Total quality management (TQM)
Total Quality Management is a particular management style where the aim is to produce total quality products for a customer or a client, where the customer has the right to define 'quality'. When the customer declares that the particular product or service is not up to the mark or of inferior quality or anything else, then the product or the service is considered to be not of the optimum quality, and needs to be improved further. Total quality management allows for continuous improvement based on the customers' opinion, and this is what is special about the entire concept, since the views and the opinions of the customer are taken extremely seriously, and various steps are taken to see that the product is changed or improved according to the necessity, and also that the product will be changed continuously over a period of time. (Total quality management: www.questia.com)
How is the concept of Total Quality Management relevant today? In today's world, almost all the products and services that are offered for sale in the market are distinguished by newer and newer changes and innovations. New information is generated almost on an hourly basis, and in order to cope with this type of influx, the market behavior has had to change. Customers have been given the right to test and pass judgments on what is better and what is bad, and customer needs have also been showing rapid changes all the time. This type of change is a phenomenon that is representative of today's world, where change is something that would take place in a few months and not over a few years as it used to happen in the years past. (Total Quality management: Business Owners toolkit)
One case in example is that of computer printers. This product is generally prone to becoming obsolete in a matter of months, and the computer field personnel have to be very careful when they are introducing such new products into the market. They would have to make a provision for amending and changing the product as time progresses, as the computer printer will supposedly last for just six months, after which time a newer and later version will take over. Since it is a fact that any business would only have a limited amount of resources, it is very vulnerable and susceptible to all these changes. When customer satisfaction is given top priority, however, according to the principles of Total Quality Management, then it would be a boon for the business. This is how TQM is relevant in today's world where change is a matter of everyday life. (Total Quality management: Business Owners toolkit)
Definition of Quality:
It is important, when attempting to define Quality in total quality management, to be able to distinguish between improvement in quality, and quality assurance. Quality assurance is the system of activities that have been created with the idea of ensuring that the production of the product meets certain standards required of it. This offers the customer the guarantee that the product is in conformance to the various specifications required of it. Quality improvement is an entirely different issue. This means that a lot of efforts would be put in towards the improvement and the betterment of the product that the customer wants and expects of the product. It is during the product quality improvement that a lot of efforts are put in, and continuously, since the entire process involves the striving towards a better understanding of the product and of the market where the product will be placed, and new and innovative processes would be implemented, and the management and the distribution of the materials and the products would be improved, and the ultimate service to the customer would be vastly improved. (Total Quality management, an overview)
Therefore, quality in this case can be explained as a continuous process of the improvement of the product based on an innate understanding of the market and the needs and wants of the customer, and the end product of which would offer immense satisfaction to both the customer as well as to the marketer. The inherent success of total quality management of a product would definitely depend on the involvement and the understanding of all the embers of the organization wherein all the external and the internal needs of the customer would be satisfied to a great extent. The process of negotiations and consultations with the ultimate customer would have to be continuously maintained, and the product would be measured against the basis of the customer's...
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