Page 294 - Business Principles and Management

Chapter 11 • Management Functions and Decision Making

Focus On...

Management Innovation–Total Quality
Management

For much of the last century, the approach to business management
did not change. Managers believed the best way to be successful was
to operate the business as efficiently as possible. To achieve that goal,
managers tried to get more and more work out of employees, make
as few changes in products as possible, and find ways to reduce costs,
often at the expense of quality.
Dr. W. Edwards Deming developed 14 guiding principles for man-
agers that taught them to view their management role in a different
way. He suggested that a long-term commitment to quality, customer
satisfaction, and employee morale would lead to success. His process
was called Total Quality Management (TQM).
• TQM emphasizes increasing quality and developing an effective
organization.
• TQM is concerned with customer satisfaction and employee
motivation.
• TQM relies on leadership and cooperation versus the traditional
management focus on closely supervising employee behavior.
• TQM businesses constantly look for new and improved ways
to complete their work to increase effectiveness and quality.
• TQM encourages teamwork and employee involvement in
decision making.
• TQM businesses view employees as valuable contributors to
success and use training to improve employee effectiveness
and motivation.
A set of tools has been developed to help businesses implement
Total Quality Management. A few examples of the tools are:
Flow charts. These identify each step in a procedure and how
the steps are related to each other. They can be used to compare Think Critically
how work is being done to how it is supposed to be done in
order to reduce errors. 1. Why do many managers find it
Cause-and-effect analysis. Employee and management teams so difficult to change from tradi-
brainstorm about problems to find solutions. They develop a tional approaches to TQM?
diagram that lists problems and possible causes and link them 2. Many schools are now imple-
together until they discover and agree on the basic problem. menting TQM and teaching
Then they can develop solutions. students to use its tools. What
Scatter diagrams. Data from two different factors are visually types of procedures in schools
plotted on a chart and analyzed to discover relationships. For could benefit from TQM?
example, the number of employee absences over a six-month 3. If a school was facing a problem
period is compared to the number of product defects to see with students being tardy for
if the use of temporary employees is related to a reduction in classes, how could the school
product quality. use one of the TQM tools to
Today, quality, customer satisfaction, teamwork, and process help solve that problem?
improvement are making a difference in business competitiveness.

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