Total Quality Management

Total Quality Management

The emergence of the global marketplace demands that a company act on a global scale to be competitive. Competing on this level requires that a company provide a superior product and superior service. Companies desiring to achieve international quality status now have a manufacturing, quality control, and documentation standard in which to strive. ISO 9000 is the implemented international process management baseline for which all participating organizations will adhere.

Standardization appears to be the key to survival in today's domestic and international marketplace. Consumers and businesses alike demand the assurances that the products they purchase from one company are equal in quality to the product they purchase from another. Consumers also demand that every product they purchase from a particular company meet the same specifications as the next. The key to developing this uniformity of standards and quality among and within companies is to establish a set of closely monitored procedures to be followed by all.

The focus on the ISO 9000 and ISO 9001 standard is not on manufactured products, but the process implemented to achieve that product. By certifying a manufacturing and documentation process with the Geneva based International Organization for Standardization, registered companies have realized a dramatic decline in customer complaints and significant reductions in operating costs. This is due to the required certification process. By successfully completing the ISO 9000-registration process, companies can identify and correct processes that are costly and unproductive. This is simply good for business. Additionally, ISO 9000 registered companies, critical of their ISO registered product, demand that their suppliers be ISO 9000 registered.

The ISO 9000 series consist of five standards that fall into two categories. The five standards are ISO 9000-1, ISO 9001, ISO 9002, ISO 9003, and ISO 9000-4. The two categories provide for contractual situations and non-contractual situations.

Contractual elements (ISO 9001, ISO 9002, and IO 9003) have been developed for external quality assurance. Meeting these standards indicate to a customer that a company's quality assurance program is capable of providing a quality product or service. Non-contractual elements, ISO 9000-1 and ISO 9004-1, used as gui...

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...ocess are not what were intended. Employee involvement is crucial. As a process is implemented company wide, employee at all levels will be effected. Their confidence in management and belief that the process will improve all aspects of their position is required if they are to be productive and play a part in the implementation process.

Standardization is necessary in today's global marketplace. Consumers demand better quality products and the assurances that these products are well supported. The standardization of processes and systems is necessary if industry is to meet the consumers' requirements. Developing uniformity among industry is necessary to developing this higher quality standard. Companies not responding to this trend are subject to lost revenues and business failure to their ISO 9000 compliant counterparts.

References

Larson, J. (1999, April 21). ISO certification not just for majors. Arizona Republic, p. E2.

Peach, Robert W. (1997). The ISO 9000 handbook. New York: McGraw-Hill

(1999). The NASA ISO 9000 home page [Online]. Available: http://iso9000.nasa.gov/

(1999). Welcome to ISO easy [Online]. Available: http://www.isoeasy.org/