Impact Of Total Quality Management On Human Resources Practices

Humaira Khatoon

16mba048

Under the guidance and supervisor of

Dr. Reena Mehta

Assistant professor

Sam Higginbottom University Of Agriculture Sciences & Technology

Joseph School Of Business Studies

Allahabad
 Introduction
Total Quality Management is a management framework based on the belief that an organization
can build long-term success by having all its members, from low-level workers to its highest
ranking executives, focus on quality improvement and, thus, delivering customer satisfaction.
Total Quality Management, which is frequently known by its acronym TQM, requires
organizations to focus on continuous improvement, or kaizen. It focuses on process
improvements over the long term, rather than simply emphasizing short-term financial gains.
TQM prescribes a series of ways for organizations to accomplish this, with the pathway to
successful continuous improvement centered on the use of strategy, data and effective
communication to instill a discipline of quality into the organization's culture and processes.
More specifically, TQM puts a spotlight on the processes that organizations use to produce
their products, and it calls for organizations to define those processes, continuously monitor and
measure their performance, and use that performance data to drive improvements. Furthermore,
it calls for all employees, as well as all organizational departments, to be part of this process.
TQM's objectives are to eliminate waste and increase efficiencies by ensuring that the production
of the organization's product (or service) is done right the first time. This management
framework was initially applied to companies in the manufacturing sector, but, over the decades,
organizations in other sectors have adopted it, as well.

Origin Of Total Quality Management

Total quality management has evolved from the quality assurance methods that were first
developed around the time of the First World War. The war effort led to large scale
manufacturing efforts that often produced poor quality. To help correct this, quality inspectors
were introduced on the production line to ensure that the level of failures due to quality was
minimized. After the First World War, quality inspection became more commonplace in
manufacturing environments and this led to the introduction of Statistical Quality Control (SQC),
a theory developed by Dr. W. Edwards Deming. This quality method provided a statistical
method of quality based on sampling. Where it was not possible to inspect every item, a sample
was tested for quality. The theory of SQC was based on the notion that a variation in the
production process leads to variation in the end product. If the variation in the process could be
removed this would lead to a higher level of quality in the end product. After World War Two,
the industrial manufacturers in Japan produced poor quality items. In a response to this, the
Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers invited Dr. Deming to train engineers in quality
processes. By the 1950’s quality control was an integral part of Japanese manufacturing and was
adopted by all levels of workers within an organization. By the 1970’s the notion of total quality
was being discussed. This was seen as company-wide quality control that involves all employees
from top management to the workers, in quality control. In the next decade more non-Japanese
companies were introducing quality management procedures that based on the results seen in
Japan.
The new wave of quality control became known as Total Quality Management, which was used
to describe the many quality-focused strategies and techniques that became the center of focus
for the quality movement.

Principles of Total Quality Management

TQM can be defined as the management of initiatives and procedures that are aimed at
achieving the delivery of quality products and services. A number of key principles can be
identified in defining TQM, including:

Executive Management – Top management should act as the main driver for TQM and create
an environment that ensures its success.

Training – Employees should receive regular training on the methods and concepts of quality.

Customer Focus – Improvements in quality should improve customer satisfaction.

Decision Making – Quality decisions should be made based on measurements.

Methodology and Tools – Use of appropriate methodology and tools ensures that non
conformance incidents are identified, measured and responded to consistently.

Continuous Improvement – Companies should continuously work towards improving

manufacturing and quality procedures.

Company Culture – The culture of the company should aim at developing employees ability to
work together to improve quality.

Employee Involvement – Employees should be encouraged to be pro-active in identifying and

addressing quality related problems.

Cost of Total Quality Management

Many companies believe that the costs of the introduction of TQM are far greater than the
benefits it will produce. However research across a number of industries has costs involved in
doing nothing, i.e. the direct and indirect costs of quality problems, are far greater than the costs
of implementing TQM.

The American quality expert, Phil Crosby, wrote that many companies chose to pay for the poor
quality in what he referred to as the “Price of Nonconformance”. The costs are identified in the
Prevention, Appraisal, Failure (PAF) Model.

Prevention costs are associated with the design, implementation and maintenance of the TQM
system. They are planned and incurred before actual operation, and can include:
 Product Requirements – The setting specifications for incoming materials, processes, finished
products/services.

Quality Planning – Creation of plans for quality, reliability, operational, production and
inspections.

Quality Assurance – The creation and maintenance of the quality system.

Training – The development, preparation, and maintenance of processes.

Appraisal costs are associated with the vendors and customers evaluation of purchased materials
and services to ensure they are within specification. They can include:

 Verification – Inspection of incoming material against agreed upon specifications.

