CRITIQUE OF TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

A CONSIDERATION AND CRITIQUE OF TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS

The last quarter of the twentieth century saw a significant increase in the attention paid to quality. With the success of Tom Peter's In Search of Excellence in the early 1980s, managers began to reconsider how they measured quality and how they managed to maximize quality. Total Quality Management (TQM) and quality circles (QCs) became popular programs that were implemented in many organizations, but there were implementation problems. In some cases, TQM and QCs were not implemented completely, or the corporate culture was unable to adapt to these new techniques. Some employees considered these innovations little more than the latest management fad which, if ignored, would be replaced shortly by a new management fad. Some organizations realized substantial gains by implementing these techniques; others abandoned them while others maintained the names, but reverted to traditional Western approaches to quality management. This research considers the management of quality in Western organizations, how TQM has been co-opted, and techniques that might improve quality management in service industries.

Early twentieth century industrialists took an engineering approach to management called scientific management. This approach was developed by Frederick Taylor and called for the careful analysis of tasks and time-and-motion studies in conjunction with piece-rate pay schemes

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Category: Business - C