Dear HR Friends,
I am in the process of doing a research study on the role of HRD in TQM in an Engineering Manufacturing company of medium scale with about 3,000 employees. If any of you have any info to be shared with me, you may send me through e-mail:
From India, Madras
I am in the process of doing a research study on the role of HRD in TQM in an Engineering Manufacturing company of medium scale with about 3,000 employees. If any of you have any info to be shared with me, you may send me through e-mail:
From India, Madras
Hi Raj Mohan,
Would like to share this article ...
TQM spells success
TQM tools and techniques, properly implemented, have the power to create a sustainable competitive advantage.
The multinational company, Agfa-Gevaert, with it’s branch in India, has a firm belief that "total quality management" (TQM) aimed at continuous efforts to control and improve their services, company processes and product quality is the most efficient way to achieve their company objective.
For this the company requires:
A customer-minded approach
Job satisfaction
System efficiency
Technological renewal
A leading role in society
Their belief is to do everything right from the first time in an open management culture. It enables them to consolidate and to strengthen their position as a world company.
The company recognises total quality as a major component of its worldwide strategy. Dedication to the customer, wide-ranging know-how, innovation and quality are the hallmarks of Agfa. Quality at Agfa is total, covering not only the products but also the service and administration that support them.
To this end, all Agfa-Gevaert activities are governed by a uniform quality management system in accordance with EN ISO 9001:1994 standards and, where appropriate, other international standards and regulations.
Similar success stories of TQM implementation are many - Xerox, Motorola, Milliken, Nucor Steel, to name a few. But sadly, there are only a few Indian companies successfully implementing TQM. Why are Indian companies not able to replicate the success of these western corporates?
In order to find reasons for this poor show in quality, the TQM Cell of SRF Ltd conducted a study on the effectiveness of TQM initiatives in Indian organisations. At least 26 companies were researched and some interesting findings emerged.
All the organisations started their TQM initiatives in their factories. It seems to be the most logical place to start from. But most organisations do not get much benefit out of this approach. One FMCG Company started their TQM effort in their manufacturing unit. Two years later they found that there was no significant impact on their market share due to the initiative. Why? Because manufacturing is not the key to competitive advantage for an FMCG. A concentrated effort in marketing as this is the key differentiating function. Organisations need to understand the key business processes in their industry and then adopt the tools of TQM that suits them best.
Organisations make two fundamental mistakes while using the various tools of TQM.
First, they try to transplant the manufacturing based tools to non-manufacturing processes. The road to TQM is not in adopting all the tools, but in using a few relevant tools customised to the needs of the organisation. Manufacturing and non-manufacturing processes need different perspective on the customer, quality and performance measurement.
The second, more fundamental mistake - they try to fit quality tools to their working without properly mobilising their human resource. The challenge is not in adopting a tool, but more in whether people in the organisation use the tool. Forty-five per cent of organisations researched claimed to practice Statistical Process Control. But in reality it was found that either the shop floor operators were not aware of the charts or they were not being plotted on a regular basis. Organisations need to understand that results will not be fruitful, if employees are not practising the various tools they have been trained for.
Organisations implementing TQM are obsessed with improving their operational processes - product quality, reduced inventory; reduce downtime and improved set-up time. But no effort is made to modify the existing management processes in the organisation:
Information flow
Delegation of responsibility
Authority
Team-based functioning
Performance-based compensation
A TQM movement cannot succeed unless employees are involved in the various businesses processed in an organisation. Employees in 73 per cent of the 26 organisations felt that the quality goals had not been properly communicated to them.
The best way to ensure commitment is to empower employees, to involve them in making decisions of the day-to-day functioning of the organisation. The study showed organisations that involved its employees through Kaizen or 5S schemes to have achieved significant improvements in their performance. One organisation was able to save Rs 22 lakhs by the way of just one Kaizen out of the many it had performed.
Of the 26 organisations studied, only 12 per cent of the organisations thought they achieved tangible business results from the initiatives they had taken. The others had a feeling that the promise of TQM had not lived up to its expectations.
Organisations that incorporate business process reengineering with their TQM initiatives tend to achieve better results. Key business processes that are not at industry standards need to be reengineered to be more competitive in the market.
