of TQM,JIT and Manufacturing Performance.