TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

INTERNAL COMPONENT I
TOPIC: Quality Management in Banking Industry
NAME: Venika Malik
PRN: 15021021144
BATCH: 2015-18

What is 'Total Quality Management - TQM'

Total Quality Management (TQM) is the continuous process of reducing or eliminating errors in
manufacturing, streamlining supply chain management, improving the customer experience, and
ensuring that employees are up-to-speed with their training. Total quality management aims to
hold all parties involved in the production process accountable for the overall quality of the final
product or service.

Primary Principles of Total Quality Management

TQM is considered a customer-focused process and aims for continual improvement of business
operations. It strives to ensure all associated employees work toward the common goals of
improving product or service quality, as well as improving the procedures that are in place for
production. Special emphasis is put on fact-based decision making, using performance metrics to
monitor progress. High levels of organizational communication are encouraged, for the purpose
of maintaining employee involvement and morale.

Industries Using Total Quality Management

While TQM originated in the manufacturing sector, its principles can be applied to a variety of
organizations. With focus on long-term change over short-term goals, it is designed to provide a
cohesive vision for systemic change. With this in mind, TQM is in many industries, including,
but not limited to, manufacturing, banking and finance, and medicine.
The techniques can be applied to all departments within an organization as well. This helps
ensure all employees are working toward the goals set forth for the company, improving function
in each area. Involved departments can include administration, marketing, production and
employee training.

BANKING INDUSTRY
The banking sector is the section of the economy devoted to the holding of financial assets for
others, investing those financial assets as leverage to create more wealth, and the regulation of
those activities by government agencies.
Holding of Financial Assets
This is the core of all banking, and where it began though it has expanded far beyond the days
of holding gold coins for Holy Land pilgrims in exchange for promissory notes. A bank holds
assets for its clients, with a promise that the money may be withdrawn if the individual or
business needs said assets back. Avoiding devastating bank runs that could destroy the sector as a
whole is why banks are required to maintain at least 8% of their book values as actual money.
Using Assets as Leverage
Traditionally, banks leverage the money in their vaults as loans, earning money from the interest
rates charged on those loans. The great contradiction of banking is that almost all of a bank's
actual money is nowhere near its vaults, meaning that its true value is only paper, yet that paper
value is what grows the economy.
The banking sector has always attempted to diversify its risks by investing as widely as possible;
this prevents an unexpected loan default from sinking the entire bank. However, this can cause
other problems. If an bank had invested in the aluminum futures market and had a vested
interest in increasing its value, it could simply prevent the aluminum from being sold to industry
and drive up that value. This could have a knockback effect on industry and disrupt the economy,
which the banking sector should avoid at all costs.
That is not a random example. Goldman Sachs did exactly that from 2010-2013, and it avoided
regulation to prevent this sort of market manipulation by moving the aluminum from warehouse
to warehouse within the regulatory limit. It also owned the warehouses, located in Chicago.
Regulation of Banking Activities
Because banks are the underpinning of a modern economy, governments naturally have laws in
place to prevent banks from engaging in dangerous activity that threatens the economy; these
laws are often enacted after hard financial lessons, such as the creation of the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation in 1933 after the bank panics of the previous 50 years. However, such
laws are campaigned against by banks and are sometimes removed, and this has led to history
repeating itself.
The financial crisis of 2008 was created, in part, by several U.S. banks overinvesting
in subprime mortgages, for example. Prior to 2000, there were laws that limited the amount
of subprime mortgages available, but deregulation efforts removed this limitation and permitted
the crisis to happen. It was not the only cause, but it was the tipping point that destroyed
worldwide trust in the banking sector.

The banking sector's core is trust. Without it, no clients would deposit money, and it would be
unable to use that money to give loans, invest, and drive economic growth, and regulation is used
to create that trust.

