Total Quality Management

 

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT: APPROACH IN UNIVERSITIES

Defining Quality and its Implications

Adolph de Sousa

Curtin University of Technology

INTRODUCTION

Australian universities have been invited to submit themselves for an assessment of Quality by the Commonwealth. Anational Committee on Quality has issued guidelines on assessment (DEET: 1993).  Universities have set up internal task forces or committees to document existing and ongoing quality initiatives. What are quality initiatives andhow they are determined are questions that need to be posed.

 

The Total Quality Management (TQM) approach offers an opportunity to define quality and assess its place in university planning. These matters are explored in this paper.

 

Despite its impressive claims in industry, many issues in TQM remain. Many improvement efforts are anything but'total' making only marginal improvements around the edges (Clemmer: 1991). A similar question can be asked ofuniversities: how total are the quality efforts? In order to answer the question, one must first determine what quality means, because this is the starting point in the quality achievement process.

 

In terms of the Deming wheel, which is derived from the so-called Shewart Cycle, quality improvement is a four-step process: plan, do, check, and act. The fundamental point in the cycle is planning. According to Deming (1986), planning begins with the identification of quality achievement goals. Through continuous analysis (checking) in the improvement process and comparison of quality goals, actions are taken, and quality goals are achieved.

 

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN UNIVERSITIES

 

It is only since the early 1990s that universities have embraced TQM (Sherr & Teeter: 1991). From early awarenessstages, universities have moved towards defining the TQM taxonomy for higher education. TQM principles have been implemented by a few universities in selected areas.

 

Large corporations have directed some of their energies into universities to teach and practice TQM. The six largest US corporations sponsored a TQM Forum in 1991 to help improve awareness of TQM and engineer change within universities. Also, in October 1991 IBM established a TQM competition for colleges and universities with the purpose of a) integrating TQM concepts into graduate, undergraduate and executive core courses in business and engineering programs; b) developing a faculty research program in TQM, and c) applying TQM to the operation of the institution itself and to propagate TQM to other colleges and universities. TQM approaches to teaching have been studied (Higgins et al: 1991) and the application of industrial quality standards to TQM on higher education programs has beensurveyed (Tannock: 1991).

 

The need to apply TQM principles to the management of universities has been recognized even more recently.'Quality is not just for business anymore', Donna E Shalala, the Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, claimed in a Quality Forum in 1992. The President ofIndiana University, Thomas Ehrilich, describes students as'customers' and the various programs

as 'products'. At Curtin University, the Academic Board discussed a paper on the need for a service excellence program (Soutar: 1993). Exposure of Vice-Chancellors to the Higher Education Round Table (an industry/higher education forum), has made the chief executives of universities aware of the need for Australia to embrace a customer-oriented approach to its goods and services.

Adjusting taxonomy for application of TQM principles in universities has led to the development of specific tools. Astudy measuring the gap between understanding and perceptions of different customers (staff, students, management and support staff) has implications for the choice of attributes to be used in the measurement of quality indices (Steieret al: 1993). A separate study has been able to categorize approaches to the definition of quality using an interview protocol on customers (Zhao et al : 1993). Both studies establish the basis upon which instruments could be developedfor Quality Assurance measurements. Iona College has undertaken a pilot study to test the integrity of a Quality Assurance and Quality Control scheme (Soluade: 1993). A study of how TQM Cost of Quality can be applied to a personnel or human resources function has also been developed (Johnson & Bishop: 1993).

 

General applications of TQM have already been tried on a number of university operations (HBR: 1991). It was introduced in the North Dakota University System to deal with declining enrolments and bureaucratic bottlenecks through co-ordination and co-operation among nine campuses. The mission statement of the National University, aCalifornian-based adult-oriented university, has been adjusted whereby students are treated as customers, and strategies are designed to meet their needs and expectations. At the University of Pennsylvania top level TQM teamswere formed to attack their financial problem. At the University of Wisconsin the Registrar has instituted TQM to improve student services, cut down on student queues and provide registrarial operations with a student focus. The service divisions of Curtin University of Technology have adopted a Total Quality Service (TQS) strategy whereby clients are a primary focus. In Australia, both academic units and service departments have begun to implement TQM principles.

