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Barriers To Total Quality Management Implementation

Effective TQM requires the integration of production planning, marketing, engineering, distribution, and field services.In developing TQM, companies need to understand how consumers define quality in both goods and services offered. If a company pays more attention to quality in its production processes, fewer problems are bound to occur when the product is in the customers’ hands. Management should make a commitment to measure the performance of a product relative to its quality through customer surveys, which can help managers to identify design, manufacturing or any other process that has a bearing on the quality of a product or service, and therefore provide an opportunity for continuous improvement. Bellow are some of barriers :

-Competitive markets

A competitive market is a driving force behind many of the other obstacles to quality. One of the effects of a competitive market is to lower quality standards to a minimally acceptable level. A broader definition needs to be used to look at quality, not only in the company’s product, but in every function of the company. All company functions have an element of quality. If the quality of tasks performed is poor, unnecessary cost is incurred by the company and, ultimately, passed to the customer. TQM should work by inspiring employees at every level to continuously improve what they do, thus rooting out unnecessary costs. Done correctly, a company involved with TQM can dramatically reduce operating costs.

-Lack of effective measurement of quality improvement

TQM is centered on monitoring employees and processes, and establishing objectives that anticipate the customer's needs so that he is surprised and delighted. This has posed a considerable challenge to many companies. Measurement problems are caused by goals based on past substandard performance, poor planning, and lack of resources and competitor-based standard. Worse still, the statistical measurement procedures applied to production are not applicable to human system processes.

- Lack of leadership for quality

Excess layers of management quite often lead to duplication of duty and responsibility. This has made the lower employees of an organization to leave the quality implementation to be a management’s job. In addition, quality has not been taken as a joint responsibility by the management and the employees. Coupled with the notion that management is infallible and therefore it is always right in its decisions, employees have been forced to take up peripheral role in quality improvement. As a result employees who are directly involved in the production of goods or delivery of services are not motivated enough to incorporate quality issues that have been raised by the customers they serve since they do not feel as part of the continuous process of quality improvement. Moreover, top management is not visibly and explicitly committed to quality in many organizations.

- Lack of proper training

 There is evidence that lack of understanding and proper training exists at all levels of any organization, and that it is a large contributor to worker resistance.TQM requires a well-educated workforce with a solid understanding of basic math, reading, writing and communication. Although companies invest heavily in quality awareness, statistical process control, and quality circles, often the training is too narrowly focused. For a company to produce a quality product, employees need to know how to do their jobs. For TQM to be successful, organizations must commit to training employees at all levels. TQM should provide comprehensive training, including technical expertise, communication skills, small-team management, problem-solving tools, and customer relations.