Theoretical Consideration of Quality Management Systems Especially Concerning Service Companies

Theoretical consideration of quality management systems especially concerning service companies

Executive Summary

TQM Total Quality Management is the management of total quality. We know that management consists of planning, organizing, directing, control, and assurance. Then, one has to define "total quality". Total quality is called total because it consists of 3 qualities : Quality of return to satisfy the needs of the shareholders, Quality of products and services to satisfy some specific needs of the consumer (end customer) and Quality of life - at work and outside work - to satisfy the needs of the people in the organization. This is achieved with the help of upstream and downstream partners of the enterprise. To this, we have to add the corporate citizenship, i.e. the social, technological, economical, political, and ecological (STEPE) responsibility of the enterprise concerning its internal (its people) and external (upstream and downstream) partners, and community. Therefore, Total quality management goes well beyond satisfying the customer, or merely offering quality products (goods and/or services). Note that we use the term consumer or end customer. The reason is that in a Supply Chain Management approach, we don't have to satisfy our customers' needs but the needs of our customers' customers' all the way to the end customer, the consumer of a product and/or service. By applying this definition an enterprise achieves Business Excellence, as suggested by the Malcolm Baldrige (American) and the EFQM (European) Performance Excellence Models. To do that, one has to go well beyond ISO 9000 Standards series as suggested by these standards (ISO 9001, then ISO 9004, then Total Quality) .

ISO 9001:2000 is used if you are seeking to establish a management system that provides confidence in the conformance of your product to established or specified requirements. It is now the only standard in the ISO 9000 family against whose requirements your quality system can be certified by an external agency. The standard recognizes that the word "product" applies to services, processed material, hardware and software intended for, or required by, your customer.

There are five sections in the standard that specify activities that need to be considered when you implement your system. You will describe the activities you use to supply your products and may exclude the parts of the Product Realization section that are not applicable to your operations. The requirements in the other four sections - Quality management system, Management responsibility, Resource management and Measurement, analysis and improvement - apply to all organizations and you will demonstrate how you apply them to your organization in your quality manual or other documentation.

Together, the five sections of ISO 9001:2000 define what you should do consistently to provide products that meets customer and applicable statutory or regulatory requirements. In addition, you will seek to enhance customer satisfaction by improving your quality management system.

ISO 9004:2000 is used to extend the benefits obtained from ISO 9001:2000 to all parties that are interested in or affected by your business operations. Interested parties include your employees, owners, suppliers and society in general.

ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 9004:2000 are harmonized in structure and terminology to assist you to move smoothly from one to the other. Both standards apply a process approach. Processes are recognized as consisting of one or more linked activities that require resources and must be managed to achieve predetermined output. The output of one process may directly form the input to the next process and the final product is often the result of a network or system of processes. The eight Quality Management Principles stated in ISO 9000:2000 and ISO 9004:2000 provide the basis for the performance improvement outlined in ISO 9004:2000.

The nature of your business and the specific demands you have will determine how you apply the standards to achieve your objectives .

I. ORIGINS

"Total Quality Control" was the key concept of Armand Feigenbaum's 1951 book, Quality Control: Principles, Practice, and Administration, a book that was subsequently released in 1961 under the title, Total Quality Control. W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran, Philip B. Crosby, and Kaoru Ishikawa also contributed to the body of knowledge now known as TQM.

Total Quality Management is a term first coined by the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command to describe its Japanese-style management approach to quality improvement.

Since then TQM has taken on many meanings, but at its core it's a management approach