Understanding Total Quality Management in Agriculture

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a philosophy and practice of management that aims to satisfy customers through employee involvement, consistent leadership, and continuous improvement.

In so doing, it brings together a number of hard and soft technologies of quality management. This article examines the fundamental principles of TQM, TQM as a strategic management tool, the concept of TQM, antecedents of modern quality management, quality gurus, accelerating use of TQM, quality and business performance, service quality and product quality, top management commitment, the tools and improvement cycle, the metric and the processes, the implementation of performance measurement systems, and benchmarking.

Overview of Total Quality Management

Total Quality Management (TQM) is the integration of all functions and processes within an organization to achieve continuous improvement of the quality of goods and services. The goal is customer satisfaction.

Of all the management issues faced in the last decade, none has had the impact of or caused as much concern as quality in American products and services.

A report by the Conference Board indicates that senior executives in the United States agreed that the banner of total quality is essential to ensure competitiveness in global markets. Quality expert J.M. Juran calls it a major phenomenon in this age. This concern for quality is not misplaced.

The interest in quality is due, in part, to foreign competition and the trade deficit. Analysts estimate that the vast majority of U.S. businesses will continue to face strong competition from the Pacific Rim and the European Economic Community for the remainder of the 1990s and beyond.

This comes in the face of a serious erosion of corporate America’s ability to compete in global markets over the past 20 years.

As the 20th century came to an end, the competitive and trade deficit problems were compounded by the weakening situation in Asian and other global markets. To compete in these markets may require additional efforts in both cost reduction and quality.

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Core Concept of Total Quality Management

TQM is based on a number of ideas. It means thinking about quality in terms of all functions of the enterprise and is a start-to-finish process that integrates interrelated functions at all levels.

It is a systems approach that considers every interaction between the various elements of the organization. Thus, the overall effectiveness of the system is higher than the sum of the individual outputs from the subsystems. The subsystems include all the organizational functions in the life cycle of a product, such as:

Design
Planning
Production
Distribution
Field service

The management subsystems also require integration, including:

Strategy with a customer focus
The tools of quality
Employee involvement (the linking process that integrates the whole)

A corollary is that any product, process, or service can be improved, and a successful organization is one that consciously seeks and exploits opportunities for improvement at all levels. The load-bearing structure is customer satisfaction. The watchword is continuous improvement.

The Conference Board has summarized the key issues and terminology related to TQM:

The cost of quality as the measure of non-quality (not meeting customer requirements) and a measure of how the quality process is progressing.
A cultural change that appreciates the primary need to meet customer requirements, implements a management philosophy that acknowledges this emphasis, encourages employee involvement, and embraces the ethics of continuous improvement.
Enabling mechanisms of change, including training and education, communication, recognition, management behavior, teamwork, and customer satisfaction programs.
Implementing TQM by defining the mission, identifying the output, identifying the customers, negotiating customer requirements, developing a “supplier specification” that details customer objectives, and determining the activities required to fulfill those objectives.
Management behavior that includes acting as role models, use of quality processes and tools, encouraging communication, sponsoring feedback activities, and fostering and providing a supporting environment.

Historical Antecedents of Modern Quality Management

Quality control as known today probably had its beginnings in the factory system that developed following the Industrial Revolution. Production methods at that time were rudimentary at best. Products were made from non-standardized materials using non-standardized methods.

The result was products of varying quality. The only real standards used were measures of dimensions, weight, and in some instances purity. The most common form of quality control was inspection by the purchaser, under the common-law rule of caveat Emptor.

Much later, around the turn of the 20th century, Frederick Taylor developed his system of scientific management, which emphasized productivity at the expense of quality. Centralized inspection departments were organized to check for quality at the end of the production line.

An extreme example of this approach was the Hawthorne Works at Western Electric Company, which at its peak in 1928 employed 40,000 people in the manufacturing plants, 5,200 of whom were in the inspection process. Most involved visual inspection or testing of the product following manufacture.

Methods of statistical quality control and quality assurance were added later. Detecting manufacturing problems was the overriding focus. Top management moved away from the idea of managing to achieve quality, and furthermore, the workforce had no stake in it. The concern was limited largely to the shop floor.

Traditional quality control measures were (and still are) designed as defense mechanisms to prevent failure or eliminate defects. Accountants were taught (and are still taught) that expenditures for defect prevention were justified only if they were less than the cost of failure. Of course, the cost of failure was rarely computed.

Following World War II, the quality of products produced in the United States declined as manufacturers tried to keep up with the demand for non-military goods that had not been produced during the war.

It was during this period that a number of pioneers began to advance a methodology of quality control in manufacturing and to develop theories and practical techniques for improved quality.

The most visible of these pioneers were W. Edwards Deming, Joseph M. Juran, Armand V. Feigenbaum, and Philip Crosby. It was a great loss to the quality movement when Deming died in December 1993 at the age of 93.

Influential Quality Gurus in TQM

Deming, the best-known of the “early” pioneers, is credited with popularizing quality control in Japan in the early 1950s. Today, he is regarded as a national hero in that country and is the father of the world-famous Deming Prize for quality.

He is best known for developing a system of statistical quality control, although his contribution goes substantially beyond those techniques. His philosophy begins with top management but maintains that a company must adopt the 14 points of his system at all levels.

He also believes that quality must be built into the product at all stages to achieve a high level of excellence. While it cannot be said that Deming is responsible for quality improvement in Japan or the United States, he has played a substantial role in increasing the visibility of the process and advancing an awareness of the need to improve.

