Why TQM Fails

The business world is getting more and more cutthroat. In order for them to succeed, they frequently use Total Quality Management, which has been suggested by many people in order to enhance performance. Globally, there is fierce competition and fewer trade obstacles, which are making it more difficult for different companies to maintain their market share. Due to the destruction of the traditional barriers to commerce by information technology and telecommunications, competition among diverse businesses that operate in different locations has increased. In any form of a competitive setting, each firm ought to convince a client to purchase its goods or services and not those from their rivals at the value which is higher than the cost applied in its fabrication. Any coherent client will always akin to capitalize on their value of cash. Consequently the flourishing producers ought to improve the total worth of the goods or services he or she is producing so that the cost is suitable to the customers whilst the cost applied are stumpy enough to enable the firm makes profit (Abdullah, 2010).
Total Quality Management (TQM) is basically about nurturing customs that is in most cases slanting towards the increment of the satisfaction of the customer while minimizing that real cost of production. There is the increment of competition global markets which necessitate that production ought not to be considered as just an indicator of efficiency but also as a measure of effectiveness. Often, the difference between the two is in most cases overlooked. An example includes; a firm may be producing as per the requirements of the process specifications might be using its resources in an effective manner, but unless it produces what the customers want, then it cannot be said to be producing them effectively. For any firm to be profitable, it is supposed to judge efficiency and also worth from the viewpoint of the client and not from that of engineer.
For firms to be able to produce as per the customers' requirements, it is important for them to focus on the Total Quality Management principles which have played a big role when it comes to innovations and also the development of those practices of contemporary management. Quality is mainly considered as the main strategic factor for any business to achieve success. For firms to enhance their competitive position and also improve their performances, either small or large, there are all required to apply the principle of total quality management.
Total quality management is a customer based and service oriented body of methodologies which mainly focuses on quality improvement. This was first developed in Japan where it afterward spread in popularity. Despite that TQM mainly refer to a set those practices which are customer based which are mainly meant to improve quality and also promote the improvement process; there are many theories which are at work to guide the TQM practices.
Concept of total quality management
TQM happens to be the highest level of quality management which happens to be concerned with the management of quality principle in various facets of business which includes those of the suppliers and also the customers. TQM is the involvement of those principles of eminence management to various aspects of the association which includes those of the clients and the suppliers and their amalgamation with the main commerce processes. It is a loom which incorporates incessant development by each and everybody in the organization.
TQM happens to involve the cooperation of anyone aiding the firm's processes and involves every stakeholder of the firm. Total Quality Management is mainly termed as a thinking which embraces various actions through which expectations and requests of the clients and that of the society and also the aim of the institute are contented in the most proficient and also cost effectual manner through maximizing the latent of the workers in a impel for development which happens to be continuous.
TQM happens to be a organization viewpoint seeking to integrate all the managerial functions which are in selling, finance, design, production, engineering and client service so as to focus on their main agendas of meeting the needs of the customers and also the objectives of the organization. This principle views the organization as a collection of process, and it maintains that the organization ought to improve its processes through the incorporation of experience and knowledge of the workers.
TQM is an approach mainly aimed at improving the competitiveness, flexibility and also the effectiveness of any firm for the advantage of all its shareholders. It is a means of organizing preparation every activity which is made up of various practices like the customer focus, employee training, the involvement of the employee, the top management commitment, quality measurement, benchmarking, quality audit, planning and also leadership. The above practices happen to provide an effective and also efficient ways to improve quality within an organization so as to help in not only achieving the set objective.
The problem
Total quality management or TQM has erupted to be a world topic in this 21 century. It has its roots partly in Japan and partly in the USA though it was primarily adopted in the firms from Japan in decades after the end of Second World War. Those firms from Japan happened to experience greater success during the 1980s making the other firms in the whole world finding it necessary to have good quality management practices so as to stay competitive. Total quality management happens to be an enhancement from the traditional way of carrying out firm's operations. It is a technique that has been proven which happens to guarantee survival in the world class competition. It is through changing of the actions from management that actions and culture of management of the whole organization will be transformed. TQM happen to be a management philosophy focusing on people and the work process having a major concern for creating satisfaction to the clients and also improving the performance of the organization. It mainly involves a good coordination of all the employment processes which allows an incessant development in various trade units with an objective of surpassing the prospect of the customers. It mainly emphasizes on the totality of quality facets of the whole organization having the aim of reducing waste and also re-works so as to reduce and also increase efficiency in production.
Adoption of Total Quality Management by many firms is hindered due to their non-cooperation with those measures and also philosophy of execution of TQM. There are some firms running TQM-like a agenda, and they anticipate it to perform and function the enchantment by itself; there are some who happen to use a feeble approach to it where they use bits and pieces of those main beliefs. This happens to account for the failure of various organizations in gathering up to their target that is expected from implementing this form of ideology.
