The Effects of Total Quality Management on Operations Management

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Operations management has been evolving over the past three decades with the introduction of new trends such as total quality management, which attempts to bring best practices to all areas within a company. Operations management can be viewed as encompassing supply chain management, quality management, product and process design, project management, and other topical areas defined as “the design, operation, and improvement of the systems that create and deliver the firm's primary products and services.” (Petersen, Aase, Heiser, 2011). This paper aims to explore the effect of total quality management in the field of operations management by exploring the cultural value, customer satisfaction and overall operational performance.

One of the key advantages total quality management provides to a company is the overall philosophy of focusing on consumer satisfaction as opposed to reduced cost in production by focusing on improving product quality, improvements in processes and additions or improvements to services offered (Baird, Hu, Reeve, 2011; Hung, Lein, Fang, McLean, 2010) but keeping track of customers is not an easy task without the implementation of a customer relationship management tool to assist with transitioning from a product-focused culture into a customer-focused culture. Su, Tasi and Hsu (2010) views a customer relationship management as involving:

[…] activities of cross-functional processes, continuous dialogue with customers, all contact and access points, as well as increasing customer retention and the effectiveness of marketing initiatives. It also involves a set of business processes and overall policies, integrating sales, marketing and customer care services, as well as a coherent and complete set of pr...

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