TQM IN BANKING SECTOR

Due to the emerging need of quality management system implementation in banking industry
now is the time for us to move about "paradigm shift." Our commercial banks must pay attention
to this shift and start thinking strategically for providing high quality products and services to
customers.
Up to date, a few models linking quality management and the banking industry have been
developed. A primary issue of concern is the need for our commercial banks to work perfectly on
the demand of, or response to, its customers' needs.
They should determine where improvement is needed, how service can be improved and where
operating system breakdowns occur, why they occur and how they can be avoided.
Bank managers through the suggested quality models will be able to pinpoint areas where
improvement could be made. Moreover they can manipulate to make bank-wide improvement in
quality performance. This quality improvement is taking place at a revolutionary pace in services
sector.
We now see companies routinely averaging more than one improvement per person per year,
some even approaching one improvement per person per week. This mounting pressure on the
services sector is due to the established fact that a defective product can be replaced but a
defective service may create a permanent damage. Due to this, implementation of total quality
management in services sector is gathering vital status.
TQM ESSENCE: Before implementation, we must look at the meaning of each word of TQM,
TOTAL-Everyone linked with the operations is involved in continuous improvement (including
its customers and suppliers.
QUALITY: Customers' expressed and implied requirements are met fully; and managementexecutives are fully committed. In the service industry customers are more sensitive to service
quality and service delivery than in manufacturing because they are always in contact with frontline service personnel as against factory workers.
These points-of-purchase contact or "moments of truth" decide whether the customer will come
back or shift to the next door competitor. The banking industry, often the biggest service industry
in any country stands to benefit from TQM.

For one basic reason, banks depend on customer satisfaction and loyalty for their survival, but
ironically, very few really pay much attention to the plight of their clients - before, during and
after, sales.
SYSTEM TRAINING: For continual customer satisfaction our commercial banks whether
operated in public sector or run privately should consider starting a total quality management
(TQM) programme to upgrade and improve professional skills of the employees of banking
industry.
A first approach towards implementation of the TQM is skill fully designed training
programmes. First the bank employees should be imparted training on ISO 9000 systems and
cost of quality. These proposed programmes will emphasize the need of excellence in all spheres
of management.
The training should be imparted in two stages i.e., first the employees might be provided with
on-the-job training about total quality management. In the next phase industry-level seminars on
TQM will be conducted at regular intervals and the employees of different public/private sector
banks will be encouraged to attend such seminars.
Educationists from different educational and management development institutions or
management professionals from the industry should be invited at these seminars to present their
views on total quality management.
CUSTOMER SERVICE: Good service in banking logically begins with understanding
customer needs and using these needs to drive the good service or new product development
process.
Instead of solely relying on the marketing research organization to define these needs, team
members should meet with customers to gain a first-hand understanding of their needs.
They will find multiple customer voices for improvement to a single service/product. This task
can be easily managed by using TQM model. These voices of the customers need to be satisfied
that the service/product works reliably as intended.
Understanding banking Customer's voice involved a review of contract requirements, discussions
with operations and marketing personnel responsible for the accounts that had contractual
commitments as well as the discussions with the customer's specific service design personnel.
Voice of product design division provides an insight and support for designing a good service
quality measuring parameter.
PRODUCT ENDORSEMENT: If this model is implemented deftly, it will definitely help to
create and retain those customers who would not only buy but also endorse your products and
services.

Customers are the best salespeople because they are users of your products. Their desire to
endorse them to their friends comes from the sincere delight and surprise. The company's
salesmen are the least credible endorsers because customers know they want to meet quotas and
earn commissions.
The best quality strategy is to develop life-long customers by continuously delighting and
surprising them ahead of the competition. To gauge the success in TQM, ask yourself this
question.
NEW TECHNOLOGY: Bank management commitment to TQM is a commitment to process
innovation. Better known as reengineering, it is the revitalization of why we do things the way
we do them and how we need to change. The result of process innovation is clear.
Excess capacity is one that results in ability to handle additional customers or additional volumes
from existing customers without degrading service levels. Another result of process innovation is
better customer service.
Because technology empowers individuals, they can make the types of decisions that result in
satisfied customers who talk about the quality service they received.
Finally, process innovation, whereby the bottom levels on the companies organizational charts
tell top management how things really should be done, allows processes to be moulded to more
closely shape the needs of customers.
CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT: A bank applying quality management practices can
track as goals and benchmarks those that matter to the customer: e.g.
(1) processing times of key products and services, like loans, new accounts, ATM cards, credit
cards, cheque encashment;
(2) waiting times like downtime and queuing time;
(3) customer complaints, written or verbal;
(4) friendliness and efficiency;
(5) accuracy and timeliness of statements of accounts and records;
(6) effective interest rates, inclusive of all service and hidden charges;
(7) promptness in responding to customer inquiries such as in answering the phone, the number
of rings before phone is picked up, and number of transfers before the caller talks to the right
person.

