Total Quality

‘Total Quality’ is the totality of features, as perceived by the customers, of the product or service. Totality of features includes stated as well as implied needs and expectations of all types of customers. As it is the perception by the customers, in addition to conformance with pre-established quality standards, it may also include additional parameters like cost-effectiveness, conformance to time schedule, after sale service etc. Quality thus cannot be defined by the supplier himself, but should always be defined by the customers. Then only quality ratings carry meaning and retain validity.
Customers of Education System
Universities are complex organizations with variety of customers making demands unparalleled in society. But, then who are customers of the university? Prospective customers of the university include:
§ Students, as they receive education services from the university
§ Affiliated colleges or study centers, as they receive various support services from the university
§ Society at large, as it receives the product of university, that is, student with added knowledge and skills.
The student is at center of education system and thus, is the major focus of the educational process. Although the definition of the customer need not be reduced to single alternative and in fact is the combination of all alternatives, the student clearly should be placed at the forefront of this definition.
Products of Education System
Once customer is defined, the next logical question is what is the product of an education system? Answer to this question may be explored with following different views:
§ Student may be viewed as a customer who buys a product of an education system, that is, an academic programme, in expectation of some type of life benefit.
§ The student himself is the product of an education system after being transformed by the educational process from a ‘raw’ material into a person with added knowledge and skills. With this view, the buyer is society; directly in terms of the employer and indirectly as a funding agency.
Although, these two products of an education system are apparently different, product from the first view, that is an academic programme, is nothing but encapsulation of the educational process mentioned in the second view.
Total Quality Management (TQM)
Total quality management (TQM) is not a technique; it is a broad management approach or methodology, dealing with processes and attitudes. TQM places quality as the primary objective for the organization, as opposed to the traditional management objective of maximizing production and subsequently controlling costs. Although, TQM was initially developed for the manufacturing environment, it can be equally applicable to any environment, which involves inputs and outputs, such as knowledge service industry like universities.
Principles of TQM may be summarized as follows:
§ There is a goal of ‘Continuous Improvement’ against achieving some static level of quality. It is about approaching excellence in an incremental way. Quality is a continuous ongoing process. Quality is responsibility and mission of all. Hence all employees should be continuously trained and motivate to consistently achieve better and better quality. Even ‘Commitment of Top Management’ should be visible and clear to all.
§ Instead of reactive and person dependent system, TQM is a ‘Proactive Systematic Approach’. This means ‘prevention and immediate detection of errors and problems at root source’ is preferred over of ‘correction for problems after its occurrence’. Responsibility for quality takes place at the source. This feature demands ‘Quality Design’ rather than inspection of quality after poor design.
§ TQM attempts to expose problems rather than hide or burry them. ‘Just in Time (JIT)’ concept described in next section will elaborate more on this. TQM identifies and addresses causes of problems, not effects.
§ TQM creates, encourages and nurtures simplicity, instead of bureaucratic approach of adding controls. It attempts to identify and eliminate non-value-added activities thus naturally motivating people to use quality procedures.
The essence of TQM is the simple but extremely powerful belief that it is better and hence cheaper, to do every process right at first time, rather than not to do it right and then correct it afterwards. Doing things right at first time requires no money. Doing things wrong is what only costs money, as time and resources are wasted by allowing defective products to get produced. Thus, longer it takes to identify problem, more will be the cost incurred to correct it.
TQM is systematic way of guaranteeing that all activities within an organization happen as planned. It is the management attitude that concerns with preventing problems at source, rather than allowing problems to occur and then correcting them afterwards.
Just In Time (JIT)
‘Just in Time (JIT)’ is the philosophy which systematically enforces ‘Continuous Improvement’ by continual reduction of non-value-added inventory stocks to lower and then further lower levels. Inventory stocks allow production process to continue even when some problem occurs. In a way, inventory stocks act like a buffers to hide any problem that may occur. But, with JIT, there are no buffers to hide problems and thus, occurrence of problem can shut down the entire production process. Thus, JIT philosophy helps organization to prominently expose problems and thus, bring a clear focus on removal of it at source, by eliminating the cause, rather than effects, of problem.
With JIT, it is believed that the root causes of most problems are due to faulty production process design. Hence, with JIT, nothing is taken for granted, everything is subject to analysis. Each activity is identified as either ‘Value-Added’ or ‘Non-Value-Added’. The reduction of ‘Non-Value-Added’ activities is achieved mainly through increasing manufacturing flexibility and improved quality.
Simplification of the production process is another key concept in JIT. Reusing existing components in design of new products keeps variety of required components at minimum level and thus, enhances cost-effectiveness and simplicity of the production process.
JIT is an extremely powerful tool to identify where improvements should be made. It helps you to identify cause (not the effect) of problem and its elimination. Failures and exceptions are treated as opportunities to improve the system. In fact, JIT initiates failures due to problems to expose them. It is a system of trouble-shooting, within a culture of constant analysis and improvement. It is clear, as an attitude and approach, JIT and TQM are perfectly complimentary to each other, to expose and correct problems at source, so as to avoid wasting resources on production of defective products.
TQM/JIT and Open and Distance Education System
TQM/JIT demands highly focused attention directly on those activities which are responsible for ‘Quality Costs’. Here, ‘Quality Costs’ are defined as any cost incurred, because something is not done right at first time. They are not the cost associated with the ‘Quality Department’ or ‘Quality Function’. Enormous productivity enhancement can be made as a result of exploring and eliminating non-value added or waste activities, which exist because things were not done right at the first time. In fact, quality is highly profitable only due to this.
