Total Quality Management (TQM)

This book set out to examine how successful the introduction of TQM into Local Authority and other large organisations, such as British Telecom, British Airways and Rover Group have been. The book is in four parts.

Part One draws on the research and experiences of others who are involved with TQM and, together with the literature available, seeks to give the reader an insight into the TQM concept before discussing issues of culture, implementation, and measures of TQM successes and failures.

Part Two uses the information collected in my research, to explain the background to the crisis that lead to the TQM programme being introduced as part of a major change strategy. This is essential to give the reader a clear understanding of both the circumstances that prevailed in some organisations before the TQM programme was introduced and the measures that were put in place, to complement the TQM programme. Part Two also compares the implementation stages of the TQM programme with the theoretical “deal”, drawing the readers’ attention to the shortcoming that research suggests will have a long term impact on the success of such quality systems and programmes. In Part Two, I also discuss the new structure for one local authority organisation, how the organisational structure has changed over the years and the reasons for those changes. Finally, the success of the TQM programme so far, is measured using the criteria established in Part One and responds to the question: How successful has the programme been in meeting its objectives?

In Part Three, I discuss some research methods and their areas of application. I then used the in-depth interview research method for the studies related to this book and give reasons why I felt that it was the method most suitable for this work.

To interview all employees who were involved with the TQM programme would have been ideal but that was not practical. I felt that it was neither practical nor indeed necessary to interview all members of staff who were employed by the organisations of my interest at that time. I selected a number of people for the interviews so that I would achieve a variety of; backgrounds, levels of seniority, lengths of service and involvement in the organisations TQM programmes.

Part Four draws the whole work together by examining the strengths and weaknesses of the TQM programme at both the implementation stage and operational level. From these observations I draw some general conclusions as to the effects of these elements on the programme’s success. These findings are then compared with the results of my observations of other organisations that have pursued and introduced TQM programmes. Finally, I go on to develop my own recipe for success of TQM programmes based on my general conclusions.

Part Four also investigate how schools can benefit from TQM. TQM is a system’s approach for continuously improving the services and products that are offered to customers. In today’s business and other organisation’s environment, businesses and other organisations – including schools - that do not practice TQM can become; ineffective, inefficient and non-competitive very quickly. The potential benefits for schools that embrace TQM can be far reaching.

Also included in Part Four is how TQM has developed in Chinese organisations and termed The Hong Kong (HK) TQM programme or the HK 5-S. The 5-S practice is useful because it helps everyone in the organisation to live a better life. It is the starting point of the HK TQM programme. In fact, many successful organisations, East and West, have already included some aspects of the 5-S in their routines without being aware of its existence as a formalised quality control technique.