(8) lost customers and accounts.

CONFIGURATION AUDIT: These service indices are as subject to audit regularly and
conscientiously as the bank internal auditors audit cash flows, transactions, and balances.
This can be accomplished easily by working on configuration management principles and
standards for audit and control (functional configuration management, physical configuration
management). Bank auditors equipped with standards and stopwatches, regularly check branch
performance in terms of quality, service, cleanliness, and value.
They make sure all branches have the same consistency in product and service quality. In other
words, the customers will not have any "surprises". Contrast this to banks, whose service quality
differs by branch, location, and branch managers.
To aggravate the problem, head office rates and promotes branch managers based on the sheer
business the branch generates: loans released, interest earned, and deposits generated; they are
seldom evaluated on customers satisfaction, service, and complaints, most banks therefore do not
have a system to handle errors or customer complaints.
QUALITY MODEL: The quality model that can effectively be used in banking for value added
services is "value analysis". This comprises of method study, work measurement and job
evaluation.
Value analysis (VA) is a flexible quality and productivity improvement model implemented in
two parts primary and secondary value analysis of banking products and services.
VA identifies errors caused by employees during their operations followed by identification of
appropriate corrective/preventive action to eliminate service deficiencies.
CYCLE TIME REDUCTION: Likewise bank can improve total customer satisfaction by
investigating well-known manufacturing methodologies as cycle time reduction (CTR), coupled
with the detection of defects using specified ISO guidelines with the help of empowered teams,
would result in significant improvements in process timeliness, cash management and customer
loyalty and satisfaction.
Identifying defects using ISO guidelines: Customers who initiate electronic/manual funds
transfers call their banker and then fax. phone or mail in requests to have the transaction
processed.
Because of complication of the process. Customers complained. Most of the complaints lodged
with the department dealt with the time it took to complete the process.

Once bank- employees had identified the primary obstacles preventing them from achieving total
customer satisfaction, they would be able to correct the problems with the said guidelines. These
are achieved using simple tools such as the Pareto chart.
BANKING PROCESS FLOW: As far as the banking services like granting letters of credit,
buying and selling foreign exchange, underwriting and dealing in stocks etc. are concerned,
work-flow (process) mapping is one of the fastest ways to lower errors, increase productivity.,
and affect customer service.
It generally follows steps:
(A) choose a service process.
(B) Assemble a team.
(C) Map out the work to be done. Diagram each step, showing decision branches, time spent, any
distances travelled or people contacted, and other important aspects of the work.
(D) Identify problem areas.
(E) Brainstorm solutions. Identify all possible action steps for each problem area, without
evaluating them.
(F) Evaluate action steps. Set up a set of "final" action consensus.
(G) Assign responsibilities.
(H) Create a master plan. Summarize who has responsibility for what actions and the deadlines.
(I) The meetings are useless without appropriate follow-through.
To put it briefly in banking industry our major concern should always be to create satisfied
customers. Hence, all required systems, objectives, and measurements are designed revolve
around this TQM paradigm.
Total Quality Management (TQM) emphasises a management approach to long-term success
through customer satisfaction. In a TQM effort, all members of an organisation participate in
improving processes, products, services and the culture in which they work. The primary
elements of TQM are: Customer-focused, total employee involvement, process-centred,
integrated system, strategic and systematic approach, continual improvement, fact-based
decision-making, and communications.
TQM is now accepted and adopted by many firms around the world as a management philosophy
that embodies a set of generic core principles which are unconstrained by industry unique
considerations. Soft aspects of TQM such as leadership, customer focus, empowerment,

involvement and cultural elements of TQM have facilitated a more successful and beneficial
implementation of TQM in the service industry especially banks. Due to emerging need of
quality management implementation in the financial service industry, now is the time for us to
make a paradigm shift. Banks and financial service firms must pay attention to this shift and
start developing strategies for providing high quality products and services to customers and
create continuous customer delight.
Banks need to determine where improvement is needed, how services can be improved and
where business process interruptions occur, why they occur and how they can be avoided. A
recent study showed that the level of TQM practices and quality performance are not
significantly different between manufacturing and service sectors except for human resource
management, in which service firms show a significantly higher score.