Despite that there are all these advantages unto its application, it happens that this initiative is failing in many organizations. There are many organizations which have tried to adopt this method of quality delivery, but all the applications have not bared any fruits to those firms. This is the reason as to why the particular research will mainly focus on the various reasons unto which application of this particular principle remains difficult and unachievable to the firm. It has been noted that while application of total quality management enhances quality and also productivity through improving the firm's process, the initiatives which are adopted can fail due to poor management skills, low employee participation and also the poor focus on the customer. Below are these impediments well explained and illustrated.
Poor management leadership
Management is the ability for the top managers to motivate self-assurance and also hold up those needed for the managerial goals to be achieved. It is the ability of the top managers to establish practice and also lead a long-term vision for the firm where they are supposed to be driven by the customers' requirements which are always changing as opposed to a management control role. Leadership then can be exemplified by the clarity of visions, orientations that are long term, coaching the management style, employee empowerment, participative change and also planning and implementation of the organizational change. There are various roles of the top management which can be identified as; coming up with and employment of quality goals, establish quality policies, provision of resources, stipulation of the problem-oriented preparation and the encouragement of development. The crucial role of leadership is the creation of goals, values and also systems which guide the pursuit of performance improvement which is continuous (Dale, 2015).
Management failure has been the main obstacle hindering the success of TQM implementation. There are various management styles which happen to inhibit the learning culture and also create barriers between the various departments seen in many firms. In the firms where there is good leadership, those managers in a Total Quality Management scheme views the firm as a scheme; they support the development of the employees, they happen to institute a multipoint message among the managers, workers and the clients; they also use the data effectively and also efficiently. Additionally, managers are the one who encourages the participation of the employees in decision making, and they empower the employees. The commitment and participation of the top management in the practices of TQM happens to be the most important factors for the success of those practices of TQM.
Excessive layers of organization quite often have led to the replication of responsibilities and duties. This has made those lower workers of the firms to leave the eminence of execution to be the work of the management. Additionally, quality has not been adhered to as a combined liability of both the employees and the management. When the workers are attached with the notion that the organization is perfect and this makes it be always accurate in its decision, then they have been forced to take up those tangential roles in the enhancement of quality. As a result those workers who tend to be unswervingly concerned in the manufacture of merchandise or delivery of services tend not to be aggravated sufficient in that they can add in eminence issues that happen to be raised by the clients they happen to serve for they do not feel being part of the procedure of quality organization which happens to be continuous.
Knowledge happens to be positively related to performance in that effective knowledge ensures that the employees obtain the necessary data that is timely, reliable, consistent and also accurate. It is in only this way the firms will benefit from the TQM practices can be achieved. Process management makes emphasis on activities rather than results, and this is a set of methodological and behavioral activities. It includes both the proactive and preventive approaches to management that are of high quality of various products.
Poor management skills result to poor planning. This is the absence of strategy which results in unproductive quality enhancement. Duran happened to note inadequacies in the unique planning lead to a procedure meant to the sun at a high level of constant waste. Though there are many managers, who are not satisfied with their development on their eminence execution agenda they happen to give setting up a low precedence.

Low employee participation
Application of the TQM principle has failed in many organizations due to the firms not fully involving their employees I the whole process. It is clearly known that if any firm want to create a working environment which is positive, it must focus on high trust, customer services which are exceptional, collaborative teamwork, operational excellence, creation of problem solving and also leadership ought to start understanding, devote in, and also be receptive to those needs of the collection that represent the most precious assets of the organization, and also most significant to the customers and the employees. The returns in these form of nominal investment come in the form of higher levels of motivation to the employees, productivity, creativity and also commitment which happens to move the firm forward having greater profitability. Total quality management precept which happens to be fundamental is that all the employees ought to be empowered and involved (Mehta, Verma, & Seth, 2014).
The involvement of the employees simply means that the employee is regarded as unique human beings and not just cogs in machines, and every employee is incorporated in assisting the organization to meet its objectives. Every input of the employee is solicited and valued by their management. The management the employees are acquainted with that every worker is involved in management the firm.
Workers empowerment is in a way a different concept which means that in addition to the involvement of the employees in carrying out the business, the management and the employees recognize that various problems and obstacles to achieving the goals of the organization can be identified and solved by the employees. The empowerment of the employees means that the management happens to recognize this particular ability and it provides the employees with tools and also authority which is required to continuously improve their performance. The management happens to states its expectations about the employees being able to recognize and also solve problems and empower them to do so.
