The word quality tends to describe the characteristics of a thing or phenomenon in business it can be simply described as the characteristics of a product/service or business operations according to the set standards of measurement. Today’ would say that quality of a product or service lies in the eyes of customer or consumer. It is because a product that one might get as the high quality offering the other may perceive it is not a quality product and behind this perception and customer satisfaction, there are many factors like income, lifestyle etc. The discussion of quality in business does not just is around offered product or service but the overall process of business is also included.
So for measuring the quality of business offerings and business operations the concept of quality management or total management is applied. Implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM) System in a business ensures the delivery of quality product and production of maximum possible output by effective and efficient use of all available resources. There are different tools of TQM and implementation of these tools ensures the quality of business process and set this quality as a competitive advantage of the organization from other competitors. Further Quality management tools identify the area of changes in process in order to manufacture a quality product and a quality business operation for effective and efficient use of resources. The TQM system works on Six Sigma approach with the same goal of ensuring the quality of delivered services and products.
Principles of quality management vary business to business as the business industry and size changes; there are different quality management principles for small businesses than for MNC’s or global organizations. But the purpose of implementing quality management approach remains same for all businesses with a few changes;
- Identifying the areas of weakness in term of quality in both the business operations and business offerings (products or services)
- Improving those areas of weakness to increase quality and reduce wastage of material and resources that will automatically cut the cost as well
- To meet the criteria of quality in quality management it is required to opt changes in both the human resource and other infrastructure of the business.
- Setting quality goals that will ultimately provide direction to the quality management process.
Another common approach by small and large businesses to use quality management system is to acquire the benefits of TQM by improving each aspect of business performance. There are two key benefits of developing, designing and implementing the quality management system that each business wants to avail;
- Setting a quality standard for the prospective customer that will eventually give the company a competitive advantage over competitors of being the quality product provider or improving the quality standards of offering (product or service) to meet the market challenges by delivering quality products.
- Improving operations of the business in all aspects that ensures the effective and efficient use of input to produce maximum output with the possible minimum cost.