Total Quality Management Implementation: A Study to Critical Success Factors and Continuous Improvement to UAE organizations
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Date
2013-03
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Volume Title
Publisher
The British University in Dubai (BUiD)
Abstract
Total Quality Management is a new philosophy of management that was established in United Arab Emirates and Gulf region not a long time ago. Total Quality Management in UAE however, received little attention and researches from academics and practitioners regarding the critical success factors and continuous improvement. This dissertation aims to explore the main critical success factors necessary to implement TQM in UAE organizations and the continuous improvement elements. It also seeks to find the relationships between these critical success factors and the continuous improvement elements. Four critical success factors were found the most important in UAE organizations which are commitment of management, education and training, team work and organizational culture, and relationships. In addition, four continuous improvement elements were found significant for UAE organizations as a result of implementing TQM which are employee satisfaction, product quality, business process improvement, and customer satisfaction. A brief background of TQM was given including the gurus of quality management to explore the way TQM was improved. Furthermore, to improve and benchmark the continuous improvement elements, it is necessary to set clear Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and quality awards to further improve as the continuous improvement is a cyclic process.
A qualitative research that uses case study methodology was employed to three organizations in UAE and ten semi-structured interviews with documental reviews were used to fulfill the objectives of this research. The findings were reported into three basic components: analysis of critical success factors, analysis of effects of implementing these critical success factors, and continuous improvement. The findings show that whilst TQM suggests the best practices of management, people tend to deviate from these best practices and keep them on papers only. In most cases, quality procedures and methodologies exist in organizations; however, it is recommended to be a systematic audit system to the implementation of these procedures and methodologies.
Description
DISSERTATION WITH DISTINCTION
Keywords
Total Quality Management (TQM), continuous Improvement, customer satisfaction, leadership, UAE organizations