Total Quality Management Survey

Total Quality Management Survey

Every organization, both for profit and non-profit, can benefit from Total Quality Management (TQM). It has been extensively used in education, government, manufacturing, and service industries. TQM processes are separated into four sequential categories: plan, do, check, and act (the PDCA cycle). In the planning phase, people define the problem to be addressed, collect applicable statistics, and learn the problem's core cause. Next in the doing phase, people develop and implement an answer, and decide upon a determination of quantitative size to measure its effectiveness. Third is the checking phase, where people confirm the outcome through before-and-after data comparison. The final phase acting people document their results, notify others about process change, and make recommendation for the problem to be addressed in the next PDCA cycle. (Burill & Ledolter 1999)

Manfacturing - Ford Automotive

Per Debbie Yeager, the director of global quality and six sigma at Ford, Ford Company's current quality strategies consists of three parts: quality operating system (QOS), quality leadership initiative and consumer-driven six sigma. QOS, Ms. Yeager explains, is a systematic, disciplined approach that uses standard tools and practices to manage business and rising levels of customer fulfilment through repeated process enhancement. This spans the product creation development as well as lean manufacturing and present product quality.

The quality leadership idea is driven by a concept of contact. It intends to engage the workforce by communicating quality policies and expectations, thus achieving an aligned and focused global value team.

Six sigma is implimented to great effect by modern day Ford. Its consumer-driven six sigma methodology (define, measure, analyse, improve, control), according to Ms. Yeager, this helps to press forward quality by reducing inconsistency and also dropping or eliminating defects and driving waste elimination. Waste elimination is the name of the game: since six sigma was first implemented in 2000, Ford has saved US$2bn globally.

Integration is also key: It is better to have a standard of quality tools and processes integrated into the way we do business as opposed to quality tools and processes being seen as standing unaccompanied. Ms. Yeager rejects the customary western obsession with innovating purely to devise bigger and better new techniques. Integration is not about having an all new quality process or strategy, it is about continuous improvement, inconsistency decline, and constantly looking for ways to make our products more dependable.

The best way to stay on top is to every time deliver a product that meets or exceeds customer desires at a reasonable price. The way to do this is to have a process that avoids failure modes every step along the way and have validated transfer functions that link customer desires to engineering and design requirements.

Non-Profit - Florida Blood Services

Every year, Florida Blood Services collects over 200,000 pints of blood to keep up with blood patients' needs in Manatee, Hillsborough, Pasco, and Pinellas Counties in central Florida. Every unit goes through 12 hours of laboratory testing before Florida Blood Service sends it onward to a hospital, ambulatory care center or home transfusion service. That process is all part of Florida Blood Service's commitment to keeping diseases from being transmitted through blood transfusions and assure the blood product consumers of a safe blood supply. Florida Blood Service's quality statement is: "We accept responsibility for providing quality products and services 100% of the time."

Obviously to most every person the blood supply must be kept safe and 100% free of disease and be properly classified for type.

The blood supply is the safest it's ever been, especially since the implementation of nucleic acid-amplification testing (NAT) under an FDA-sponsored research protocol. NAT is a more sensitive gene-based test to screen the blood supply for HIV and hepatitis C. Fourteen tests are performed on every unit of donated blood. Eleven of these are for infectious diseases. 750+ blood donations must be collected every day of the year to meet requirements by Tampa Bay area patients in Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, and Pinellas Counties. General safety procedures are also in place: blood donor eligibility standards, individual screening, laboratory testing, confidential exclusion of donations, and donor record checks. (Florida Blood Services. 2007)

Service - Banking -Suntrust Bank

Surveys show results. Customers register complaints. Employees leave. America is in the midst of a service crisis and the customer is the casualty. Financial service companies, including banks, are no different. Banks are struggling to improve service and proclaim that they are customer-focused, yet outstanding, exceptional quality service is still the exception rather than the rule. Two routes to profit growth in financial organizations are cost-efficiency and differentiation. Excellent service contributes to both.

Adopting quality as a bank strategy means cultural change. Change is difficult to accomplish without solid, committed leadership. The bank president and other senior executives set the pace. It is imperative that senior managers in service organizations provide the leadership to focus their company around a set of core values that include customer service and service quality. One of the most important functions