TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM): A STRATEGIC GROWTH TOOL FOR HIGHER EDUCATION

1.1       INTRODUCTION

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a concept developed by an American Dr. W. Edwards Deming shortly after the Second World War towards improving the quality of goods and services. As at then, the ideas of Dr. Deming were not taken serious by the United States industry until they were readily accepted by the Japanese in their bid to revive their post-war industry and business. The Japanese used Total Quality Management (TQM) to dominate the world markets when according Malton (1986), ‘Made in Japan’ change from a derogatory term to high praise. By the 1980s US industry began to see the value TQM approach and at this time Japanese companies were far exceeding many American countries in terms of quality products and this was having serious adverse consequence for the US industry, particularly in the area of car manufacture. American management discovered the Deming’s concept of TQM; they began to introduce the concept into western thinking.

Many organisations worldwide have TQM adopted as a management paradigm. The concept of TQM was in recent decades, introduced in the service industry and since then, many businesses have realised that the concept can just be effective in service industry as in manufacturing. Though, TQM is applied to business and industry, it has in recent times, been introduced in higher education. Many colleges and universities apply TQM as tool to enhance the quality of higher education.

The purpose of this paper is to look at the concept of Total Quality Management (TQM), examine its application in academics and discuss how it can enhance the growth strategy of an institution of higher learning.

2.1    THE MEANING OF TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM)

We shall consider the definition Total Quality Management (TQM) as put forward by many authors when they defined TQM as:

·         ‘a way of life of an organisation as a whole committed to total customer satisfaction through a continuous process of improvement, and the contributions and involvement of many people’ (Mullins, 2005).

·         ‘a management philosophy embracing all activities through which the needs and expectations of the customer, the community and the objectives of the organisation are satisfied in the most efficient and cost effective way by maximising the potentials of all employees in a continuing drive for improvement’ (CCTA, 1992).

·         a holistic approach which encourage individuals within an organisation to seek improvement for greater good of the organisation and to recognise that customer satisfaction and corporate objectives are inseparable’ (Institute of Management).

·         ‘an approach to improving the effectiveness and flexibility of business as a whole. A way of organising and involving the whole organisation; every department, every activity, every single person at every level’ (Berry, 1986)

·         ‘the integration of all functions and process within an organisation in order to achieve continuous improvement of goods and services with the primary goal of customer satisfaction’ (Mullins, 2005). 

From the above definitions, we can gather that TQM is the way of managing the future, a way of managing people and business processes to ensure complete satisfaction of customers at every stage internally and externally. Breaking down TQM acronym:

Total could be explained to mean every activity and every person associated with the organisation. It is the ability of the organisation to fulfil its task and to achieve goals.

Quality could be described as: delighting the customer, fully meeting their needs and expectations. However the customer (internal and external) determines the quality. It is the conformance to the requirements of customer. It is the ability to meet the requirements of the customer now and in the future, at a lower cost. It is ‘a better way of doing what we are already doing and not something else to do’.

Management could be seen as the prevention of faults, errors or mistakes and direction towards customer satisfaction.

From the above, we can deduce that TQM is not a programme but a continuous process, which is an unending habitual improvement that continuously shifts toward the quality standard dictated by the customer.

3.1    KEY ELEMENTS OF TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM)

Penticost (1991) identified the following as the key elements of TQM:

(a)  a total process involving all operations and management units in the organisation and led from the top;

(b)  the customer as king, with every strategy, process and action directly related to satisfying the customer’s needs.

(c)  a greater emphasis on rational information collection and analysis using modern technology where appropriate;

(d)  an emphasis on different approach to looking at the cost of poor quality by examining all processes in the organisation which add to costs;

(e)  a greater involvement of people, recognising that they are great untapped resources in most institutions;

(f)    teamwork as crucially important, involving multi-discipline and multi-level working to solve problems and to meet customer’s needs; and

(g)  the requirement for creative thinking and the ability to think beyond the immediate job or work environment.

4.1    THE REQUIREMENTS OF TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

For TQM to be achievable and successful in an organisation it involves:

(a)  the creation of a corporate identity and a supportive environment;

(b)  setting the highest standards of quality;

(c)  programmes of effective training including teambuilding throughout the organisation;

(d)  integrating systems and technology with people; and

(e)  motivation, participation and commitment of staff at all levels of the organisation.

Proper attention to human resources issue is an essential requirement for the successful implementation of TQM.

5.1    TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM) IN HIGHER EDUCATION

For more than a decade, TQM has been proven successful in manufacturing and business. However, there had been slow application of the techniques of TQM in education. In higher education, TQM can be used in more particularly in business studies and engineering.

Applying principles of TQM to higher education, the education of the student is the product/service, while the customers of education include all the stakeholders which we can classify as (a) internal customers (students, faculty, administrators, administrative staff, academic board,) and (b) external customers (the community, parents, potential employers, universities, accrediting agencies alumni, donors).

