Total Quality Management Is an Research Paper

d.). This largely contributed to the development of today's total quality management concept as quality excellence has become a standard for business operations.

Principles of Total Quality Management:

As one of the main concepts in today's business operations, total quality management is based on several important principles including:

Customer Focus:

Being customer focused is the main principle behind total quality management because customers are the key determinants of the level of quality. Despite of the numerous efforts that a company conducts for quality improvement such as training employees, customers are the only stakeholders who determine the efficiency of those efforts. Therefore, customers should be central to any quality improvement initiative by an organization.

Total Employee Improvement and Process Centered:

An organization's efforts for quality improvement should be geared towards the provision of a favorable working environment that promotes employee improvement with an increased focus on process thinking.

Integrated Systems:

Total quality improvement is rooted in the development of an integrated system in which all employees know the vision and mission of the organization. This also requires an efficient communication strategy where timelines and methods are properly defined.

Strategic and Systematic Approach:

Integrate quality as a core component is a major principle in total quality management that requires a strategic plan and systematic approach. In this case, analytical, quality tools, and creative thinking is used to become more effective and for continual improvement ("What is Total Quality Management," n.d.).

Applications of Total Quality Management:

Total quality management enhances the profitability of an organization or company through focusing on improving quality and tackling the associated difficulties within the organization. As a result, the concept can be applied in various aspects and areas in the organization such as increase productivity, enhancing product reliability, increase competitive advantage, and lessening customer-service problems and time-to-market cycles.

Conclusion:

Throughout history, total quality management has developed to become an important concept of modern business operations. This is largely because the concept is based on various principles that are applied in several aspects to improve an organization's profitability.

References:

"Chapter 5 -- Total Quality Management." (n.d.). Wiley -- Knowledge for Generations.

Retrieved March 19, 2012, from http://www.wiley.com/college/sc/reid/chap5.pdf

"History of Quality." (n.d.). Business Performance Improvement Resource. Retrieved March 19,

2012, from http://www.bpir.com/total-quality-management-history-of-tqm-and-business-excellence-bpir.com.html

"What is Total Quality Management." (n.d.). Business Excellence -- The Way Business Should Be

Done. Retrieved March 19, 2012, from http://www.bexcellence.org/Total-quality-management.html