BM1601

COMMUNICATION AND IMPLEMENTATION

Communicating the Quality Strategy

Types of Communication:
 Downward communication – This is the dominant form of communication. For example,
presentation and discussions are usually held to give the employees a clear view of what is
expected in TQM.
 Upward communication – This type of communication allows lower level employees to provide
suggestions to the higher levels. Employees provide the supervisor insight and constructive
criticism, forming a bond of trust between the two.
 Sideways communication – This type of communication allows the breakdown of barriers
between departments. It helps deal with suppliers and customers in a more professional fashion.

Traditional companies TQM companies

Lack of communication
Control of staff
Inspection and fire fighting
Internal focus on rule
Seeking stability
Adversarial relations
Allocating blame
Open communication
Empowerment
Prevention
External focus on customer
Continuous improvement
Cooperative relations
Solving problems at their roots

Benefits of an open communication culture

 Companies with high level of engagement show a return on assets six (6) times higher than
companies with low engagement levels.
 Engaged employees are 56% more likely to create customer loyalty.
 A 5% increase in customer loyalty creates a 25% to 95% profit increase.

Inhibitors of Communication
 Differences in meaning – Differences in meaning can cause problems in communication. People
have different backgrounds, levels of education, and cultures. As a result, words, gestures and
facial expression can have different meaning for different people.
 Lack of trust – A lack of trust can inhibit effective communication. If receivers do not trust the
senders, they may be overly sensitive and guarded. They might concentrate on hidden agendas
and miss the message.
 Information overload – Technology and technological devices developed to promote and
enhance communication can actually cause communication breakdown. Employees and
managers often receive more information than they can deal with effectively, resulting in
information overload. Managers can guard against overload by screening, organizing,
summarizing, and simplifying the information they convey to employees.
 Interference – Interference is any external distraction that inhibits effective communication. This
may be noise in verbal communications, or disruptions in technology devices. Regardless of its
source, interference distorts or completely blocks out the message. This is why managers must
be attentive to the environment in which they plan to communicate.

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Total Quality Management Implementation

Requirements for Implementation

 Commitment by top management – For total quality to be implemented, there must be
unwavering commitment from the top. They are expected to commit not only resources, but also
a considerable amount of their time. People expect the boss to put his/her efforts on total quality.
Embracing total quality requires a change in corporate culture. If the message from the top is not
clear and if the management is not totally involved, they may resist the total quality efforts.
Furthermore, the change to total quality is an everyday learning experience. If the boss is not
involved, s/he will never know enough about what is happening and make rational decisions
about the change.
 Commitment of resources – Total quality implementation does not need to be expensive, but
everything has a cost. Also, it would not be easy to project the payback for implementation of
total quality, because there are many factors that can affect a company’s performance. The firm
must trace the costs back to their sources and justify whether it would be reasonable for them to
incur these costs for the sake of total quality.
 Organization-wide steering committee – The steering committee for total quality should be
chaired by the person filling in the top position in the company, and the members should be the
chairman’s direct subordinates. This group would establish how total quality is to be
implemented and then to see that it happens. Implementation requires management, to ensure
that all teams and functions are following the goals.
 Planning and publicizing – The steering committee must develop the vision statement and
guiding principles, set the goals and objectives, put the total quality implementation plan in place,
and then develop an award and recognition program and other publicity efforts.

Six (6) Cs of Total Quality Management Implementation (Akrani, 2012)

 Commitment from employees – There must be a quality improvement from all employees of the
organization. These TQM policies must bind all employees so that quality improvement will
become an essential part of everyone’s work. This will also ensure a quality improvement
commitment from all the employees for the work assigned to them.
 Culture of quality improvement – The organization must follow a modern quality improvement
culture on a constant basis. For an organization to completely embrace total quality, a profound
change is required in the corporate culture. Changing a culture is very difficult even when
everyone is willing, and it is almost never the case that everyone is willing.
 Continuous improvement in process – Continuous improvement must take place in all policies,
procedures, and activities laid down by management for the organization. TQM is a continuous
process and not a program. There should always be a continuous search for proficiency to do the
task better.
 Cooperation from employees – The cooperation and experience of employees must be utilized to
improve strategies and enhance performance. The success of the TQM implementation is directly
related to the level of employee involvement during the process.
 Customer focus – Focusing on customer’s requirements and satisfaction of their expectations are
very important for long-term survival of the business. The TQM process should be prepared by
focusing on customers’ requirements and their expectations of the products and services with
zero defects. In today’s market, customers want perfect goods and services with zero defects.

