QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Quality Management

Quality Management

Answer 01

Joseph Joran & TQM

Total quality management entails a lot more than the mere focus on controlling the product quality. It also includes meeting and surpassing the levels of customer satisfaction, motivating the employees and creating long term relationships with the suppliers. There are a number of experts who contributed to the evolution and development of the concepts of Total Quality Management and among them is Joseph Juran.

Joseph Juran was an engineer by profession who published his first handbook on Quality Control in 1951. This handbook earned him international recognition and was invited by the Japenes Union of Scientists and Engineer (JUSE). He visited Japan in 1954 and trained the middle and executive level managers. His teachings had profound impact on the issues surrounding the role of management, organization and devising systems to monitor quality. His philosophy revolved around the idea that quality control should become a critical part of the management business strategy.

Juran believed that quality is something that requires considerable planning and management in order to deliver the desired results. He proposed a ten step model to continuously improve quality. This method starts out by setting SMART goals and then devising a plan that can efficiently lead to attaining the goals. There are intrinsic rewards built into the system that motivate the employee to follow the plan. Juran was of the belief that a vast majority of quality problems could be rectified by using good management techniques. There should be a top down approach to provide training in order to improve quality (Reid 2007, pp 144).

Example

First Step

Suppose a cell phone manufacturing company is receiving a large number of complaints regarding the quality of its products. This has affected the sales of the company, which have declined over the quarter by 20%. The management has realized ...