TQM Implementation in Indian Manufacturing Organizations: A Study

This paper examines the efficacy of Total Quality Management (TQM) program in a leading steel manufacturing company in India. The assessment is done in the light of three key issues i.e., the organization's commitment to TQM, preconditions necessary for successful TQM execution, and the outcome of the TQM initiatives (measured in both tangible and intangible) in the company. It is found that the company has executed a number of TQM tools with a view to continuously improve the quality of work process and the products. Implementation of these tools has bestowed the company with both tangible and intangible returns. Visionary leadership of the top management, unreserved involvement of the middle management, and unconditional espousal of employees have made TQM a successful endeavor in the company. INTRODUCTION Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management approach whose principal tenets are to satisfy customer needs (internal and external) through strategies of employee empowerment and performance measurement (e.g., Milakovich 1991; Garrity 1993; Barzelay 1992; Keehley 1992). The origin of this concept can be credited to the work and writings of the US and Japanese strategists such as Deming (1986), Ishikawa (1985), Juran (1988), and Crosby (1989). Originally experimented in Japan in the 1950s and 1960s, it proved popular in the West in the early 1990s with over 75% of the US Fortune 1000 companies introducing a TQM effort (Lawler, Mohrman and Ledford, 1992). Gradually, it acquired credibility amongst the business organizations across the globe. The most important factors that have contributed to the perseverance and potency of the TQM model in the modern business are: (i) Recognition and demonstration of the importance of "quality" as a source of superior competitiveness (Feigenbaum 1982; Gale and Klavans 1985; Garvin, 1987; Ross and Shetty 1985); (ii) The success of Japanese firms in taking and retaining market share from their Western counterparts (Ghobadian et al. 1998; Powell 1995); (iii) Influence of the" teaching and writings of scholars such as Deming, Juran, Crosby and Feigenbaum,i3 collectively referred to as the 'quality gurus' (Ghobadian and Speller 1994); and* (iv) Introduction of internationally recognized quality awards such as the Deming Prize, and the Malcolm Baldrige, European and Australian Quality Awards (Ghobadian and Woo 1996) (adapted from Gallear and Ghobadian, 2000). Though numerous organizations implement TQM by getting captivated by its approach, philosophy and tools, many have found it extremely challenging to live out the program successfully. They spend millions of rupees on TQM training and consultation. This gigantic spending leads a few of these to despise the use of the acronym TQM, because they have not realized the Return on Investment (ROI) and other paybacks which they had originally estimated (Schmidt, Kiemele and Cheek). Nevertheless, ROI is not the defined end of the TQ program. Total quality aims at several other things including the satisfaction of stakeholders. THE INDIAN SCENARIO With increasing globalization of the Indian economy, steadily but definitely, the winds of quality excellence are blowing across the business organizations. Achieving Deming Awards (termed as the Nobel Prize in the world of manufacturing awarded by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE)) is the end set for many business organizations1. Conversely, post globalization particularly in late 1990s has also seen the manufacturing thrash in the country, and it is affirmed that one of it's reasons is the poor management of quality (Padhi and PaIo 2005). The performance of the Indian steel industry during the last decade, though spectacular, was not altogether unproblematic. The ecstatic developments in the first few deregulation years were cut short when deceleration set in from the autumn of 1997. The external global environment worsened progressively under pressure from a series of financial meltdowns in various parts of the world while our domestic economy also stagnated. …