Attitudes toward TQM seem to be mixed recently. The well publicized success stories of companies such as Motorola, Xerox, or GE contrast with the increasing number of enterprises renouncing the idea of investing in total quality, mainly due to the incorrect understanding of TQM and/or the complexity of its implementation. But many researches have proved benefits of TQM. First of all, we need to have the correct understanding of TQM and realize how to effectively implement TQM. In order to practice TQM effectively, a TQM organization must periodically diagnose and assess its quality management practices. Actually there are a few tools that can be modified for this purpose.
In this thesis, we present an assessment model for diagnosing the effectiveness of quality management practices, and examine the suitability of the model by comparing to the prior assessment models through a case study. In addition, we identify some weaknesses of quality management practice in the case company and suggest the effective practice alternatives for those areas.
The major contributions of this study are as follows: first, we present a new assessment model for direct diagnosis of the TQM practices. Our model includes all the detailed implementation issues so that we can identify the strengths and weaknesses of a company's TQM implementation. Second, we show how to assess quality management system by applying the model to an aircraft manufacturing company, which has implemented TQM from the late 1992. In doing so, we provide a guiding example of TQM assessment. Third, the assessment model establishes a basis for subsequent research by the comprehensive coverage of all the important aspects of TQM implementation. Furthermore, it provides a sense of the relative effectiveness and efficiency of quality management practices which managers would like to know.
