Talk:Total quality management/Archives/2010

Scope of TQM

TQM article refers to its use in government, but where & when has it been used and where can these reports/articles be found?

TQM is not limited in its application

What does this mean? And who makes this claim?

And while we're at it, is "total quality management" a generic term like "software development", or is it "Total Quality Management" (proper noun)? If it's the latter, then who developed it? Who espouses / promotes it? How much does it cost?

How is TQM different from "quality control"?

Most of all, what evidence is there that this is not just another industry buzzword? We're trying to run an encyclopedia here, and people who want to know what TQM is, apart from the hype, will come here to find out. Uncle Ed 13:16, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

TQM is management philosophy, much like scientific management, administrative management, and human relations management. It describes the principles that managers use to run an organization or unit. Quality control generally refers to a function of an organization. TQ

M is a generic term, but it is usually capitalized. I'm not sure why, other than just tradition. Note that Management by objectives is usually capitalized in spite of also being a generic term. TQM is usually credited with being started by W. Edwards Deming, although h e based the principles of TQM off of what he learned from others.

I don't think that he came up with the name "Total Quality Management", but he did use it in the later part of his career (after he came to the U.S.). I think that it has enough credibility to be more than just a buzzword. It's been around in Japan since the 1950s, and it's been in use in the U.S. since the 1980s. It's hard to say what companies have used it since it is a philosophy of operations rather than a specific product. From my understanding, it is quite common in Japan. I know that some well-known U.S. companies that have been credited as using TQM principles have been Xerox and Saturn. --Cswrye 01:17, 28 October 2005 (UTC).

liam (talk) 12:12, 12 June 2008 (UTC) what is TQM exactly?

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Dr. Deming reacted very strongly in a negative manner when anyone attempted to link him with TQM.

"Dr. Deming meets the interpreted Deming... I recall one particular seminar held in California about five years ago. The audience had participated in group discussions and some members of the audience were asked to report on their groups' work in a discussion session. Dr. Deming was sitting on the platform listening to the discussion.

One man began to talk about his organization's total quality management (TQM) program. At one point, he referred to Dr. Deming as the "father of TQM." In reaction to the man's description of TQM, Dr. Deming said, "Where did you hear that? You didn't hear it here!" After repeated comments from Dr. Deming, the man finally realized that he should leave the talking to someone else."

Please see the following sources:

Getting back to Deming

Deming Takes Issue With TQM

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This article includes some very sweeping statements. I would say that is because it has been used in different senses over time. In one, there is a view of quality of a product or service, and how to manage that effectively. As with many other things, some causes of quality issues can be traced to other parts of the organization, and perhaps all of them. This may persuade management that the company needs cross-functional improvement of processes and managing in that way may increase the company's success. Some have used that to proclaim that "TQM" is a panacea. It may be a good way to focus a company's efforts, but so can many other things. I suggest reducing the scope of the article to actual product and service quality issues, perhaps having a section about how it was used as an overarching management philosophy by some companies.Wilhkar (talk) 21:07, 20 February 2010 (UTC)wilhkar

Spam or necessary?

Does anyone else see the attributions and two links to John Stark as useful or link spam? After all, why is an unknown consultant used as the definition reference? Ehusman 01:06, 5 March 2006 (UTC

Suggestion to combine articles

Do it! Lou Sander 15:10, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. The article on Quality Management is actually mainly about Quality Management Systems (QMSs) such as the ISO9000 family. These are related to "quality" in the TQM sense of the word in the same way that meat is related to a healthy balanced diet - i.e. a QMS can form a useful component of achieving quality, but will not do it on its own and can certainly be omitted altogether. The cleverest idea behind QMS was the name, as it promises much more than these systems actually deliver - if ISO9000 had been called "Implementing management systems for encouraging consistent production and rigorous audit" it might not have propagated industry at quite the same rate. (Always remember that ISO operates by inventing standards and then marketing them - that is its raison d'être.) TQM, on the other hand, is indeed very much about promoting quality in the sense that the average Joe understands it. For these articles to be combined in the world's leading encyclopedia IMHO would merely demonstrate the power of marketing over reason.Michael412 21:21, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

You've convinced me. Maybe rename Quality Management as Quality Management Systems, and include some of your insights. Lou Sander 02:22, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

TQM is a engineiring term which is completely different from quality management; it's ridiculous that someone would suggest merging them.

