TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM) WITHIN OM: HOW IT ALL FITS TOGETHER
Implementing total quality management requires broad and sweeping changes throughout a company. It also affects all other decisions within operations management. The decision to implement total quality management concepts throughout the company is strategic in nature. It sets the direction for the firm and the level of commitment. For example, some companies may choose to directly compete on quality, whereas others may just want to be as good as the competition. It is operations strategy that then dictates how all other areas of operations management will support this commitment.
The decision to implement TQM affects areas such as product design (Chapter 3), which needs to incorporate customer-defined quality. Processes are then redesigned in order to produce products with higher quality standards. Job design (Chapter 11) is affected, as workers need to be trained in quality tools and become responsible for rooting out quality problems. Also, supply chain management (Chapter 4) is affected as the commitment to quality translates into partnering with suppliers. As you can see, virtually every aspect of the operations function must change to support the commitment to total quality management.
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