Employee empowerment and involvement happen to be a long-term pledge which is a fresh method of doing trade and a primary change in culture. Those workers, who have been educated, recognized and empowered due to their results analyses their work and firms in a diverse angle. Most of the do not clout a clock, facilitate what they here, and calculate the minutes till the weekend approaches. But most of them possess the corporation in a way that they believe personally accountable for it performance. The only means of obtaining genuine pledge from individuals is through involving them in the projects adopted since the beginning. Despite that the innovative ideas might not be theirs, the whole method of planning, scheming and assessing will pull these employees into the streams of effects (Jiménez-Jiménez et al, 2015).
There are those firms who have adopted this philosophy and TQM have been successful to them. There is the ADAC which happens to use a teamwork approach where the employees form groups of 4 to 25 people. These groups are mainly focused on helping the workers to participate in the highly empowered functions. This has greatly improved the returns for the firm.
There is also the WCM Corporation which involves the workers in all their work procedure and also devolves the liability for its quality to them. By doing so, it mainly assumes a distinct personality. Those employees who happen to be identified with this particular corporate personality happens to distinguish themselves as part of it, and this deeply enhances those changes of achieving company goals.
The above some of the crucial explanations as to why incorporation of the employees is a must and if it is not applied then, application of TQM happens to be an impossibility. If they happen not to be involved, they particularly take any form of change in the firm with a lot of negativity meaning that they are in most cases adamant those changes, neither do they consider them with any act of soundness or with an open mind. The employees also happen to have certain fear when anything new is being implemented without their knowledge, and this makes them try to oppose it. With all these forms of retaliations, then adoption of TQM in any firm which employees are not fully involved automatically becomes impossibility.
Poor customer service focus
A customer is not necessarily an objective statistics but is more of a sentiment or an approach. If it happens that a client is happy with a product or with an overhaul they tend to forfeit their bills even without delay which greatly improves the cash flow of the organization. Those clients who are satisfied happen to augment in number and also buy more and more regularly. Most firms happen to focus on the customers in a very narrow way. They tend to confine the satisfaction of the customers narrowly by confining the quality considerations to the product alone. They tend to overlook those services that are connected to the product such as packaging, ability to meet deadline matters and also the accurate and timely shipping. Most of the customers tend to define quality regarding their overall experience with the firm (Goetsch & Davis, 2014).
Quality is mainly observed through the customer satisfaction. It is the customer who determines the level of quality. If the firm does not focus on the customer, then it means, then it means that the firm might never know whether it is offering the best to its customers. This means that TQM will never be achieved for the firm will be focusing on those issues that are not affecting the customers; focusing on issues that are not main concerns to the customers. This means that if the firm has to foster quality improvement; training of employees, upgrading of the software of the computer, buying new measuring tools, integration of quality into the design, the firm has to understand that it is the customer who will determine whether all those efforts are worthwhile.
This means that there must support proper development of firm customers' relationship which will be possible by installing proper communication channels where feedbacks from the customers can be received, and by this, it becomes possible to create efficiency and effectiveness of the firms' production by the requirements from the clients. If the clients are not considered, then the products produced might not meet the maximum utility as per the standards of the customers meaning that they will have to lose customers. All customers are known to do businesses with the firms due to their convenience. Firms that do not focus on the customers they lose potential customers, future customers and also their reputation is tarnished. This will eventually result to poor profit making to the firm which results in loss of employees. With all these disadvantages then it means that TQM is not achieved.
Conclusion
Most of the companies that have applied TQM in their systems have been seen to be successful as TQM focuses on the application of the quality principle to various facets of the firm including those of the suppliers and also the customers. There are many firms that have applied this principle in their system, but it has not worked. For those firms to succeed in its application, they have to focus on three things which include improvement of the management skills, allowing employee participation in decision making of the firm and also focusing on the customers. With these three factors addressed by the firm, then TQM adoption in the firms will be possible and will bear fruits.

References
Abdullah, A. (2010). Measuring TQM implementation: a case study of Malaysian SMEs. Measuring Business Excellence, 14(3), 3-15.
Dale, B. (2015). Total quality management. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
Jiménez-Jiménez, D., Martinez-Costa, M., Martínez-Lorente, A. R., & Rabeh, H. A. D. (2015). Total quality management performance in multinational companies: A learning perspective. The TQM Journal, 27(3), 328-340.
Gimenez-Espin, J. A., Jiménez-Jiménez, D., & Martínez-Costa, M. (2013). Organizational culture for total quality management. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 24(5-6), 678-692.
Mehta, N., Verma, P., & Seth, N. (2014). Total quality management implementation in engineering education in India: an interpretive structural modelling approach. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 25(1-2), 124-140.