ISO 9000QUALITY MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES
1. Customer orientation – to understand customer requirements and expectations, to
specify them, to fulfill them and to get feedback about their satisfaction
2. Leadership – to create conditions for people commitment to company objectives
3. Commitment of people – opportunity to participate and include personnel abilities in
company development
4. Process approach – management of activities and related resources as a process
5. System approach – an interrelated and interdependent system of processes
6. Continual improvement – this should be a constant aim for the company (PDCA-
model)
7. Facts and data based decisions – efficient management decisions are based on data
analysis and appropriate information
TQM Principles
TQM slogan: "Doing the Right Thing Right the First Time, All the Time; Always striving for
Improvement & always satisfying the Customer."
Customer Focus
In a TQM approach businesses must understand who their current customers are (and are not),
noting their key needs and requirements and keep these expectations at the forefront of their
strategy and processes. This principle should extend to internal clients, as well, treating
coworkers as customers and satisfying their demands.
Satisfied customers are less likely to switch to a competitor
It costs 5-6 times more to attract new customers as to keep an existing one
94-96% of dissatisfied customers don’t complain
Small increases in customer retention mean large increases in profits
Leadership
Leaders create the environment in which their business operates. They set policy, plan strategy
and launch tactics for staff to execute. All usinesses can take advantage of the necessity for
participative management, as they are more likely to be intimately aware of all facets of their
business and how they interconnect. Managers and owners can educate staff on business
operations, industry developments and market trends, giving them a broader perspective on
what it takes to make the company successful.
Staff Involvement
As leaders set and communicate customer-focused strategy, they become smarter in acquiring
and keeping quality staff. Selecting, training and motivating staff to work together, particularly in
cross-functional teams, enables faster problem identification and resolution, process execution
and overall productivity. In applying TQM, well-trained and motivated employees also have more
control over their work and a greater sense of ownership in the company.
Process Approach
In TQM, a well-informed staff, with a keener sense of what the customer expects, can help
develop a proactive process that builds quality into each stage as they design and deliver
products, rather than trying to catch flaws during post-production inspection, which wastes
resources on potentially defective products.
Statistical Quality Control (SQC)
Business owners can employ Statistical Process Control (SPC) to help make decisions. As the
organization better understands customer demands, these requirements set features for the
product line. Staff and management refine measurements for these features. The team can then
1
continually monitor quality by assessing output against the parameters, halting fabrication in
order to fix the problem when the goods being produced fall outside the acceptable limits.
Supplier Relationships
Businesses can apply these TQM philosophies to suppliers. This will help them understand their
attitudes, values and capabilities, as well as the minimum and maximum variations in the goods
they deliver to the company, to monitor quality and create value across the supply chain.
Companies need support of their suppliers to satisfy their customers
Reduce the number of suppliers
Partnering: a relationship between a company and its supplier based on mutual quality
standards
Continuous Improvement
Continuous improvement is fundamental in TQM. Essentially, in this practice, the business
executes the first six principles continuously. The whole organization, from top leadership to
front-line employee, must commit to the time and effort necessary in making modest gains in the
operations. Rather than launching a revolution in how a company runs, step-by-step changes
initiated by everyone in the organization ultimately convert the business and ingrain the TQM
philosophy into the corporate culture.
PRINCIPLES OF QUALITY IMPROVEMENT
Principles of analysis
1. Analyze from important to less important problems
Start analyzing the most important problem first.
Most important from financial view – where the company loses most (great waste) or where it could profit
most
2. Start from the simple and easy problems
Simple – not complex to organize (for example – in one department)
Easy – all resources are available (for example – people, time, tools, money...)
3. Use objective measurement methods
Tools to collect precise data and reliable facts for real problems and their reasons
4. Use exact methods to process data
Accurate and reliable tools for data processing to receive appropriate information
Principles of assurance
1. Early assurance
Perfect the early stages of the business process or the product life cycle – this will save you money for
correcting deficiencies at the later stages. Provide quality at the pre-production phase – R&D, design,
marketing, HR, planning. For example, the cost for defect correction is 10 times higher at the sales stage
than at the design stage.
2. Customer focus
Direct the quality actions to satisfy the customer – carefully define his requirements and implement
feedback analysis
3. Attack the root cause
Every problem has its causes; they have their causes and so on. To solve the problem one should follow
the causal link and remove the roots cause. In Japan they use so called 5-why analysis, for example.
4. Prerequisite assurance programs
a) connected with people: training, communication, motivation
b) connected with information: data systems for desired quality, normative quality and actual quality
2
Principles of control
1. Prefer preventive to final control
Control the process, not (only) its results.
Correct or reverse the process at early stages if something goes wrong.
2. Make the control a part of the technology
Plan the control points at the stages of production.
Control and production must be at the same technological level (not measure manually the products of
automatic machines).
3. If possible and efficient replace controllers by automats
People make mistakes. Sometimes it is unpleasant or even dangerous to apply people control.
4. Focus control near the source of mistakes, nonconformance or defects.
Apply more control at the early production stages or near the critical deviation points.
5. Apply sorting to control products – when the requirements are very strict or when the level of
deficiencies is very high
6. Use data of previous control
Collect, summarize and process data of previous control to plan the control samples (for example data
from the supplier’s control or data for products previously produced.
7. Use self-control
It is applicable only when all conditions are provided:
- the operator knows the norms (required quality)
- the operator is able to measure the actual quality
- the operator can regulate the process – by settings, repairs...
Principles of organization
1. Breaking to parts
Solve the big problem of quality improvement by dividing it into problems that could be comprehended
and provided with resources for improvement.
2. Act project by project
Do not grip all problems or many problems all at once. Deal with them one by one.
3. Plan the quality projects as you plan the production
Quality control does not interfere the production process, it is a part of it.
4. Complete the quality project to the end
When you start – finish it to the end and keep the new level. Do not let it fail otherwise you will deal with
same problems again and again.