Financial institutions have been facing an unprecedented competition these days. Banks and any
other type of financial service providers are now interested more than before in adopting TQM
techniques and tools to survive and excel. Banks benefit tremendously from TQM
implementation for the mere fact that their success depends on superior customer experience.
High quality service in banks starts with understanding customers needs and using these needs
to devise the good service or new product development process.

The key banking services that need to be regularly evaluated for quality improvement are:
1. Processing time of key products and services e.g., loans, new accounts, ATM cards, credit
cards, cheque encashment;
2. Waiting times like down time and queuing time;
3. Customer complaints, written or verbal;
4. Friendliness and efficiency;
5. Accuracy and timeliness of statements of accounts and records;
6. Effective or transparent interest rates, inclusive of all service and hidden charges;
7. Promptness in responding to customer inquiries such as answering the phone, the number of
rings before phone is picked up, the number of transfers before the caller talks to the right person
and
8. Lost customers and accounts.

There are several techniques that need to be implemented to ensure that TQM implementation is
being effective, one of which is expanding the role of banks internal auditors to evaluate
performance in term of quality, service, cleanliness and value rather than limiting their function
to only checking cash flows, transactions and balances.
Secondly, quality models could be employed such as value analysis which evaluates processes
based on value addition to the bank through method studies, work measurement, and job
evaluation.
Thirdly, banks can ensure proper quality system implementation by using the well-known
manufacturing methodology Cycle Time Reduction (CTR) coupled with identifying defects
using ISO guidelines.
In order to implement TQM in an environment, new changes have to take place and people of the
organisation have to commit to those changes. In a survey of 160 branch managers of banks in
England, interviewed managers regarded communication and management style to be the two
most significant issues to be changed to enable an effective TQM implementation. In other
words, managers ought to be able to communicate their message throughout the organisation
effectively.
A question is often asked as to what effect TQM implementation could have on the performance
of financial institutions. Many studies answered this question with consensus that TQM raises
quality awareness among management and staff. In turn, this awareness reflects positively on
customer satisfaction with the quality of financial product introduced and the way it is delivered
by the individual employees. Findings of several studies on TQM implementation within the
financial service organisations indicated a positive link between quality, profitability, costeffectiveness and teamwork.
Responsibility of leadership in any industry is to maximise shareholders value primarily by
ensuring growth in net income. Two routes to profit growth in any organisation are: a) costefficiency, and b) revenue maximisation. Actually, sales come long before cost becomes relevant.
Life blood of any business is sales and the price which is determined alone by the customers.
Excellent service not only brings the profit growth for today, it also ensures higher revenue
streams for future with customer loyalty.
Management participation and leadership are critical to building a service quality culture. As
Philip Crosby, a renowned quality specialist says: he does not want commitment from the top
leadership; he wants participation. To ignite the explosion of quality leadership in a company,
management needs to reposition TQM from a secondary to a primary management role, to be a
precise centre of the plate.
There is no exhaustive list for a leader to drive change for quality. Important considerations
should include:
a) Incorporate quality into the banks strategic plan,

b) Issue a policy stressing the importance of quality, the commitment of the organisation to
quality improvement, and everyones responsibility for improvement,
c) Selecting the right resources, empowering, treating and training them very well. A satisfied
employee with the right attitude and training is the first condition of a satisfied customer,
d) Adopting quality measuring tools and ensuring continuous evaluation through audits
e)Harnessing the culture of change.
Edward Furash, former chairman of the Bank of America Corp felt bank management must have
three critical characteristics:
i) a style of doing business that makes customers feel the bank is something special;
ii) a management process that is systematic and transferable from region to region, bank to bank,
and department to department;
iii) a management style that also balances individual and unit freedom, creativity, and incentive
with central control of risk, quality, and efficiency.
After identifying the need for change, committing to a customer-driven focus on service and
gaining top management commitment, a bank must assess:
a) What its customer needs,
b) the gap between the required service level and the existing service level in the organisation.

