There are five basic concepts of implementing Total Quality
Management (TQM) in the public sector in Malaysia. The concepts are:
1. Meeting customers’ requirement
Total quality management is smart
management which does not only include producing product with using efficient
resource, but it is a continuous management process to produce goods that meet
up and exceeds customers’satisfaction. TQM requires the organization to
identify their customers, their needs and expectations, and translate those
needs and expectations into standards of quality output to be produced. Aimed
at customer focused, TQM establish the appropriate processes involved in
producing the quality goods and services and implement the process effectively
and efficiently in order to meet up and exceeds customers’ expectations.
2. Maintain through
prevention
TQM main aim it to
identifyactivities which will cause wastage in the operating process to produce
quality goods and services to the customers, through strategic quality planning.
It prevents errors and problems from occurring, rather than simply fixing
problems or correcting errors. TQM aims on continuous improvement and problem
solving to meet up to customer’s requirements. TQM’s important strategy is the
3 Qs, which are quality planning quality assurance and quality control. These 3
Qs are the prevention technique which will ensure the goods and services
produced are in conformance with the needs and requirements of the customers.
For example, quality planning is the early stage of error-prevention. Through
careful planning, customers of all categories are identified, their needs are
recognized, the process to produce the goods are determined, and a set of
process controls are designed to ensure that quality can be achieved through
the operational activities.
3.Standard of performance is
zero defect
As TQM aims at doing things right the
first time, all the time, it targeted at providing customers to their full
satisfaction by producing defect-free goods and error-free services that
conform to the expectations of the customers.
4. Cost of quality is
non-conformance of standards
In order to produce goods and
services efficiently, TQM always focuses on control of the cost of quality.
Quality planning plays an important roles at controlling cost, as at his stage,
all cost involved in producing the quality goods and services are estimated and
well-planned, any cost incurred as a result of wastage of resources,
manufactured of low quality goods, errors at servicing or work or non-value
added activities are avoided. Extra cost incurred which does not as
predetermined in quality planning, could be reduced by prevention and improving
work processes. Strategic planning will also ensure the cost incurred in the
process of producing goods, are acknowledged to the production team and prevent
unnecessary wastage of resources which will increase the cost of production.
Cost of quality incurred is seen as non-conformance to the quality standard.
Let say, If a book publishing company targeting at publishing quality
storybooks for public libraries that each book contained of 100 stories in it,
and estimated each book will cost less than RM 5 in the market, and make a
profit of RM 2 out of each book, the publishing or production should plan the
type of paper use, ink and numbers of coloured pictured used in each book to
ensure the cost of production will be less than or equal to RM 3. That’s
standard of total quality. If the production cost more than the estimated RM 3,
and the company have to raise the price of the book, customers would not be
happy, and that’s not total quality. Arrays in cost of quality are seen as
non-conformance to the predetermined total quality standard.
5. Whole work is a process
TQM involved not only the
goods produced, but also the people who produce the goods and services, the
materials, environment and the work system itself. And TQM not only aimed at
meeting customer’s expectations, but it aimed at exceeding them. Organization
which practiced TQM like public organizations, implanted quality culture in the
work process. The organization recognizes the whole organization as a system,
and as a system, the organization has a lot of interacting parts in it. These
interacting parts or work which involved everyone in the organization is called
process. It affects one and another and it has a chain reaction throughout the
system. TQM focus not only on one part of the system or organization, but it
focused on the whole system, to optimize the output of the whole system and
organization and to achieve total quality output. As TQM looking at the whole
system, or organization, the actions of everyone in it will definitely
affecting the outcome of the quality process in delivering quality service and
goods to the customers.