 Quality Audits – Check that the quality system is functioning correctly.
 Vendor Evaluation – Assessment and approval of vendors.

Failure costs can be split into those resulting from internal and external failure. Internal failure
costs occur when results fail to reach quality standards and are detected before they are shipped
to the customer. These can include:

 Waste – Unnecessary work or holding stocks as a result of errors, poor organization or

communication.
 Scrap – Defective product or material that cannot be repaired, used or sold.
 Rework – Correction of defective material or errors.
 Failure Analysis – This is required to establish the causes of internal product failure.

External failure costs occur when the products or services fail to reach quality
standards but are not detected until after the customer receives the item. These can
include:

 Repairs – Servicing of returned products or at the customer site.

 Warranty Claims – Items are replaced or services re-performed under warranty.
 Complaints – All work and costs associated with dealing with customer’s complaints.
 Returns – Transportation, investigation, and handling of returned items.

Your optimized supply chain should be delivering on-time quality products to your customers,
while costing as little money as possible. TQM will help you achieve that goal.

Approaches

Total quality management requires 6 basic approaches:

1. A committed and envolved management to provide long term top- to- bottom
organizational support.
2. An unwavering focus on the customer, both internally and externally.
 3. Effective involvement and utilization of the entire work force.
4. Continous improvement of the business and production process.
5. Treating suppliers as a partners.
6. Establish performance measures for the processes.

Total quality management in human resources management

Globalization in the business theater is driving companies toward a new view of quality as a
necessary tool to compete successfully in worldwide markets. A direct outcome of this new
emphasis is the philosophy of total quality management (TQM). In essence, TQM is a company-
wide perspective that strives for customer satisfaction by seeking zero defects in products and
services. Making quality improvements was once thought to be the sole responsibility of
specialists (quality engineers, product designers, and process engineers). Today, developing
quality across the entire firm can be an important function of the human resource management
(HRM) department. A failure on HRM's part to recognize this opportunity and act on it may
result in the loss of TQM implementation responsibilities to other departments with less
expertise in training and development. The ultimate consequence of this loss is an ineffective
piece mealing of the TQM strategy. Thus, HRM should act as the pivotal change agent
necessary for the successful implementation of TQM. HRM can act as senior management's tool
in implementing TQM in two fundamental ways. First, by modeling the TQM philosophy and
principles within its departmental operations, the HR department can serve as a beachhead for
the TQM process throughout the company. Second, the HR department, with senior
management's support, can take the TQM process company-wide by developing and delivering
the long-term training and development necessary for the major organizational culture shift
required by TQM. The HR department also has major strengths in terms of recruitment,
selection, appraisal, and reward system development to institutionalize a quality-first orientation.
An appreciation of the capabilities of HRM to model and institutionalize TQM begins with an
understanding of the TQM philosophy.

The TQM Philosophy

Implementing a total quality management system has become the preferred approach for
improving quality and productivity in organizations. TQM, which has been adopted by leading
industrial companies, is a participative system empowering all employees to take responsibility
for improving quality within the organization. Instead of using traditional bureaucratic rule
enforcement.

HRM as a Role Model for TQM

HRM can jumpstart the TQM process by becoming a role model. This means that HRM has two
specific tasks: "Serving our customers, and making a significant contribution to running the
business." This emphasis on customer oriented service means that the HR department must see
other departments in the firm as their customer groups for whom making continuing
improvements in service becomes a way of life. In their efforts to achieve total quality
management, HRM can demonstrate commitment to TQM principles by soliciting feedback from
its internal customer groups on current HR services. HRM should include suggestions from its
customers in setting objective performance standards and measures. In other words, there are a
number of specific TQM principles that the HR department can model.

Human resource practices

HR practices are the means through which your human resources personnel can develop the
leadership of your staff. This occurs through the practice of developing extensive training
courses and motivational programs, such as devising systems to direct and assist management in
performing ongoing performance appraisals.

