Why Implement Quality Practices in Continuous Improvement?

Organizations dealing with customer demands must constantly look for ways to improve the quality of their processes and products. The globalization of supply chains also puts financial pressure on organizations to do it cheaper as well as higher quality. A review of recent management articles stated that organizations have experienced manufacturing technology ventures failures of 86% and total quality management projects failing at 41% to 93%. The search for quality improvements is not always straightforward or easy. This search for improvements has lead organizations to tie quality with continuous improvement.
Kovach and Fredendall (2013) in their article. The Influence of Continuous Improvement Practices on Learning, stated that they do not fully understand why some organizations prosper, while others fail. Past research on continuous improvement practices has stipulated that superior performance is attributable to the adoption of quality management practices. These practices include customer focus initiatives and quality data analysis. Quality management consists of a comprehensive organizational philosophy that strives to fulfill effectively a customer’s needs while looking to improve and promote a total system view.
Kovach and Fredendall conducted a survey of quality focused professionals to determine if organizations learn to be successful by using continuous improvement techniques. The survey results suggested that, learning to be successful was an important component of a successful organization. When organizations use continuous improvement practices they learn, and it is this knowledge that cultivates the ability to generate improvements and improve quality. The accumulation of knowledge obtained using continuous improvement practices contributes to building a mature continuous improvement culture.
When an organization thinks of quality, each member of the organization must look at quality from the point of view of the customer. This is a total quality view of all processes. This viewpoint gave birth to the concept of Total Quality Management (TQM). TQM is a holistic view of quality throughout the entire organization. This is a good goal to have, however in practice it is much more difficult to implement.
Poor planning, lack of management support, resistance of the workforce, lack of proper training, complacency, failure to change the culture, lack of resources, lack of an effective measurement system have all been cited as reasons for low TQM implementation. Usually organizations start with a high degree of enthusiasm with implementing quality programs and processes, however if the organization is not 100% committed to accomplishing the mission, little by little quality programs start to dwindle. Then, the old status quo takes ahold again. Implementing quality programs is not easy. Most organizations start and stop several programs before these programs take hold. Management must incorporate quality practices as part of their ongoing continuous improvement efforts and do not give up until these practices are ingrained in the culture.