Customer and employee research is critical. After gathering the information, the bank can use the
information and can begin to formulate a strategy for total quality improvement.
A bank has to clearly examine the nature of each product offered to their customers. A needidentification programme conducted prior to the conceptualisation of the product will make the
idea clear about the nature of the need the market has. Fine tuning the product of the bank in
accordance with that must be a continuous process. Levels of freedom in decision making
available at the local level and at the levels of individual branches may vary from bank to bank
and its a problem in this respect. But they should be able to convey their findings and
suggestions and these suggestions must be considered when a centralised policy on product
designs is arrived at.
A convenient and problem solving product will get faster acceptance in the market. Continuous
feedback mechanism will be useful in fine tuning it from time to time. This will help in
improving the profitability of the bank and will accelerate organisational growth.
With the market becoming increasingly competitive and clients becoming more demanding,
banks and financial institutions in Bangladesh also have to focus on the `wow factor more than
the past and continuously focus on a differentiation strategy through better service, process reengineering, technology updating, product development and a winning relationship between
employees and the clients. As Subir Chowdhury says- True Quality is a combination of People
quality and Process quality.

ELABORATION OF THE MODEL

The Effective Role Of Leader
Branch Manager is the leader, responsible for the smooth running of day to operations and also
for the business growth at branch level. He should present himself as a dedicated and committed
role model to be followed by other staff members. He should be able to motivate staff for quality
services
Account Opening Department
The Officer Incharge of Account Opening Department is responsible of opening new accounts
and activating the dormant ones. He should be able to serve the customers promptly, should
make the account opening process the pleasant experience
Accounts Department
The Officer Incharge of Accounts Department is responsible for book keeping (profit / loss
accounts, accruals, depreciations etc.) of the branch transactions and also for budgetary aspects.
He should be able to base his work on facts which means having more realistic approach towards
branch activity and business growth.

Remittances (Inwards And Outward), Clearing And Collections (Inward And Outward)
The Officer Incharge of Remittances Department is responsible for processing customers
requests for funds transfer. He should be able to maintain efficient documentation. Should
concentrate on speedy and error free processing.
Cash Department
The Officer Incharge of Cash Department is responsible for cash receipts and payments. He
should be able to serve customers with smiling face and due courtesy, should process cash
receipts and withdrawals accurately and efficiently, makes additional arrangements on cash tills
in case of long queue.
Term Deposits Issuance & Encashment
The Officer Incharge of Term Deposits is responsible for the issuance and encashment of Term
Deposits. He should be able to process the applications timely, exercise due vigilance while
disbursing profit on deposits, works on the processes and procedures to lessen the time required
for the issuance and encashment of term certificates.

BARRIERS TO TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT IMPLEMENTATION

TQM is management philosophy that seeks to integrate all organizational functions (marketing,
finance, design, engineering, production, customer etc) to focus on meeting customer needs and
organizational objectives.TQM views an organization as a collection of processes. It maintains
that organizations must always strive to continuously improve these processes by incorporating
the knowledge and experiences of workers.
Implementation of Quality
The implementation of total quality is similar to that of other decentralized control methods. In
developing TQM, companies need to understand how consumers define quality in both goods
and services offered. If a company pays more attention to quality in its production processes,
fewer problems are bound to occur when the product is in the customers hands. Management
should make a commitment to measure the performance of a product relative to its quality
through customer surveys, which can help managers to identify design, manufacturing or any
other process that has a bearing on the quality of a product or service, and therefore provide an
opportunity for continuous improvement.
An obstacle is an object, a thing, an action or a situation that causes an obstruction. Obstacles can
be physical, social, economic, technological or political. There are a number of barriers that face
the process of TQM implementation.
Discussed below are some of the barriers or obstacles that total quality management face during
implementation. Most scholars who have researched on the subject choice to focus on the
specific industries like the construction, Agriculture e.t.c and specific economies. What we came
up with are general barriers that are likely to cut across the economic board.

