Total Quality Management Training

The first step in Total Quality Management training is to ensure that employees not only understand the corporate mission, vision, and brand, but also that they comprehend their individual roles in implementing the mission, vision, and brand of the companies at which they are employed. In order for the whole to succeed, each component must perform at the highest possible potential. Strategic Total Quality Management (TQM), defined as an awareness and maintenance of superior standards in all phases of the organization, requires that each unit of a corporation exerts the same effort toward maintaining high standards which eventually produce a superior product, thereby benefiting the whole.

While corporate CEOs and governing boards are ultimately responsible for ensuring that companies produce at optimum performance and consistency, they rely on individual employees who undergo Total Quality Management training to implement corporate policies and procedures. The integrity of both employer and employee determine a company's overall compliance. "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the hear; With good will doing services, as to the Lord, and not to men:" (Ephesians 6:5-7).

In manufacturing; institutions of higher learning; city, state, and federal governments; scientific and research industries; and other public and private sectors, owners and managers are concerned that their organizations consistently produce at optimum levels -- whether the end product is an automotive part, a college student, or a disease-resistant hybrid tomato. Implementation and certification of quality management systems helps to ensure both product consistency and safety. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, which brought mass production and the mechanization of labor, producing consistent products was nearly impossible. While skilled craftsmen and artisans worked to create superior goods, they were unable to consistently duplicate them without defects. With the advent of machinery, which could duplicate and mass produce items in large quantities, manufacturers could finally control the integrity of goods.

In the late 1800s, automotive pioneer, Henry Ford, was one of the first to introduce control systems in manufacturing cars with greater consistency via the assembly line. Ford was concerned that automotive design would become standardized, so that each car would be identical to the preceding one. He stressed the necessity for each automotive part, from the smallest cog to the chassis, to be manufactured to high standards; and that each assembly line employee understood the importance of performing the job to the best of their ability. The rudiments of Total Quality Management training became vital to the operation of mass produced goods, implemented by inspection departments designated to detect flaws and defects before goods could reach mass consumer markets.

The U.S. Armed Forces adopted Total Quality Management training principles after World War II and began implementing systems controls to ensure quality was imbedded in each sector of the military from the least ranking serviceman to the chief commanding officer. Due to public health and safety concerns, the medical field also implements TQM training to ensure the safety of patients and prevent malpractice suits and liability. NASA space programs enforce TQM systems to standardize and safeguard procedures for preparing astronauts, training ground crews, and more importantly, establishing guidelines for the production of space vehicles and scientific equipment, such as heat shields on space shuttles, satellites, and monitoring devices.

Consumers worldwide have grown to expect the highest standards in consumer goods and services. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the agency watch dog for goods and services manufactured for human consumption; and is responsible for protecting the welfare of the American consumer against the production of inferior, faulty, contaminated or dangerous foods, medicines, and other goods. Because of a global concern to produce superior products consistently and efficiently, Quality Management has become an industry in itself. Individuals who work to standardize and monitor production must be educated and complete continued total quality managment training to help keep corporations and manufacturing industries compliant.

The certification of Quality Management systems in manufacturing, healthcare fields, and government include annual evaluations and audits of established policies and procedures, including training and qualifying personnel; identifying and tracing products throughout all stages of production; maintaining and monitoring inspection and test equipment; validating established processes to ensure their effectiveness; implementing processes to control and dispose of defective products; handling, storing, distributing and installing products; and implementing proper procedures for documenting, purchasing, and servicing products and equipment. Domestic and foreign corporations have ethical and moral responsibilities to citizens of the world to produce products which adhere to government regulatory agency standards.

Government regulatory watch dogs, such as the FDA, regularly conduct audits and evaluations in manufacturing, government, and services industries to certify management systems in every sector which affects the American public. Without such regulatory agencies, the public would fall prey to unscrupulous manufacturers who produce inferior goods, which have the potential to cause sickness, injury, or death. Nothing illustrates the importance of the certification of Quality Management systems than recent news reports of beef recalls across the nation. Billions of pounds of diseased meat had entered the nation's food chain, with the potential of causing serious illness and death. Other global concerns regarding contaminated food imports, dangerously faulty toys, and fake medicines manufactured in China have made certification of Quality Management systems paramount in the U.S. TQM training at every level of production ensures that businesses and industry remain viable and competitive and that consumers can be protected from unsafe products on the market.

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