In higher education, Total Quality Management (TQM) means improving the quality of courses, input infrastructural process, resource management processes and structures as well as student support service output and linkages with world of and other organisations (Tulsi, 2001). Since TQM is a holistic, the support and cooperation of faculty staff members are needed for quality improvement.

5.2    APPLYING DEMMING’S 14 POINTS

The 14 points of Dr. W. Edwards Deming form the framework for the implementation of TQM and these could be applied in higher education. Managers of higher education who embrace TQM should:

1.    Create constancy of purpose: This involves the development of mission statement as corporate purpose/aim. Once this is developed every stakeholder must know how to contribute to the mission.

2.    Adopt a new philosophy: This involves insisting on quality in everything (classroom instructions, restroom cleaning, library services etc). To achieve this quality, an atmosphere of cooperation (and not competition) must be instilled. It is necessary do away with the ‘we versus them’ attitude.

3.    Cease dependence on mass inspection: This involves focusing on building quality into product/service. It is appropriate to depend on audits, tests or inspection to build quality.

4.    Cease dependence on mass inspection:: This requires a focus on long-term costs and benefits.

5.    Constantly improve processes: This may raise questions like: ‘are students and future employers more satisfy than they were last year? Are faculty members happier?  If answer to questions like these is ‘no’  it is necessary to find out why and the situation is fixed; and if the answer is ‘yes’, the process that made it so should be determine and analysed towards making it better.

6.    Institute on-the-job-training: This is essential for workers and management in order to reduce variant in how job is done. Faculty development programme, for instance, helps teacher to know their job. In particular, TQM should be taught to everyone.

7.    Institute leadership and not supervision: This entails each person in a supervisory role to be a coach and a teacher and not an overseer or a judge.

8.    Drive out fear:  This involves encouraging employees to work in the interest of the organisation. A lecturer with new teaching innovations should be applauded, even if it a failure. Efforts should be made to drive fear out of students. This will benefit students in performance and attitude.

9.    Break down barriers:  This entail encouragement and cooperation. Cross function teams should be formed to address problems and process improvements. Bringing everyone in on decision process will usually result in a better and an easy-to-accept solution.

10. Avoid obsession with goals and slogans: It is believed that process make mistakes, not people. Management harassment of workers will create bad relations if no effort made to improve the processes. Just telling someone to do well is meaningless without the means to achieve that goal. This entails the improvement, by management, of the processes so that the goals can be achieved. (Stating that 80% is the minimum acceptable score in an examination will not by itself achieve the goal. Stating that goal and then providing excellent teaching, arranging for study teams, giving extra help where needed etc., will give the students a much better chance for success).

11. Eliminate numerical target: Numerical targets is not obvious in academics unlike on the assembly line. Therefore, numbers one priority should be quality, thereafter the question of quantity should be addressed.

12. Remove barriers to pride of workmanship: Pride is a motivator.  For instance, If students are included in some decision making processes, they will develop a strong pride of ownership that can impact their attitude. Also a secretary who is allowed to choose how the work is to be done and has a say in some administrative decisions that affect secretarial work will be a much more productive and a happy worker.

13.  Organisation-wide involvement:  There should be self improvement and education for all. This implies that everyone in the institution must be included in education process and be aware of and concerned for their immediate ‘customer’. A secretary who learnt about new office technique and technology is more likely to suggest improvements to the process that he/she is exposed to.  According to Winn (1998), one cannot predict just what piece of knowledge will spark the idea that will lead to a significant process improvement.

14. Define management’s responsibilities to make it happen: The implication of this is that management (at every level, but particularly, at the very top) must take and show pride in adopting the TQM philosophy.

5.3         BENEFITS OF TQM TO HIGHER EDUCATION

To improve quality in educational and administrative components of institutions of higher learning, these institutions should embrace TQM as an all encompassing method to achieve these objectives.  A good understanding of TQM and the ability to adapt it to unique college/university environments is a necessity towards improving quality. TQM will help colleges/universities to provide better service to their customers (students, parents, potential employers etc.). A properly implemented TQM will result into positive and substantial reward in respect of continuous and rapid improvement in cost, quality service, lead time and flexibility.

At any rate, the specific competitive benefits of TQM in terms of market share and customer loyal are very substantial. A basic assumption and exciting discovery in TQM is the cost of doing business is lower when the quality is high. According to Philip Crosby,  ‘you can eventually save more money through high quality as you can charge high price, gain market share while avoiding fixing faults, customer rejection and complaints’. This is also applicable to operators in higher education.

6.1         CONCLUSIONS

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a powerful management tool and it can be a powerful tool in the educational setting even though it was developed with manufacturing processes in mind. TQM can be regarded as a bridge between the vision and business strategy of an institution, and collection of activities and actions that will bring that to fulfilment. The end products of TQM are efficient operations, customer satisfaction and repeat patronage, increase in market share, and the achievement of the growth strategy.

A Paper Presented at Spinnaker College, Portsmouth, United Kingdom