1. Competitive markets
A competitive market is a driving force behind many of the other obstacles to quality. One of the
effects of a competitive market is to lower quality standards to a minimally acceptable level. This
barrier to quality is mainly a mental barrier caused by a misunderstanding of the definition of
quality. Unfortunately, too many companies equate quality with high cost. Their definition leads
to the assumption that a company cant afford quality. A broader definition needs to be used to
look at quality, not only in the companys product, but in every function of the company. All
company functions have an element of quality. If the quality of tasks performed is poor,
unnecessary cost is incurred by the company and, ultimately, passed to the customer. TQM
should work by inspiring employees at every level to continuously improve what they do, thus
rooting out unnecessary costs. Done correctly, a company involved with TQM can dramatically
reduce operating costs. The competitive advantage results from concentrating resources (the
employees brainpower) on controlling costs and improving customer service.
2. Bad attitudes/abdication of responsibility/management infallibility
The competitive environment, poor management practice, and a general lack of higher
expectations have contributed to unproductive and unhealthy attitudes. These attitudes often are
expressed in popular sayings, such as Its not my job and If I am not broke, dont fix it. Such
attitude sayings stem from the popular notion that management is always right and therefore
employees are only supposed to implement management decisions without questioning.
Lethargy is further propagated through managements failure to train employees on TQM
fundamentals that build better attitudes by involving them in teams that identify and solve
problems. Such training can transform employees from being part of the problem to part of the
solution. This will foster motivation and creativity and build productive and healthy attitudes that
focus employees on basic fundamentals, such as: keep customer needs in mind, constantly look
for improvements, and accept personal responsibility for your work.
3. Lack of leadership for quality
Excess layers of management quite often lead to duplication of duty and responsibility. This has
made the lower employees of an organization to leave the quality implementation to be a
managements job. In addition, quality has not been taken as a joint responsibility by the
management and the employees. Coupled with the notion that management is infallible and
therefore it is always right in its decisions, employees have been forced to take up peripheral role
in quality improvement. As a result employees who are directly involved in the production of
goods or delivery of services are not motivated enough to incorporate quality issues that have
been raised by the customers they serve since they do not feel as part of the continuous process
of quality improvement. Moreover, top management is not visibly and explicitly committed to
quality in many organizations.
4. Deficiency of cultural dynamism
Every organization has its own unique way of doing things. This is defined in terms of culture of
the organization. The processes, the philosophy, the procedures and the traditions define how the
employees and management contribute to the achievement of goals and meeting of

organizational objectives. Indeed, sticking to organizational culture is integral in delivery of the

mission of the organization. However, culture has to be reviewed and for that matter readjustments have to be done in tune with the prevailing economic, political, social and
technological realities so as to improve on efficiency. In adequate cultural dynamism has made
total quality implementation difficult because most of the top level management of many
organizations are rigid in their ways of doing things.
5. Inadequate resources for total quality management
Since most companies do not involve quality in their strategic plan, little attention is paid to
TQM in terms of human and financial resources. Much of the attention is drawn to increasing
profit margins of the organization with little regard as to whether their offers/ supply to
customers is of expected quality. There is paltry budgetary allocation made towards employee
training and development which is critical for total quality management implementation.
Employee training is often viewed as unnecessary cost which belittles the profits margins which
is the primary objective for the existence of businesses and as a result TQM has been neglected
as its implementation may not necessarily bring gains to the organization in the short term.
6. Lack of customer focus.
Most strategic plans of organizations are not customer driven. They tend to concentrate much on
profit-oriented objectives within a given time frame. Little (if any) market research is done to
ascertain the product or service performance in the market relative to its quality. Such surveys
are regarded by most organizations as costly and thus little concern is shown to quality
improvement for consumer satisfaction.
7. Lack of effective measurement of quality improvement
TQM is centered on monitoring employees and processes, and establishing objectives that
anticipate the customer's needs so that he is surprised and delighted. This has posed a
considerable challenge to many companies. Measurement problems are caused by goals based on
past substandard performance, poor planning, and lack of resources and competitor-based
standard. Worse still, the statistical measurement procedures applied to production are not
applicable to human system processes.
8. Poor Planning
The absence of a sound strategy has often contributed to ineffective quality improvement. Duran
noted that deficiencies in the original planning cause a process to run at a high level of chronic
waste. Using data collected at then recent seminars, Duran (1987) reported that although some
managers were not pleased with their progress on their quality implementation agenda, they gave
quality planning low priority. As Oakland (1989) said, the pre-planning stage of developing the
right attitude and level of awareness is crucial to achieving success in a quality improvement
program.
Newell and Dale (1990) in their study observed that a large number of companies are either
unable or unwilling to plan effectively for quality improvement. Although many performed
careful and detailed planning prior to implementation, not one of the firms studied or identified

