Deming's 14 points of Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Deming's 14 points of Management - Essay Example All these changes point to standardisation across the board for athletics coaches and athletes, and it is this standardisation which leads to the processes associated with quality. Total Quality Management is management philosophy that has been adopted and applied to various sectors of industry. Its popularity stemmed from the highly efficient and highly productive systems that most Japanese organisations used, for example, the Toyota and Nissan car plants in the United Kingdom. Total Quality Management was first introduced by Feigenbaum in 1957, but this notion has recently been developed further by incorporating ideas from other quality experts, for example, W.E. Deming (Slack 1998). Deming was considered to be the father of quality control in Japan as he stressed the importance of implementing quality from top management levels and ensuring it was a strategic activity. Deming's basic philosophy was that the quality and productivity would increase as the unpredictability of the process decreased. This was to be achieved through the use of statistical control methods, participation, education, openness and purposeful improvements (Slack 1998). Total Quality Management is basically a way of thinking and working in an organisation and is not a prescriptive philosophy, as it provides guidance on how to approach quality in an organisation. In fact Total Quality Management stresses the need to meet the needs and expectations of the customers, which is important as organisations exist to serve customers. For instance, in the sports establishment, athletes will often select facilities and coaches they think will provide a quality service in terms of advice, guidance and helping them reach their full potential. TQM must also cover all parts of the organisation and include every person working in that organisation as well. TQM is a holistic system, and is not dependent on just one or a few individuals, but on all individuals. Successful athletics coaches often have a highly developed and highly efficient management system behind them that monitors and assesses their performance. This assessment constantly assesses quality by setti ng benchmarks which the coaches have to meet or exceed. A TQM system also examines all costs related to quality, but more importantly it looks at the cost of failure. By looking at failure, an organisation is able to analyse the situation and identify the problem. It is quite easy to overlook quality if no records of failures are present, as an organisation always tends to get complacent. Emphasis is placed on getting things right the first time, but building in quality as opposed to inspecting it. This is important as there are situations where organisations cannot afford to get things wrong due to the cost involved, for example, space travel. This is also an important point to consider in athletics as athletes often have optimum ages were peak performance can be expected. The failure of recognising this and capitalising on it can result in a lost opportunity for both the athlete and the coach. The success of the TQM system is highly dependent on the development of systems and proc edures that support quality and improvement as this philosophy is about developing a continuous process of improvement