The evidence of the correlation between successful TQM programmes and competitive advantage is growing. Research during the last decade has proved that the stock prices of total quality companies in the US have grown by almost 17 per cent compared to a CAGR of 10.5 per cent for the stock market during the same period. Total Quality Management tools and techniques, properly implemented, have the power to create sustainable competitive advantage.
From India, Pune
101Would like to share this article ...
TQM spells success
TQM tools and techniques, properly implemented, have the power to create a sustainable competitive advantage.
The multinational company, Agfa-Gevaert, with it’s branch in India, has a firm belief that "total quality management" (TQM) aimed at continuous efforts to control and improve their services, company processes and product quality is the most efficient way to achieve their company objective.
For this the company requires:
A customer-minded approach
Job satisfaction
System efficiency
Technological renewal
A leading role in society
Their belief is to do everything right from the first time in an open management culture. It enables them to consolidate and to strengthen their position as a world company.
The company recognises total quality as a major component of its worldwide strategy. Dedication to the customer, wide-ranging know-how, innovation and quality are the hallmarks of Agfa. Quality at Agfa is total, covering not only the products but also the service and administration that support them.
To this end, all Agfa-Gevaert activities are governed by a uniform quality management system in accordance with EN ISO 9001:1994 standards and, where appropriate, other international standards and regulations.
Similar success stories of TQM implementation are many - Xerox, Motorola, Milliken, Nucor Steel, to name a few. But sadly, there are only a few Indian companies successfully implementing TQM. Why are Indian companies not able to replicate the success of these western corporates?
In order to find reasons for this poor show in quality, the TQM Cell of SRF Ltd conducted a study on the effectiveness of TQM initiatives in Indian organisations. At least 26 companies were researched and some interesting findings emerged.
All the organisations started their TQM initiatives in their factories. It seems to be the most logical place to start from. But most organisations do not get much benefit out of this approach. One FMCG Company started their TQM effort in their manufacturing unit. Two years later they found that there was no significant impact on their market share due to the initiative. Why? Because manufacturing is not the key to competitive advantage for an FMCG. A concentrated effort in marketing as this is the key differentiating function. Organisations need to understand the key business processes in their industry and then adopt the tools of TQM that suits them best.
Organisations make two fundamental mistakes while using the various tools of TQM.
First, they try to transplant the manufacturing based tools to non-manufacturing processes. The road to TQM is not in adopting all the tools, but in using a few relevant tools customised to the needs of the organisation. Manufacturing and non-manufacturing processes need different perspective on the customer, quality and performance measurement.
The second, more fundamental mistake - they try to fit quality tools to their working without properly mobilising their human resource. The challenge is not in adopting a tool, but more in whether people in the organisation use the tool. Forty-five per cent of organisations researched claimed to practice Statistical Process Control. But in reality it was found that either the shop floor operators were not aware of the charts or they were not being plotted on a regular basis. Organisations need to understand that results will not be fruitful, if employees are not practising the various tools they have been trained for.
Organisations implementing TQM are obsessed with improving their operational processes - product quality, reduced inventory; reduce downtime and improved set-up time. But no effort is made to modify the existing management processes in the organisation:
Information flow
Delegation of responsibility
Authority
Team-based functioning
Performance-based compensation
A TQM movement cannot succeed unless employees are involved in the various businesses processed in an organisation. Employees in 73 per cent of the 26 organisations felt that the quality goals had not been properly communicated to them.
The best way to ensure commitment is to empower employees, to involve them in making decisions of the day-to-day functioning of the organisation. The study showed organisations that involved its employees through Kaizen or 5S schemes to have achieved significant improvements in their performance. One organisation was able to save Rs 22 lakhs by the way of just one Kaizen out of the many it had performed.
Of the 26 organisations studied, only 12 per cent of the organisations thought they achieved tangible business results from the initiatives they had taken. The others had a feeling that the promise of TQM had not lived up to its expectations.
Organisations that incorporate business process reengineering with their TQM initiatives tend to achieve better results. Key business processes that are not at industry standards need to be reengineered to be more competitive in the market.
The evidence of the correlation between successful TQM programmes and competitive advantage is growing. Research during the last decade has proved that the stock prices of total quality companies in the US have grown by almost 17 per cent compared to a CAGR of 10.5 per cent for the stock market during the same period. Total Quality Management tools and techniques, properly implemented, have the power to create sustainable competitive advantage.
From India, Pune
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