Sustaining quality: Underlying causes for failure

A question that regularly arises is how to sustain quality management or to put it another way, what are the reasons for quality management failing? There have been two significant studies on this issue and their findings cited the following obstacles.

Lack of leadership for quality

Lack of planning for quality

Inadequate resources for quality

Inadequate human resources development and management

Lack of customer focus

Ultimately it was found that the failure of quality management, 'can be attributed to a gap between top management rhetoric about their intentions for TQM and the reality of implementation.'

In other words like any other project, initiative or issue of importance in business it is the dedication and focus on its support that ensures its continuation. Think of this, we don’t stop, close or end accounting, marketing or human resources, why quality then? Because we don’t have the legal requirements to have it and so we can quite simply end it. It is ended because it is not valued despite its significant impact proven by multiple studies which are overlooked because the ‘Git R Done’ approach takes less hassle.

View this list of studies for evidence of the financial and performance impact of Quality Management.

http://www.asq-qm.org/resourcesmodule/view/id/865/src/@random4f0f1961385c7/

REFERENCES

Understanding the Obstacles of Quality by Sebastianelli & Tamimi, Quality Management Journal, 2003

Why TQM Programs do not Persist by Michael Beer, Decision Science, 2003