Deming's Quality Management: Unleashing PDCA for Continuous Improvement in Industry - Free Essay

Introduction

Quality management refers to a system that an organization uses to conform to standards, customer expectations, and specifications in a cost-effective way. Quality management is crucial because it increases competitiveness, leads to higher profitability, reduces costs, and increases customer satisfaction. Quality management has four main components, including quality planning, and quality control. Quality improvement and quality assurance. There have been major contributors to quality management. One of the most acknowledged quality masters is Edward Deming (1900-1993).

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Deming's approach to quality management involves creating an organizational system whose main objective is to enhance cooperation, and facilitate the implementation of process management practices. Consequently, these practices will improve product and service quality and the motivation of employees, thus leading to enhanced customer satisfaction. Any business's success depends very much on its customers; therefore, an increase in consumer satisfaction will lead to the firm's success. According to Deming, the top leadership of a company plays a crucial role in quality management; therefore, the top leadership should ensure that the right policies are implemented to ensure total quality management.

Deming theory of quality management highlighted that organization managers should give effective directions on the standards of quality to be achieved during production. He also pointed out the essential aspect of focusing on meeting customers' standards, the creation of teams to solve quality problems, and increasing participation in decision-making among employees.

Principles of Quality Management

He suggested that improving quality management depends on various factors such as leadership, supplier quality management, and control of the quality management system. Deming outlined the 14 principles of quality management. These principles include: developing modern means of training employees on product and service quality, creating purpose in product improvement, adopting a better effective philosophy that solves current quality challenges, eliminating inspection needs by providing products of the right quality, minimizing costs by investing in one supplier, constant improvement of product and services quality, promote effective communication between the management and employees, focus on teamwork by breaking barriers, eliminate work quotas, initiate a vigorous self-improvement program and outline the management commitment to increase product quality and improve productivity. Therefore, according to Edward Deming, a firm's success in quality management depends significantly on the leadership.

Barriers to Quality Management

Deming also outlined the seven main barriers that harm the management's effort to streamline processes to promote quality improvement. These main barriers included high costs due to liabilities, focusing on short-term company success rather than long-term profits, and management mobility leading to high turnover. Therefore, the company has limited chances of utilizing experienced staff and has a huge understanding of its products and its problems, running businesses based on visible figures and the use of traditional appraisal techniques.

Deming's Leadership Idea on Quality Management

Deming's idea that an organization's leadership plays a crucial role in quality system management is correct, and this assertion has been used as a guide in improving quality management in many companies. As aforementioned, total quality management requires organization-wide efforts to enhance and create an environment that allows businesses to improve product quality and productivity to produce high-quality products and services. The core pillar in total quality management (TQM) involves implementing a system that promotes customer satisfaction by the management. Therefore, as Deming asserts, essentially, managers and top leaders have a critical role in increasing quality standards. Deming leadership idea is a key aspect of running modern organizations and the implementation of quality management measures.

Continuous Improvement- PDCA

Continuous improvement is crucial in total quality management; repetitive actions are designed to enhance the capacity of a company to meet quality requirements (Marta 19). The 14 principles mentioned earlier formed the basis of quality management and PDCA (continuous improvement cycle). Deming introduced the PDCA cycle in quality management as a continuous improvement model, which consisted of a logical sequence of four repeated actions (Realyvásquez-Vargas). These are PLAN, which means that companies should plan before implementing changes and use their analysis to predict the results of those changes. Secondly, DO is the actual execution of the plan. Thirdly, STUDY requires that the results are analyzed, and finally, ACT, which means the company should take the initiative to improve the process of quality improvement. When solutions are found to be effective, they are incorporated into the organization.

Deming Cycle Versatile Nature

The Deming cycle is very important in quality management because it is primarily designed to provide solutions to problems and improve quality management by solving quality-related problems. The PDCA has an important strength because of its versatility; therefore, it can be implemented in any business. The PDCA model is highly effective in the implementation of changes in the business, continuous improvement process, process improvement review, and during downtime between different project phases

Effectiveness of PDCA in Industries (Case Study).

A study done to investigate the effectiveness of the Deming cycle in a manufacturing company indicated that the PDCA model was very effective in solving quality problems during the manufacturing of photo frames (Jagusiak-Kocik 20). The study indicated that when measures were put in place, there was a reduction in non-conformities in the products. In step 1, the company identified the problems in quality that occurred during production. After identifying problems, a plan was needed to implement the solutions that aimed to minimize discrepancies during the production process (Jagusiak-Kocik 20). Step 2 entailed the implementation of the plan which involved solving the problems that led to non-conformities. Step 3 entailed checking the impact of solving the problems in quality, and there was a reduction of 60% in non-conformities (Jagusiak-Kocik 22). The final step in the cycle involved making improvements to those solutions used to lead to quality improvement. Therefore, the Deming cycle effectively improved quality; this means that this quality management strategy should be incorporated into companies that wish to make drastic improvements in quality. As Deming had suggested the implementation of PCDA has positive impacts because it reduces costs and quality improvement (Jagusiak-Kocik 21). One can, therefore, conclude that the PDCA model is an important tool in the implementation of quality changes, especially in the manufacturing industry.

Limitations of PDCA

Despite the PDCA method being an effective strategy for quality improvement, it may not work effectively in all organizations due to certain limitations. One of the PDCA limitations is that it requires much effort in terms of resources such as funding and methodological expertise for success. The other limitation of PDCA is that it cannot be used as the only method to achieve total quality management (Reed et al., 250). Therefore, other tools need to be incorporated into the system for success in quality improvement. Moreover, PDCA models may fail if the plan to be executed is poorly done, meaning that the subsequent corrective actions may fail to be fully effective (Reed et al., 252). Moreover, the failure to implement corrective action based on various PDCA cycles may limit quality management interventions' success.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Deming's quality management model has played a crucial role in quality management. His quality management ideas have proven effective for all businesses and organizations regardless of size due to their versatile nature. For instance, many manufacturing industries have used the PDCA model in quality improvement and have recorded positive results. Therefore, Deming's theory on quality management is very effective despite its limitations. Therefore, his ideas should be embraced to improve quality management using a cost-effective model, such as the PDCA.

Works Cited

Jagusiak-Kocik, Marta. "PDCA cycle as a part of continuous improvement in the production company case study." Production Engineering Archives 14.14 (2017): 19-22. https://doi.org/10.30657/pea.2017.14.05

Ngambi, Marcel T., and Ayankeng Godlove Nkemkiafu. "The impact of total quality management on a firm's organizational performance." American Journal of Management 15.4 (2015): 69.

Reed, Julie E., and Alan J. Card. "The problem with plan-do-study-act cycles." BMJ Quality & Safety 25.3 (2016): 147-152. https://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/25/3/147.short

Realyvásquez-Vargas, Arturo, et al. "Applying the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) Cycle to Reduce the Defects in the Manufacturing Industry. A Case Study." Applied Sciences 8.11 (2018): 2181. https://doi.org/10.3390/app8112181