beforehand the stages that their process must endure.Perhaps the root cause of poor plans and
specifications is that many owners do not understand the impact that poor drawings have on a
projects quality, cost, and time. Regardless of the cause, poor plans and specifications lead to a
project that costs more, takes longer to complete, and causes more frustration than it should.
Companies using TQM should always strive towards impressing upon owners the need to spend
money and time on planning. If management took reasonable time to plan projects thoroughly
and invest in partnering to develop an effective project team, a lot could be achieved in terms of
product performance as these investments in prevention- oriented management can significantly
improve the quality of the goods or services offered by an organization
9. Lack of management commitment
A quality implementation program will succeed only if top management is fully committed
beyond public announcements. Success requires devotion and highly visible and articulate
champions. Newell and Dale (1990) found that even marginal wavering by corporate managers
was sufficient to divert attention from continuous improvement. Additionally, Schein (1991)
reported that the U.S. Quality Council is most troubled by the lack of top management
commitment in many companies.
Lack of commitment in quality management may stem from various reasons. Major obstacles
include the preoccupation with short-term profits and the limited experience and training of
many executives. Duran, for example, observed that many managers have extensive experience
in business and finance but not in quality improvement. Similarly, Bothe (1988) pointed out that
although the CEO does not have to be a quality expert, programs fail when the CEO does not
recognize the contribution these techniques make toward profitability and customer satisfaction.
Top management should, therefore, embrace quality improvement programs no matter how far
reaching the programs may appear the monetary implications therein. Competition alone should
not be considered as the single factor that drives managers into implementing quality initiatives.
10. Resistance of the workforce
A workforce is often unwilling to embrace TQM for a variety of reasons. Oakland (1989)
explained that a lack of long-term objectives and targets will cause a quality implementation
program to lose credibility.

Keys (1991) warned that an adversarial relationship between management and non-management
should not exist, and he emphasized that a cooperative relationship is necessary for success. A
TQM project must be supported by employee trust, acceptance and understanding of
management's objectives .Employees ,therefore, should be recognized by the management as
vital players in the decision making processes regarding to quality improvement as involving
them would have motivating effect on implementation of quality programs.
11. Lack of proper training/Inadequate Human Resource Development

There is evidence that lack of understanding and proper training exists at all levels of any
organization, and that it is a large contributor to worker resistance. Schein (1990), for example,
mentioned that business school failure to teach relevant process skills contributed to manager
ineffectiveness.TQM requires a well-educated workforce with a solid understanding of basic
math, reading, writing and communication. Although companies invest heavily in quality
awareness, statistical process control, and quality circles, often the training is too narrowly
focused. Frequently, Durans warning against training for specific organizational levels or
product lines is unheeded. This has also been underscored by Newell and Dale who argue that
poor education and training present a major obstacle in the development and implementation of a
quality program. . For a company to produce a quality product, employees need to know how to
do their jobs. For TQM to be successful, organizations must commit to training employees at all
levels. TQM should provide comprehensive training, including technical expertise,
communication skills, small-team management, problem-solving tools, and customer relations.
Conclusion and recommendation
The advantages of TQM have been widely discussed, but the challenges of implementation have
received little attention. A quality philosophy is required for the successful implementation of a
quality project. This philosophy must facilitate a long-term lifestyle change for a company.
Commitment of top management is essential. Substantial inflow of resources, adequate training,
workforce participation and effective measurement techniques are some of the key success
factors. A successful TQM program is unique, and it should motivate middle management to
focus on long-term strategies rather than short-term goals.
Teamwork is the key to involvement and participation. Groups should be encouraged to work
closely and effectively, and should focus on quality improvement and customer satisfaction.

All organizations should focus on the following for successful TQM implementation:

i)

Create consistency of purpose toward improvement of the product and service so as to

become competitive, stay in business and provide jobs.

ii)

Cease dependence on mass inspection; require, instead, statistical evidence that quality is
built on.

iii)

Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. We no longer need live with
commonly accepted levels of delay, mistake, defective material and defective workmanship.

iv)

Improve the quality of incoming materials. End the practice awarding business on the basis of
price alone. Instead, depend on meaningful measures of quality, along with price.

v)

Find the problems; constantly improve the system of production and service. There should
be continual rise in productivity and a decrease in costs.

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