Managing the Four Stages of Tqm: How to Achieve World-Class Performance [Hardcover]

Charles N. Weaver (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1995 | ISBN-10: 0873893115 | ISBN-13: 978-0873893114

CEOs, presidents, or anyone who is leading an organization through a total quality management (TQM) transformation needs a road map. This book is your roadmap. It will help you identify which stage of the TQM journey your organization is in, and what you can do to move it to the next stage of improvement. Continuous improvement and innovation will help capture and expand your markets and are easy to implement when executive leadership knows what to expect. The author identifies and describes the four distinct stages that organizations work through from beginning to end. These stages-traditional, customer awareness, process improvement, and innovation-are key chronological phases necessary for an organization to succeed with TQM. This book reveals new knowledge of team strategies for improving processes-a highly effective tool for optimizing any organization-and easy-to-use principles that lead to innovation. Weaver also explains the types of training required for TQM, so that companies can conduct a self-assessment of their internal training programs. He also shows companies can conduct a self-assessment of their internal training programs. He also shows how TQM affects organizational structure and manpower requirements and explains how to conduct reengineering so that it is in harmony with TQM. You'll learn how to use employee teams for in-house training of personnel and process improvement. There are many important differences between the four stages of TQM. If you know what to look for, you can know what to plan for. This book will help managers and executive leadership learn what to do to keep the TQM momentum progressing from stage to stage.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 252 pages
• Publisher: Amer Society for Quality (February 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0873893115
• ISBN-13: 978-0873893114
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,585,384 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars TQM and Its Basic Mental Framework, October 6, 2000

By 

Tansu Demir (Springfield, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Managing the Four Stages of Tqm: How to Achieve World-Class Performance (Hardcover)

I think that this book is one of the main sources in TQM. The most important stages for an organization in TQM journey, which are conventional stage, customer-consciousness stage, process improvement stage and lastly innovation stage, are explained and connected to each other in a holistic manner. According to the author,firstly an organization is in conventional stage in which it focuses on itself, its interior structure and procedures entirely and so customers are ignored. Thanks to the stiff competition, the organization finds itself in an arena in which it loses its market share and understand the fact that it did not take care of its customers and produced products and services so far, and decisions at large, regardless of customers' needs and wants. After this second stage, the TQM process , which is a journey that has no stop, begins. In process improvement stage of TQM, all processes in organization are structured in a way that clearly matches the wants of customers for highest quality product and service. Process is defined as series of activities that are clearly defined and interconnected to each other. This stage finishes, but thanks to the innovation and "IN Search of Excellence Mentality" repeats itself forever. This is the framework used in this book.

The traps in Total Quality Management process are indicated clearly and suggestions made. As an approach that equally emphasizes technical, administrative and social sides of organizations, TQM is regarded as a human-focused philosophy. The importance of human resources in TQM process is stressed repeatedly in the context of process improvement teams consisted of employees who have direct and profound information about the process functioned

Overall, I highly recommend this book to students who want to learn TQM with its basic philosophy. This book is an excellent chose.