title: Total quality management: A framework for quality improvement in Arab manufacturing companies
Creators: name: Zwet, Aisha
Publisher: name: The University of East London
Year: 2017

description: Total  Quality 
Management
(TQM),  has  been  accepted  globally  as  a  management 
philosophy and practice to improve quality.
However, only
limited empirical studies have 
been carried out in manufacturing SMEs in the Gulf countries.
The primary concern for 
the manufacturing 
SME
s in the 
Middle East
who
want to compete 
in the global market 
is 
that many competitors have been involved in quality improvement programs for decades 
which initially give them a competitive edge. These companies have already developed 
the  top  management  commitment,  infrastructure  and  other  resources  needed  to  sustain 
continuous improvement (CI) practices. 
Manufacturing companies in the 
Middle East, on the other hand, have until recently often 
lacked  the  knowledge  and  skills 
essential
to  develop  and  implement  a  total  quality 
program, hence struggle to improve the quality management system in comparison to the 
manufacturing  companies  in  the  west.    There  are  many  reasons  for  this  wide  gap.  The 
causes include education, amount of time and capital spent on research on total 
quality 
management (TQM) and other quality management models, limited use of variety quality 
control  lean  tools  and  techniques,  limited  access  to  information  and  communication 
technology,
low  labour  productivity  and  a  variety  of  other  social  cultural  issues  that 
impede  productivity  and  efficiency.    This  research  investigates  the  actual  causes  of 
difficulties  in  implementing  and  adopting  TQM  and  CI  practices  that  challenge  the 
manufacturing 
SMEs
in the Gulf region in terms of quality management. 
The  research  was  designed  to  identify  the  current  level  of  TQM  implementation  in 
manufacturing SMEs 
in the Gulf 
States
and 
investigate the TQM and CI Parameters that 
affect  the  performance  of  the  companies  and  to  identify  barriers  that  stop  them  from 
implementing  TQM  in  their  company.  The  main  objectives  were  to  determine  the 
influencing factors and response to 
TQM implementation within manufacturing SMEs.
A
first 
stage 
empirical
analysis  was  carried 
out  to  establish  the  current  state  of  quality 
initiatives and identify the current level of knowledge regarding TQM and 
critical success 
factors 
in manufacturing
SMEs
.
in the 
Middle East
.
The main findings of the research include the impact of TQM practice on 
manufacturing 
SMEs  in  the 
Middle  East
,  identification  of  critical  success  factors  to  implement  TQM 
effectively, 
establishing   the   impact
of   demographic 
characteristics   on
TQM   and 
significant and 
positive
effect 
on relationships
such as 
education and 
training, employee 
participation
,
customer satisfaction and management commitment.
Based on the empirical findings a 
TQM framework 
was developed
that is more suitable 
for  Arab  SMEs 
to  improve  the  quality  management  and  business  performance.
The 
contribution to knowledge in this research is the development of a 
framework to combine 
selected  CI  tools  that  suit  the  Arab  manufacturing  SMEs  and  that  will  improve  the 
productivity,  lead  time,  customer  satisfaction,  low  cost,  quality  product  and  employee 
skills.
The proposed TQM model was validated through a second stage empirical analysis.