TQM Analysis

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a philosophy some establishments follows which emphasizes that there are 3 principles in order to accomplish great levels in their performance in quality and process.  These 3 principles are: 1. Customer satisfaction, 2. Employee involvement, and 3. Continuous improvement.

1. Customer Satisfaction:
Customer satisfaction has to do with whether a customer's expectations have been satisfied or surpassed regarding the service or product.  These customers not only include external customers but internal customers as well.  Within the category of "Customer satisfaction" there are 5 subcategories to this.  These include: 1. Conformance to specifications, 2. Value, 3. Fitness for use, 4. Support, and 5. Psychological impressions.

• Conformance to specifications: Even though the customer has received the service or product and inspected it, what they are really looking for to judge is an establishment method for how that product or service was conceived.  The product or service being offered must meet any implied performance quality or if it was advertised a certain way, when the customer purchases said product or service it should be up to par with the specification offered.
• Value: One other way that customers judge the quality of a service or product is through its value and whether or not it justifies its price.  Two key players that help determine the value of a product or service is the development process and how the competitive priorities are ranked, specifically "Quality" related to whether they are aiming for low-cost or top quality.  For this to be a success, both must balanced to create value to customers.
• Fitness for use: This means how well the service or product actually fulfills what it was meant for.  Variables a customer may weigh in are how convenient the service is, any special features the product may possess, style, how durable the product is, and whether or not a product is reliable in its performance. 
• Support: Even after a customer receives quality service or product, customers sometimes value how accessible the company is in providing any support should it be needed even after the transaction more so than the quality provided itself.  Customer will become upset should what was advertised on TV or any other medium be misleading,  if there is delayed responses when customer has made warranty claims, or should employees of the company not quickly attend a problem a customer is having or be helpful when the customer brings up an issue with the product.  A company should have a good support system in place after a transaction has occurred, this helps create goodwill among their customers and they will likely come back to purchase more products or services that are offered.
• Psychological Impressions:  More often than not, customers make prejudgments over a product or service's quality dependent upon their psychological impression.  Factors that play into this can be the atmosphere of the establishment, the image they promote, or the interior aesthetics.  When there is close customer contact in play, a customer may be swayed to perceive a service or product to have quality when the employees are helpful, well dressed, empathetic, and friendly.

2. Employee Involvement: This is another key factor for the TQM model which focuses on encouraging employees to work together towards a common goal and adapting to an organizational culture restructuring.

• Cultural change: One of the more prominent obstacles is being able to create a culture that tailors to each individual employee and helps define what a customer should mean.  There are both internal and external customer which is well known by the internal customers.  The issue arises when internal customers have little to no contact with the external customers and as a result don't see the big picture of how every action they take causes a chain reaction.  They are just as important in contributing to the entire effort being put forward.  Each internal customer has another internal customer that rely upon them to do good job.  By successfully achieving this, their external customers will ultimately be satisfied.  Everyone within the organization have to share the view they have over quality control and how it is an end within itself.  To follow the philosophy of "quality at the source" any errors or defects must be found and fixed at its origin and should be passed to the internal or external customer.
• Teams: To involve the employees more in the process of things will improve quality overall.  You can create more employee involvement is by using "teams".  These teams consist of a small group of people that share a common goal, create their own standards on how to approach things, monitor their performance is up to par, and they are accountable for the competition and success of their set goals.  There are a set of 3 approaches used for teamwork that are usually used are: "1. Problem-solving team", "2. Special-purpose teams", and "3. Self-managed team".  Problem-solving teams are usually created for a limited time and there time revolves around solving a certain issue or issues that have already occurred or as they are occurring.  Special-purpose teams are created to solve a very specific and short-term issue or project.  It is not necessarily always a problem that needs to be solved, although it sometimes is, but are sometimes a project that needs to be completed within a certain time frame such as an event that needs to be coordinated and executed.  Self-managed teams consists of a couple of employees that are responsible for either all or the majority of the product or service being offered.  In the employees chosen to be in this type of group have special skills or experts in their department and don't require supervision.  All three of these groups utilized some form of "employee empowerment".  Employee empowerment  rotates responsibility down to the employees in the lowest level of the food chain in the organization as they have a special view of what problems or issues are facing the company in way other higher ups can't see since these employees are the ones actually carrying out the job. 

3. Continuous Improvement: This is based of a concept from Japan called "kaizen" that follows the philosophy that in order to improve any process, you must continually seek solutions or advancements to be able to achieve that goal.  This involves finding a standard for creating an outstanding practice and making the employees feel like they have some ownership over the processes involved.  The core reasoning in "Continuous Improvement" is that there is always room for improvement since there is no feature in the process that cannot be improved.  The majority of companies that follow "Continuous Improvement" train and educate their work teams on how to follow the "plan-do-study-act cycle".  This cycle's steps are:

• Plan: The team involved must choose a process that requires improvement.  Once that has been done they set goals and exchange ideas on how to achieve this goal for improvement.   They then weigh their pros and cons before finalizing the plan.
• Do: They put their plan into action and keeps track of any progress.  Should any changes be needed, revisions will be implemented.
• Study: Any data retrieved from the Do step will be analyzed to see if the results match the goals created in the Plan step.  Should any significant defects be found then the team will evaluate the project again or completely halt the project.
• Act: On the other hand, should the outcome be successful then every step in the process will be documented by the team conducting the project.  This revised process will become the standard for anyone that will use it in the future.

Outback Steakhouse TQM Review:

Customer Satisfaction:

• Outback Steakhouse's items do conform to the specifications advertised.  Their quality is pretty consistent, aside from the occasional defect.
• The customers find value in the food served because the pricing is moderate and the serving size is given in hearty portions in comparison with other restaurants in the same market.
• There is good support service in the restaurant.  Whenever a customer makes a complaint over the food, the waiter or waitress apologizes and as quickly as possible brings a replacement or refund should the customer simply not want anything anymore.
• Peoples impression of the restaurant could improve by shortening the waiting time.  Some can view the waiting as the restaurant being in high demand or just having a poor system in place when seating people.

Employee Involvement:

• The employees tend to be satisfied with their work and how they work as teams cohesively which shows in the low turnover in Outback Steakhouse.
• Each employee is aware of the importance in their role in the restaurant no matter how small it may seem and how it affects other fellow employees and customers should they not do a good job.

Continuous Improvement:

• Outback Steakhouse is always trying to improve the quality of their food and service through employee training and making their employees work on three tables, max, at a time compared to the six to eight tables other restaurants require their employees to serve at a time.
• Employees feel a sense of pride in their work and even though there can be testy customers, they still enjoy the job.