Analysis & Design of Work

HR Planning

Recruitment

Selection

Trainning & Devlopment

Compensation

Performance Management

Employee Relations
 Impact of total quality management on human resource practices
Total quality management have a significantly positive impact on HRM practices. Implementing
hrm practices can also have a significant effect on employee and customer satisfaction. It also
positively affected on employees quality awareness and corporate image. The quality
performance were also significantly affected by the implementation of total quality management.
the perceived advantages of the implementation of tqm are generating improved quality and
efficiency. Increasing customer satisfaction thus improving competitiveness. however, there is a
high failure rate in the implementation of TQM. The key issues in this regards companies have
devoted relatively little attentions to HRM. Several academics practioners have asserted that
synergy and congruence among HRM practices are critical to the implementation of TQM.
However, there relatively little empirical evidence to support this contention.
 Review of literature
Laxmikumari,Dr Y vijay kumar, Dr. V.Venkata Ramana (2014) The present day industry is
facing a very aggressive economic situation. In order to stay competitive it is a must to explore
new styles to manage excellence in business. This paper primarily discusses one of such
techniques called total quality control (TQM), the various concepts of TQM by highlighting the
different dimensions, approaches and benefits in detail. Further states the need and importance of
TQM in overall organization enhancement along with brief description of history. The survey
also reveals the benefits of implementation of this technique that show positive impact on the
performance of any organization. In addition, presents a research problem that was identified,
which states that TQM can be put into practice by small scale industry so as to reap the benefits
of TQM as a research proposal.

Ola Ibrahim (2013) Total quality Management as a philosophy seeking to integrate all
organizational functions in all areas of productions and services become an important attractive
research field. It encourage Researchers to address many topics related to Total Quality
management and Continuous improvements. Each has his own approach. Each reveals findings
and results. This paper is a comparative analysis of some of the researchers approaches
concerning Total quality Management Applications, Models, principles and aims.

Dinh Thai Hoanga, Barbara Igelb and Tritos Laosirihongthongc(2010) This paper presents a
comparative study on the relationship between implementing total quality management (TQM)
and organisational characteristics (size, type of industry, type of ownership, and degree of
innovation) in a newly industrialised country in South East Asia. Vietnam has become the 150th
member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) since January 2007, and this is the first
empirical study to examine TQM practices in Vietnam. Analysis through Structural Equation
Modelling, t-test and MANOVA of survey data from 222 manufacturing and service companies
produced three major findings. First, this study supports previous research findings that TQM can
be considered as set of practices. Second, industries in Vietnam have deployed certain TQM
practices (customer focus and top management commitment) at much higher levels than others,
namely information and analysis system, education and training, employee empowerment, and
process management. Finally, MANOVA shows a clear difference in TQM practices by
company size, industry type, and degree of innovation. Large companies had higher
implementation levels across almost all practices except for teamwork and open organisation
when compared to small- and medium-sized companies. TQM practices were statistically more
significant in manufacturing companies compared to service companies, and firms having a
higher degree of innovation also showed higher levels of TQM practice implementation. In
particular, the low deployment of TQM practices in service industries, where TQM has been
considered as orderqualifier, highlights the challenges for Vietnam’s service industries that
pursue TQM to successfully compete in the global marketplace.
Adrian Wilkinson, Mick Marchington & Barrie Dale (1994) This paper examines the issue
of Total Quality Management (TQM) and the management of human resources. It
suggests that while TQM has been identified as a major innovation in management
practice, there has been a preoccupation with the “hard” production-oriented aspects of
TQM, rather than the softer HRM elements. However, increasing attention is now being
paid to HR issues. Drawing on research sponsored by the Institute of Personnel
Management in the United Kingdom, the writers discusses three manufacturing case
studies so as to explore the TQM/HRM issues. They discuss a number of critical human
resource issues arising from these cases and point to an enhanced role for the personnel
function.
 Objectives of the study
To study the impact of total quality management in human resource management.

To study the practices of HRM in refrence to AON Hewitt Company.

To study the changes occurred while implementing the TQM.

 Justification of the study
Total quality management (TQM) is advantageous because it provides companies with short-
term and long-term benefits that improve product quality, productivity and customer relations.
TQM implements many ideas and methods to generate better products, customer loyalty and
sales. According to the American Society for Quality, TQM works when a company has total
employee involvement, a customer-focused perspective and a systematic approach to achieving
the goal and makes continuous improvements based on fact-based data. The practice of quality
management — via quality assurance and British Standards (BS5750) /International Standards
Organisation (1S09000) alone or TQM — is now becoming much more widespread throughout
the United Kingdom. Recent interest has focused on the shortcomings which are associated with
the ‘hard’, systems-type initiatives, and their failure to pay sufficient attention to the ‘people’
elements in the drive for continuous quality improvement. There is a feeling, not just confined to
those within the personnel function, that greater emphasis needs to be placed on the human
aspects of quality management.
 Research Methodology
The process used to collect information and data for the purpose of making business decisions.
The methodology may include publication research, interviews, surveys and other research
techniques, and could include both present and historical information.

Types of research:
Descriptive research

Area of study:
Bangaluru

Samlpe size:

50 respondents of AON Hewitt Company.

Sampling method:
Survey method

Data type:
Primary& secondary both

Data collection tools:

Questionnaires

Statistical tools:
Pie chart, bar graph.
 Refrences
Adrian Wilkinson, Mick Marchington & Barrie Dale (1994)manufacturing effective