Don't agree with combining them. Quality management is the broad, generic term. TQM is a specific technique for quality management. There are plenty of other techniques, and to suggest they are synonymous is incorrect. They aren't. JB

This article should link to Quality Management Systems, Quality Control, Quality Assurance, but should retain its own identity. Matt Whyndham 17:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

TQM Tools

So now that we know what TQM is, shouldn't we include some of the TQM tools used to empower employees and implement this concept? Some techniques particularly helpful in the TQM effort are:

a) Tools for Generating Ideas: Check Sheet, Scatter Diagram, Cause and Effect Diagram, b) Tools to Organize the Data: Pareto Charts, Flow Charts (Process Diagram), and c) Tools for Identifying Problems: Histogram, Statistical Process Control Chart

Freddy07 21:21, 15 December 2006 (UTC)freddy07

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus to support move. JPG-GR (talk) 00:24, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Per WP:MOS, replace two capitals with lowercase characters. -- Iterator12n ^Talk 20:48, 21 July 2008 (UTC) Below, the disagreement with the proposal boils down to the definition of proper noun. A proper noun has the quality to distinguish one individual (material or immaterial) among a species. The proponents of Total Quality Management would like the reader to believe that TQM is a sharply defined doctrine – it’s not, according to the skeptics. (Skeptics are not necessarily opponents.) With the article’s title undoubtedly remaining as it is, Wikipedia violates WP:NPOV. Never mind. -- Iterator12n ^Talk 17:18, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. Although at first glance this proposal would seem to be in accord with WP:NC#Lowercase, there is an exception where "the title is almost always capitalized in English" and I believe that applies in this case. TQM is the name of a specific business management philosophy popular especially in the 1980s and 90s (in the U.S.) and is more a akin to a proper noun than a descriptive phrase. It seems to be almost always capitalized in the relevant professional literature. Ex: "The term “Total Quality Management” has lost favor in the United States in recent years: “Quality management” is commonly substituted."[1] "In the 1980s to the 1990s, a new phase of quality control and management began. This became known as Total Quality Management (TQM)."[2] Also here Station1 (talk) 03:29, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. TQM is always capitalized. Binksternet (talk) 19:34, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. Agree that it should be capitalised, in terms of the MOS. Andrewa (talk) 01:44, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. The term refers to the title of a particular doctrine. It is not to be read by taking the ordinary meaning of each of the words. It's like a proper noun; it's the name of something. - Richard Cavell (talk) 05:39, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

From the extended nomination above...

the disagreement with the proposal boils down to the definition of proper noun... Well, sort of, but not entirely. But we're here to build an encyclopedia, and splitting hairs on definitions is (sometimes but) rarely productive. My question is, what best describes the article subject, in terms of WP:NC? If our definition of a proper noun doesn't support this, then it's the policy etc that should change. But personally, I still think the definitions etc we're using support the use of caps here.

With the article’s title undoubtedly remaining as it is, Wikipedia violates WP:NPOV. Disagree. I share your skepticism of TQM, having been trained in it and many other similar methodologies over the years. The motivation was great, the facilitators were great (and expensive), the exercises were great, but frankly the team could have used many different methodologies to get the same returns. TQM didn't get too badly in the way and provided a short-term focus to get us working together, and whether the theory had any validity at all didn't affect its success one way or another. It did have some, but it wasn't my place to criticise it, or even to evaluate it. I was being paid (also quite well) just to implement it, and I made it work in my areas of responsibility, as did most of the organisation, and so the bottom line grew for as long as we did.

But that's my POV. I shouldn't now express this POV by trying to bend the naming conventions to reduce the value of this Wikipedia coverage to TQM promoters. Andrewa (talk) 20:43, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

PS Personally I'd call the article TQM, which was its name until 2003, it was the term used in the earliest texts and their titles, and the only one I've heard used except in affected and dramatised contexts. We don't spell out IBM, do we? Andrewa (talk) 21:00, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I can find myself in much of what you write. Funny as it may look at first sight, I'm perfectly happy using the symbol TQM for "total quality management," and it would seem perfectly alright to use the symbol for the name of the article. Cheers. -- Iterator12n ^Talk 21:54, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Another example of a term in lower case characters that produces an uppercase symbol used for an article name is deoxyribonucleic acid > DNA. -- Iterator12n ^Talk 05:28, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Copyedit

I copyedited this article for style and grammar. I am not an expert in business terminology, but I believe that I have understood the original intentions of the article. Please contact me if you would like to question any of my changes. Lovek323 (talk) 04:22, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

possible lifecycle section

It seems like this section adds nothing to the reader's knowledge of the subject, and is out of date since the term is no longer in widespread use. Wilhkar (talk) 20:59, 20 February 2010 (UTC)wilhkar

Irony

I seriously can't be the only person that finds this hilariously ironic. :3 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.112.167.216 (talk) 06:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what is soo "hilariously ironic" about a business concept. Do tell. Dmalsobrook27 (talk) 10:41, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

TQM and Six Sigma

I have added a small section about the difference between Six Sigma and TQM. Feel free to expand on it. I didn't want to add any personal opinion about either (Six Sigma and TQM each excel in different industries). Thanks for your time! Qualityhoney (talk) 05:05, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Major additions

Hi, I apologize for not warning you all before I started making so many changes. I have increased the size of the introduction, added a Historical Overview section, and started a Methods section...plus added a bunch of citations as I went along. Please feel free to add to anything. The methods sections in particular is unfinished. I want it to have the different views of all the main contributors. Let me know if the methods section sounds too much like the individual persons' articles. I felt the information I pulled from each of them was necessary to understanding the TQM. Also, I want to expand the TQM and Six Sigma section. I think it needs more introduction as well. Dmalsobrook27 (talk) 10:32, 14 November 2010 (UTC)