Team “A” Weekly Reflection – Total Quality Management & ISO
Organizations must employ methods and strategies that ensure the highest level of quality in the goods it produces the services it renders to its consumers. Also production of such by its employees must be in an efficient and effective manner. This paper will expand how the application of two methods, total quality management and International Organization for Standardization can improve an organization, the benefits and challenges of each, and the role of the Quality Control department in each.
Jacobs & Chase state that total quality management (TQM) ‘may be defined as ‘managing the entire organization so that it excels on dimensions of products and services that are important to the customer’”. (Jacobs, 2011. p. 286) TQM incorporates the participation of the entire organization to ensure its products and services are being produced and rendered with the highest level of quality possible. Itpromotes parallelism in efficiency and effectiveness by simultaneously and consistently accomplishing customer satisfaction and benefits the organizations stakeholders.
The key goals of TQM are to:
1. Careful design of the product or service.
2. Ensuring that the organization’s systems consistently the design (Jacobs & Chase, 2011, p. 286).
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is a “series of international standards for quality management and assurance designed to help companies document that they are maintaining an efficient quality system” (Jacobs & Chase, 2011. p. 298). ISO standards are strategic tools that promote cost savings in organizations through reductions in waste and errors. “A standard is a document that provides requirements, specifications, guidelines or characteristics that can be used consistently to ensure that materials, products, processes and services are fit for their purpose” (ISO, 2013).
There are a series of standards issued, measures the reliability of goods...