Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, Total Quality Management - The Ultimate Introduction (56-slide PowerPoint presentation). Introduction: In the wake of a global economic upheaval and a relentless push for excellence, organizations find themselves at a crossroads. The imperative? To deliver top-notch products at competitive prices while cultivating customer satisfaction and fueling profitability. Enter Total [read more]
TQM: A Need for Speed of Innovation
* * * *
The emergence of total quality management (TQM) has been one of the major developments in management practice. The recognition of TQM as a competitive advantage is wide spread around the world and today, very few (especially manufacturing) companies can afford to ignore the term TQM (Dean and Bowen, 1994).
There are some arguments that support a positive relationship between TQM and innovation. These studies contend that companies embracing TQM in their system and culture will provide a fertile environment for innovation, because TQM embodies principles that are congruent with innovation (Dean and Evans, 1994; Kanji, 1996; Mahesh, 1993; Roffe, 1999; Tang, 1998).
While standardization is necessary for conformance and error reduction, from the innovation point of view, it could trap people into staying with what is workable; resulting in rigidity (Glynn, 1996; Kanter, 1983). In addition, Lawler (1994) and Samaha (1996) suggest that the concept of continuous improvement is basically aimed at simplifying or streamlining a process and carrying it out in a better or faster manner. Such an approach could be detrimental to innovation because companies may continually work upon, and improve, processes that are already fundamentally flawed.
It may be difficult indeed, to accept that a company can be successful with innovation if it cannot produce products that meet acceptable quality standards, it is argued here that in certain situations, companies have to prioritize quality over innovation or vice versa. This is particularly true when industry and market conditions are taken into consideration (Nowak, 1997).
One important question then would be, is there any significant relationship between quality performance and innovation? If yes, what is the nature of this relationship? The nature of this relationship may be on the frame innovation is compared to. In other words, how these indicators are made of. TQM and quality are about performance measures; then it would make sense to build innovation performance measures to relate them with TQM and quality also.
There were some findings that indicated a positive and significant relationship between quality performance and innovation performance, particularly process innovation. This suggested that the achievement of quality performance as a result of the implementation of TQM practices does, to a certain degree, lead to realization of innovation performance. (Prajogo, Sohal, 2002).
From a practical point of view, organizations that want to pursue innovation performance are recommended to adopt TQM and co-align it with other practices and techniques relating to research and development (R&D) and technology management. Future studies in this area therefore, should be focused on developing adequate innovation performance indicators and investigating the compatibility of TQM with those practices in determining innovation performance.
Often success is simply the repeated, periodic achievement of some levels of operational goal; and sometimes success is defined in terms of making progress toward strategic goals. In Copiose, we help you to evaluate the success of your organization. We use various techniques to assess the present state and its key activities of your business to develop the right performance indicators. Contact us today (http://www.copiose.com) to help you define the appropriate set of values against which to measure your business improvement.
181-slide PowerPoint presentation
Total Quality Management (TQM) is a holistic approach to achieving long-term success that transcends mere processes or outcomes. At its core, TQM views continuous improvement as a perpetual process rather than a short-lived objective. It instills a mindset where every facet of an [read more]
Do You Want to Implement Business Best Practices?
You can download in-depth presentations on TQM and 100s of management topics from the FlevyPro Library. FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.
For even more best practices available on Flevy, have a look at our top 100 lists:
- Top 100 in Strategy & Transformation
- Top 100 in Digital Transformation
- Top 100 in Operational Excellence
- Top 100 in Organization & Change
- Top 100 Management Consulting Frameworks
These best practices are of the same as those leveraged by top-tier management consulting firms, like McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and Accenture. Improve the growth and efficiency of your organization by utilizing these best practice frameworks, templates, and tools. Most were developed by seasoned executives and consultants with over 20+ years of experience.
Readers of This Article Are Interested in These Resources
100-slide PowerPoint presentation
Many quality improvement programs fail because they were not managed as a total process. Total Quality Process (TQP) teaches you how to approach quality or any change initiative as a company-wide effort. You will learn how to make a commitment, plan and begin to implement systems for [read more]
|
|
153-slide PowerPoint presentation
|
|
225-slide PowerPoint presentation
| |||
About Gonzalo Lozano
Gonzalo Lozano has over 19 years directing and managing Operations, Business Development, Sales, and Marketing efforts for client business in various industries (airlines/aviation, banking, financial services, health care, IT & services, manufacturing, non-profit, retail, and telecom) that included the increase in market share, revenues, and earnings; the reduction in costs; and the improvement of customer satisfaction in both emerging and established markets (USA, Europe, and Latin America). He is a Change Agent recognized for the ability to think outside of the box and with strong insight into analytics and interpreting data. You can connect with Gonzalo on LinkedIn here.
