Total Quality Management for Business Start-Ups

"Quality can be achieved by doing things better today than yesterday, and better tomorrow than today."

Total Quality Management stresses out the involvement of both the internal and external environments of the company. The internal environment consists of the 5Ms (Man, Material, Money, Machinery and Management). Those are usually within the control of the business. On the other hand, the external environment includes those that are beyond its control such as the suppliers, customers, intermediaries, competitors and the public.  Both business environments should always be taken into consideration to meet or exceed consumer expectations.  

The main function of TQM is to constantly improve the quality of the products and processes of a company. Quality is what the customer says it is. It means that the performance of the company greatly depends on how its consumers will react on the products and services that it offers.

TQM can be easily applied to businesses that are about to start! Terry Powell answered some WH questions that can explain simply how TQM can be used for Business Start-Ups.

For Whom?

Every company does TQM for its customers. Once the customers patronize the product because of the quality that they get, the company will receive increased customer loyalty. Customer loyalty = higher profit! That's business!

Where?

TQM has to be implemented in every aspect of business operation. It can either be executed in the manufacturing plant, wherein the production happens, or in the office, wherein everything happens. 

When?

TQM can be applied once the business has started. It's a matter of change, though. Once TQM has been implemented, there's a possibility that the procedures would change in time. A total quality manager is also responsible to act in accordance with those changes. It's his or her task to immediately relay a new procedure to all employees on hand. Doing so will definitely improve the operations of the business. 

How?

There are many TQM tools that a business can use. The easiest is the Fishbone Diagram that was made by Kaoru Ishikawa. It analyzes the causes of certain events in the operations. The causes are usually grouped into categories (people, methods, machines, materials and environment). It finds the root cause of a specific defect by deeply distinguishing everything and solving the problem from then on. Figure 1 below shows how the diagram is supposed to be made:

Figure 1

[image c/o http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishikawa_diagram]

A starting business may fail to determine the causes of the defects. There is a strategy made by Philip Crosby than can eliminate those defects and achieve quality. It is called Zero Defects. It has a major principle: there should be no defect from the start of any process. It means that from the point of making a specific product, there should be inspections and corrections in every step. Defects can easily be prevented by this strategy. It may be time-consuming, but it ensures the fabrication of quality products. It also helps a company gain an advantage when it comes to customer reach and loyalty.

There you have it! Starting businesses can now think of ways to make total quality products and services. Those are just glimpses of the things that should be considered in order to give satisfaction to consumers. If a person or company (either starting or not) still has things to ask for, Terry Powell can give the answers and solutions to those.