Getting Results from TQM

TQM when combined with Hoshin Kanri is the most powerful management concept to have been conceived. By these methods companies such as Toyota, Honda, Epson, Hewlett Packard, Komatsu,Philips, Mobarakeh Steel here in Iran have been swept to world leadership in Quality and Reliability and world leadership in their markets. No organisation has been able to resist their progress however hard they have tried by any other means.If this is true, then why are so few companies doing the same? Why do so few appear to have adopted these methods?The fact is that many of them have attempted to but sadly they have failed why? The fact is that every organisation can be successful if they go about it the right way. There is nothing special about the companies mentioned above other than the fact that they understood what they were trying to do and did it well.There are multiple reasons for failure but there is one which stands out from all of the others and is almost always present to some extent even in some of the reasonably successful programmes. The cause of this failure results from the fact that despite there being literally hundreds of books on the subject of TQM, most of those written in the West completely miss the most important principles upon which TQM is founded.It is my strongly held opinion that the main reason for failure is that people simply do not study or act upon these principles or fundamentals. If they are not properly understood or worse, that they are not even recognised then success with TQM is impossible. I have read a wide range of literature on this subject and to date I have never seen these principles explained in anything other than Japanese publications. It is also a fact that many who have read these principles conclude quite wrongly that they are applicable only in a Japanese culture. This is probably due to the way in which they are presented or translated into English. Nothing can be further from the truth because these principles are fundamental to the health of any society of collective human beings whether TQM is involved or not. There is also the problem that many busy managers cannot be bothered to sit down and attempt to understand fundamentals. One can almost hear them say,’ don’t tell me what it is just tell me how to do it’. The following paper explains what David Hutchins refers to as the 15 fundamental principles of TQM before presenting a case st udy to show how these principles have successfully been applied in Mobarakeh Steel Corporation in Esfahan Iran and in the UK .

Keywords:

TQM , Quality Circles , Hoshin Kanri , KPIs , Vision and Mission