TQM/JIT demands continuous improvement in definition of quality itself. Thus, attention is focused on ‘Quality Costs’, that is, on those activities which are responsible for problems and hence have potential for improvement, resulting in great cost reduction. Accurate and reliable measurement of ‘Quality Costs’ is the most important requirement for this improvement process. With TQM/JIT, output of any organization can be described as below:
Output = Value-Added Activities + Non-Value-Added Activities
Hence, to maximize the output and efficiency, organization must continuously explore ways to reduce and finally eliminate ‘Non-Value-Added Activities’. It can be done only when every thing is subject to analysis and examination. Most of ‘Non-Value-Added Activities’ are often the result of ‘faulty or inefficient design’, previously taken for granted. System design evaluation from this perspective allows improvements or changes, so as to reduce and finally eliminate ‘Non-Value-Added Activities’. The result is more efficient design which improves productivity and reduces costs.
Well known quality expert like ‘Dr J M Juran’ estimates that about 85% of the problems with a product are designed into the product. Hence, one can not expect significant quality improvement in ‘Open and Distance Education System (ODES)’, unless inefficiency and ineffectiveness are removed from the design, delivery and assessment of courses and subjects.
Focus on simplification is the fundamental concept in TQM/JIT. Products and processes are designed around existing families of standardized multi purpose components of minimum variety. Mass education system like ODES can not be achieved, without the development of standardized modules, which have a recognized exchange value at inter university level. Along with the cost reduction, flexibility can be significantly increased with this modular approach.
TQM/JIT continuously pushes the exposure of problems back, towards the starting point of the process, until initiation point is reached which is prevention. Every problem has a cause and every cause is preventable. Obviously, sooner the problem is detected, sooner it can be addressed.
Model for ‘Total Quality’
Clear definition of the ‘Total Quality’ in measurable terms is extremely important as no quality improvement is possible without its unambiguous measurement. Hence, quality should be expressed in clearly measurable parameters with appropriate importance. Not all features of quality have equal importance. Weight-age or importance assigned to each quality parameter can vary as per organization mission and goal or even as per the type of customer. Quality is defined not by the organization itself, but rather by the customers. Hence easily accessible quality feedback systems are essential to sustain quality drive, with which, customers of the organization can define quality. It is clear that definition of the quality will be dynamically changing with the changing perceptions of customers, which is in conformance with ‘Continuous Improvement’, an important principle of the TQM/JIT philosophy.
Thus, Quality parameters should be logically grouped together at different levels with appropriate importance. Hierarchical tree of quality parameters for the ‘Total Quality’ of ‘Open and Distance Education System’ is as follows:
1. Total Quality
a. Academic Quality (50%)
i. Academic Human Resource Quality (30%)
1. Well Qualified and Experienced (20%)
2. Self-Motivated and Properly Trained (20%)
3. With good Knowledge (30%)
4. With good Communication Skills (30%)
ii. Teaching Learning Process Quality (20%)
1. Regular, Enjoyable and Flexible (20%)
2. With Peer Group Interaction (20%)
3. Effective, Efficient, Quick and Interactive (20%)
4. Proper and Judicious Media Mix (20%)
5. Use of Modern Interactive Multimedia Learning Tools (20%)
iii. Learning Material Quality (20%)
1. Clear and simple Language (20%)
2. Distance education Pedagogy (20%)
3. Logical Presentation (30%)
4. Generating Curiosity, Hence Engaging (20%)
5. Well Illustrated (10%)
iv. Curriculum and Syllabus Quality (15%)
1. Clear, Accurate, Up to date and Optimum (15%)
2. Realistic Programme Calendar Design (15%)
3. Communication, Self-Learning, Managerial and IT Skills (15%)
4. Real Life Context, Relevance and Equivalence (25%)
5. Modular and Flexible with Multiple Entry and Exit Points (30%)
v. Academic Infrastructure Quality (15%)
1. Library and Learning Resource Centre (40%)
2. Laboratories (60%)
b. Student Services Quality (20%)
i. Services Quality (60 %)
1. Programme Information Quality (10%)
2. Pre and Post Admission Counseling Quality (10%)
3. Learning Material Distribution Quality (20%)
4. Counseling Session Quality (20%)
5. Learning Feedback Quality (20%)
6. Evaluation Quality (20%)
ii. Infrastructure Quality (40%)
1. Basic Infrastructure Quality (30%)
2. Computing Infrastructure Quality (30%)
3. Communication Infrastructure Quality (30%)
4. Audio Video Infrastructure Quality (10%)
c. Management Quality (15%)
i. Clear Quality Policy visible to all (10%)
ii. Continuous Ongoing Quality Training for All (20%)
iii. Accessible quality feedback systems for customers (20%)
iv. Proactive Systematic Approach (15%)
v. Simple and Preventive System (15%)
vi. Accountability with Error Correction (20%)
d. Time Quality (10%)
i. Right at First Time (20%)
ii. Right at Every Time (20%)
iii. Speed of Response to Query/Feedback received (30%)
iv. Time Efficiency of systems and processes (30%)
e. Cost Quality (5%)
i. More Value for customers (40%)
ii. Less Cost for customers and organization (60%)