What Is Quality?: TQM Basics

TQM Basics
By F.J.C. Martins Reg. Eng. Tech.

What is quality?
Quality is not determined or defined by the producing company. Quality is as determined by
the customer. Thus quality of a product or a service is the customer's perception of the degree
to which the product or service meets his or her expectations.
Who are the customers?
Internal and external customers: Participants to make a list of his or her customers.
External:
People buying products from you.
People getting service from you. ETC.
Internal:
Management is a customer of Finance
Service is a customer of Orders
Warehouse is a customer of Admin ETC.
Customer expectations
What are the customer's expectations?
Companies have to look to customers when they set standards for measuring quality.
Customers expectations are based on comparison to competitor's products and are likely to
change over a period of time. To be considered as a World Class Company, means that your
products and services need to be seen as best in class by the customer. Products and services
need to be improved with time to meet the varying need of the customers.
Customers perceive quality on the following basic tangible principles:
Performance
Features
Reliability
Serviceability
Durability
Appearance
Customer service
Service is generally intangible. Customers set their own standard, comparing the service they
receive with the service they wish to receive. Factors are:
Friendliness
Parking convenient
Cleanliness
Promptness in which queries or problems are dealt with
Delivery times on goods or services ordered
Time to answer a telephone call
ETC.
Importance of customers
Indirectly the company does not pay your wages, but the customers do. Without their orders,
no money would come into the company. Thus nobody would get paid at month end. The
customer is the most important person to the company. This goes for internal customers too,
as they are, in performing at their best to satisfy the customer's demands, dependant on their
internal resources.
Principle of Total Quality
Total Quality revolves around not only producing a good product, but on improving the
competitiveness, effectiveness, and flexibility of the whole organisation in satisfying the
customer demands. Each person at his or her own level should contribute towards this aim.
Remember that quality costs. Every time something is done and not done correctly, money is
lost. The cost of corrective actions is enormous. An attitude of "Do it right first time" is
absolutely a necessity. It is not a matter of doing the right things, or doing things right, but
doing the right things right!
Also realise that QUALITY STARTS WITH ME. If an attitude of: "IT IS NOT MY JOB"
prevails, the system will never work.
How do we implement and achieve Total Quality?
The elements of a Total Quality programme are:
Commitment: from management and employees
Customer involvement: from design to after sales service

Design products for quality: Give the customer what he or she wants
Design processes for quality: Give the customer what he or she wants
Control processes for quality: Measure the quality of what the customer gets
Develop supplier partnerships: Select suppliers who only deliver quality
Customer service, distribution and installation: Adds to customer's perception. Right First
Time, As Quick As Possible.
Building teams of empowered employees: Quality starts with me. Training of employees.
Benchmarking and continuous improvement: Standards used to measure against.
Systems designed to achieve Total Quality
ISO 9000 is a system aimed at assisting in the achievement of Quality. The problem is that, if
an inferior product or service is delivered, with ISO these will be delivered well. Only by
applying Total Quality concepts, with continual improvement in mind, can real quality and
customer satisfaction be achieved.
Lessons to be learned
Reputation is something that can be good or bad for a company. It is built upon the
competitive elements such as quality, reliability, delivery, price, etc., of which quality has
strategically become the most significant.
Once a company acquires a BAD reputation for quality, it takes a very long time to change it.
Reputations good or bad, can quickly become national reputations.
Customers tend to remember only the BAD quality they receive. For example: If 99 % of
orders received by the customer are on time, the customer will only remember the 1% of
orders received late. This is part of being human, however, the company will not be praised
for delivering on time, but would be perceived as always delivering late! It is only by having a
culture of "ZERO DEFECT" or "DO IT RIGHT, FIRST TIME, EVERYTIME", that we can
build companies of excellence.

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TQM Basics

By F.J.C. Martins Reg. Eng. Tech.

Customer involvement: from design to after sales service

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