The introduction of a QA system comes with additional work tasks within
the organization. These tasks will have to be identified and persons assigned to them. A
quality manager will have to be appointed having the daily management of the QA system. In
a small organization this will not be a full time task but can be carried out by one of
the senior staff members.
Upon reviewing the system it will be necessary to review at appropriate
levels in order to ensure continuing suitability and effectiveness. What is the customer's
requirement, what is our performance level, what does the QA audit tell us.
9. Total Quality Management
As the amount of competitiveness is not as great in education and
training as in, for instance, the car or electronics engineering branches, the requirement
for TQM is not so apparent (yet).
TQM works on the assumption that suppliers will only survive in a
market if the quality is constantly improved and the costs constantly reduced. It is thus
in short a socio- economic approach, involving everyone in their work, aiming at
continuous improvement of company performance (Chauvel, 1993).
Quite contrary to what is the case in teaching, whereby staff ask for
more resources in order to improve quality, TQM aims at doing better with less. And if you
don't, your competitor will!
The aims of this TQM can be summarized as follows:
focus on the market needs
achieve top quality in all areas
establish simple procedures for quality performance
continually review processes to eliminate waste
develop measures of performance
understand competition and develop a competitive strategy
ensure effective communication
seek never ending improvement.
The difference between QA and TQM can be seen to be the cost factor.
Whereas QA does not consider cost in any way, TQM uses cost as a critical performance
measure. The aim of TQM is to achieve cost reduction with quality increase. The assumption
is made that there are still areas where improvement can be achieved.
In education and training, for instance, the cost of quality includes:
planning a course for 10 but only have 8 attend due to unsuitable timing, learners
starting courses but dropping out before finalizing, learners failing an assessment due to
inferior teaching quality, teachers having to remark papers because the initial
performance criteria were not agreed or standardized, duplicating items in teaching of
different subjects.
Emphasis in TQM is on issues like: getting the initial design right the
first time, prevention of non-conformance, continuous monitoring in order to prevent
reworking rather than detection of non-compliance.
The introduction of quality circles within the staff in order to
discuss and improve quality of certain topics is another vital element in TQM. Measuring
quality through frequent feedback rather than infrequent feedback in order to improve is
thus a logical