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 Controls – Effective controls must be laid down to monitor and measure the real performance of
the business. They also help rectify the deficiencies, if any, in the business process.

Examples of Total Quality Management System Strategies

 The TQM Element Approach – The TQM element approach takes key business processes and/or
organizational units and uses the tools of TQM to foster improvements. Examples of this approach
include quality circles, statistical process control, Taguchi methods, and quality function
deployment.
 The Guru Approach – This approach uses the teachings and writings of one (1) or more of the
leading quality thinkers to identify the organization’s deficiencies. Then, the organization makes
the appropriate changes to remedy those deficiencies. For example, managers might study
Deming’s 14 Points or attend the Crosby College. They would then work on implementing the
approach learned.
 The Organization Model Approach – In this approach, individuals or teams visit organization that
have taken a leadership role in TQM and determine their processes and reasons for success. They
then integrate these ideas with their own ideas to develop an organizational model adopted for
their specific organization.
 The Japanese Total Quality Approach – Organizations using this approach examine the detailed
implementation techniques and strategies of Deming Prize winning companies and use this
experience to develop a long-range master plan for in-house use.
 The Award Criteria Approach – When using this model, an organization uses the criteria of a
quality award, such as the Philippine Quality Award, to identify areas for improvement. Under this
approach, TQM implementation focuses on meeting specific criteria.

Implementation Approaches to be avoided

 Don’t train all your employees at once. – Some organizations spend a big part of their resources
in training all members of the organization as a first step to total quality, but then find out that
majority of the employees would not be able to use that training for months or year. By the time
that the employees need to apply the training, they had forgotten most of what they learned. The
right way is to train small groups of your people just in time – just as they need it.
 Don’t rush into total quality by putting too many people in teams. – Other organizations create
many teams and assign people to these teams, without ensuring that the employees understand
what they are meant to do. The idea then was to get everyone into quality circles and let circles
pick projects on which to work. In total quality, teams should be formed with a clear purpose, and
selected rules, for specific issues. It is not about how many teams the firm has, but the results.
 Total quality implementation must not be delegated. – An approach for top management is for
them to commit to total quality, then delegate the implementation of total quality to the quality
assurance department. This implies that the management sees the total quality effort as
something to be endured, then passed on to another department. A successful total quality
implementation requires both complete commitment and active, personal involvement by
management and staff.
 Don’t start an implementation before you are prepared. – The management must first be
educated on the subject of total quality before attempting to implement it. There are
organizations who use the total quality tools without utilizing the data for continuous
improvement. Implementing something as complex as total quality without having a grasp of the
subject would result to failure.

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REFERENCES
Akrani, G. (2012, April 19). HOw to Implement Total Quality Management TQM? 6Cs of TQM . Retrieved
from blogspot.com: http://kalyan-city.blogspot.com/2012/04/how-to-implement-total-
quality.html

Cox, J., Blackstone , J., & Schleier, J. (2003). Managing Operations: A Focus on Excellence.

Foo, A. (2013, September 26). Open Communication Culture (OCC) and Total Quality Mangement (TQM)
. Retrieved from redrocketcreative.com: http://www.redrocketcreative.com/blog-posts/open-
communication-culture-occ-and-total-quality-management-tqm

Hashmi, K. (n.d.). Introduction and Implementation of Total Quality Management . Retrieved from
isixsigma.com: https://www.isixsigma.com/methodology/total-quality-management-
tqm/introduction-and-implementation-total-quality-management-tqm/

Jenny Nguyen, K. R. (2013, January 4). TQM Communication Poster. Retrieved from prezi.com :
https://prezi.com/ty2ig-f_njve/tqm-communication-poster/

Oakland, J. (2014). Total Quality Management and Operational Excellence: Text with Cases, Fourth
Edition. New York: Routledge.

Salvador, S. M., Toletino-Baysa, G. J., Cular , F. C., & Fua-Geronimo, E. C. (2009). Total Quality
Management: Concepts and Practices . Allen Adrian Books .

Stanley, D., & Goetch, D. (2013). Quality Management for Organizational Excellence: Introduction to
Total Quality, Seventh Edition . Essex: Pearson.

Total Quality Management Implementation and Systems . (n.d.). Retrieved from asq.org:
http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/total-quality-management/overview/implementing-
tqm.html

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