Deming defines quality as a predictable degree of uniformity and dependability, at low costs and suited to the market. He teaches that 96 percent of variations have common causes and 4 percent have special causes.

He views statistics as a management tool and relies on statistical process control as a means of managing variations in a process. Deming developed what is known as the Deming chain reaction: as quality improves, costs will decrease and productivity will increase, resulting in more jobs, greater market share, and long-term survival.

Although it is the worker who will ultimately produce quality products, Deming stresses workers’ pride and satisfaction rather than the establishment of quantifiable goals. His overall approach focuses on improvement of the process, in that the system, rather than the worker, is the cause of process variation.

Deming’s universal 14 points for management are summarized as follows:

Create consistency of purpose with a plan. The objective is constancy of purpose for continuous improvement. An unwavering commitment to quality must be maintained by management. Quality, not short-term profit, should be at the heart of organizational purpose. Profit will follow when quality becomes the objective and purpose.
Adopt the new philosophy of quality. The modern era demands ever-increasing quality as a means of survival and global competitiveness. Inferior material, poor workmanship, defective products, and poor service must be rejected. Reduction of defects is replaced by elimination of defects. The new culture of quality must reflect a commitment to quality and must be supported by all employees.
Cease dependence on mass inspection. Quality cannot be inspected during production; it must be built in from the start. Defects discovered during inspection cannot be avoided—it is too late; efficiency and effectiveness have been lost, as has continuous process improvement. Continuous process improvement reduces costs incurred by correcting errors that should not have been made in the first place.
End the practice of choosing suppliers based on price. Least cost is not necessarily the best cost. Buying from a supplier based on low cost rather than a quality/cost basis defeats the need for a long-term relationship. Vendor quality can be evaluated with statistical tools.
Identify problems and work continuously to improve the system. Continuous improvement of the system requires seeking out methods for improvement. The search for quality improvement is never-ending and results from studying the process itself, not the defects detected during inspection.
Adopt modern methods of training on the job. Training involves teaching employees the best methods of achieving quality in their jobs and the use of tools such as statistical quality control.
Change the focus from production numbers (quantity) to quality. The focus on volume of production instead of quality leads to defects and rework that may result in inferior products at higher costs.
Drive out fear. Employees need to feel secure in order for quality to be achieved. Fear of asking questions, reporting problems, or making suggestions will prevent the desired climate of openness.
Break down barriers between departments. When employees perceive themselves as specialists in one function or department without too much regard for other areas, it tends to promote a climate of parochialism and set up barriers between departments. Quality and productivity can be improved when there is open communication and coordination based on the common organization goals.
Stop requesting improved productivity without providing methods to achieve it. Continuous improvement as a general goal should replace motivational or inspirational slogans, signs, exhortations, and workforce targets. The major cause of poor productivity and quality is the management systems, not the workforce. Employees are frustrated when exhorted to achieve results that management systems prevent them from achieving.
Eliminate work standards that prescribe numerical quotas. Focus on quotas, like a focus on production, may encourage and reward people for numerical targets, frequently at the expense of quality.
Remove barriers to pride of workmanship. A major barrier to pride of workmanship is a merit or appraisal system based on targets, quotas, or some list of personal traits that have little to do with incentives related to quality. Appraisal systems that attempt to coerce performance should be replaced by systems that attempt to overcome obstacles imposed by inadequate material, equipment, or training.
Institute vigorous education and retraining. Deming emphasizes training, not only in the methods of the specific job but in the tools and techniques of quality control, as well as instruction in teamwork and the philosophy of a quality culture.
Create a structure in top management that will emphasize the preceding 13 points every day. An organization that wants to establish a culture based on quality needs to emphasize the preceding 13 points on a daily basis. This usually requires a transformation in management style and structure. The entire organization must work together to enable a quality culture to succeed.

Juran’s Contributions to Quality Management

Juran, like Deming, was invited to Japan in 1954 by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE). His lectures introduced the managerial dimensions of planning, organizing, and controlling and focused on the responsibility of management to achieve quality and the need for setting goals.

Juran defines quality as fitness for use in terms of design, conformance, availability, safety, and field use. Thus, his concept more closely incorporates the point of view of the customer.

He is prepared to measure everything and relies on systems and problem-solving techniques. Unlike Deming, he focuses on top-down management and technical methods rather than worker pride and satisfaction.

Juran’s ten steps to quality improvement are:

Build awareness of opportunities to improve.
Set goals for improvement.
Organize to reach goals.
Provide training.
Carry out projects to solve problems.
Report progress.
Give recognition.
Communicate results.
Keep score.
Maintain momentum by making annual improvement part of the regular systems and processes of the company.

Juran is the founder of the Juran Institute in Wilton, Connecticut. He promotes a concept known as Managing Business Process Quality, which is a technique for executing cross-functional quality improvement.

Juran’s contribution may, over the longer term, be greater than Deming’s because Juran has the broader concept, while Deming’s focus on statistical process control is more technically oriented.

Feigenbaum’s Role in Total Quality Management

Armand Feigenbaum, like Deming and Juran, achieved visibility through his work with the Japanese. Unlike the latter two, he used a total quality control approach that may very well be the forerunner of today’s TQM.

He promoted a system for integrating efforts to develop, maintain, and improve quality by the various groups in an organization. To do otherwise, according to Feigenbaum, would be to inspect for and control quality after the fact rather than build it in at an earlier stage of the process.

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