 

THE MEANING OF QUALITY AND ADAPTATION FOR UNIVERSITIES

 

Quality management has been practiced for about forty years in Japanese industry and the meaning of quality has considerably evolved. Initially it was synonymously used with product attributes, (ie. quality is embedded in thecharacteristics of products). Garvin (1987) has identified eight dimensions: performance, features, reliability, conformance, durability, serviceability, aesthetics and perceptions.· Another aspect of product quality was described as"conformance to requirements, not goodness" (Crosby :1984). Feigenbaum (1956) who coined the phrase 'Total Quality Control' implied broader scope of quality activities by including management activities, not just engineering and product manufacturing. Ishikawa (1985) extended the definition to include 'quality of work, quality of service,quality of information, quality of process, quality of division, quality of people (from employees to employers), quality of company and quality of objectives.

Quality is not definable, though recognizable, and that achieving and measuring Quality is therefore less than Quality itself.

 

Garvin (1984) provides a summary of five approaches to describing quality: transcendent, product-based, user-based, manufacturing based, and value-based. In the transcendent approach quality is treated as innate excellence. It can only be felt and experienced. In a product-based approach, products are considered as vehicles for exhibiting quality. It is therefore measurable and precise. In the user-based approach quality is defined by customers: individual customers have their unique desires and expectations from products, based on personal perception of quality. Under themanufacturing-based approach, the primary concern lies with the approach in which products are designed and produced. The value-based approach is defined in terms of costs and prices ie. value for money from an end-customer, and net profit return from a shareholder viewpoint. A quality product or service is one that is of an acceptable price andof an acceptable cost. Deming (1986) defined it as 'predictive degree of uniformity and dependability, at low cost, suited to the market'.

 

What does quality mean in a university setting and how does it differ from that in industry? These aspects were studiedin work carried out at the Old Dominion University. Zhao et al (1993) accomplished an analysis of how people use the term 'quality', how notions of quality are conveyed, the context of the use of the term and what they imply. The survey's coverage included internal and external customers and therefore gives no clue at this time as to the importance of the vehicles derived. Five primary vehicles emerged for defining quality: 1) quality is defined in terms of attributesor measures of outcomes; 2) quality is defined in terms of customer's wants; 3) quality is defined in terms of system's state or functions eg. accuracy of information, excellent lectures, etc. 4) quality is defined in terms of the definer's personal opinion, and 5) quality is defined in terms of the situation ie. perception of quality depends upon theinteraction occurring at the times and places and within the particular context of delivery of the product or service.

These five vehicles may be compared with five approaches for defining quality as proposed by Garvin (1984) in that some similarity exists between the two frameworks. Vehicles such as attributes or measures of outcomes andcustomer's needs are similar to Garvin product-based and user-based approaches. Secondly, Garvin's manufacturing-based and value-based approaches collectively contain many of the components of the system's states or function within a broader band of expressing quality. Thirdly, the transcendental approach in Garvin's approach is similar to thedefinition of quality as defined by the definer and therefore is very individualist. Whilst the final vehicle 'quality is defined in terms of situations' does not have a parallel in Garvin's approach, it is consistent with the approach evidenced by Albretcht (1982) where every situation of service needs to be managed differently to suit the circumstance and to match the frame of reference of the customer.

 

IMPLICATIONS FOR UNIVERSITIES FROM A DEFINITIONAL PERSPECTIVE

The implications of this research are many. First, the multiple meanings of quality are consistent with the Japanese approach to quality vision, in which quality is differentiated into true and substitute quality. Ishikawa (1985) says "true" quality is what producers provide to meet customer's demand. True quality can therefore be only met through continuous modification of the substitute quality. In a competitive environment where all success depends on external customers it can be argued that true quality can only be met when organizations shift the focus from meeting needs prescribed by internal customers to definitions of quality which meet the expectations of external or end-customers.This presents a multifaceted dilemma for universities in directing resources towards TQM efforts.

Continuous improvement effort in the quality of education, research, work life of employees. Deciding where thefocus should be and directing institutional resources to the focus is probably the most difficult and complex part of TQM in universities.

 

Third, because of the multi-dimensional view of quality, there is difficulty of overall measurement of quality progress.It is therefore much easier to limit the scope of TQM to some finite dimension. In some way, universities are beingassessed for quality on multiple dimensions by external researchers as has been described in the Guide to Australian Universities (Ashenden and Milligan : 1993). The question therefore remains for universities in Australia to choose the dimension against which they individually wish to be assessed and to strategically assess the importance of thedimension chosen. At present, vision statements of some universities provide a breadth of direction, thereby dissipating goals and distributing excellence factors on too broad a front. If the university plan provides for excellence on all fronts, rather than in niche areas the dilemma remains for university administration. The primary challenge in a TQM plan for universities is to chart its cycle of improvement by identifying its present state in the cycle as determined through its quality surveys and strategically determining the route to shift its resources from an internally focused definition of quality to that which meets the expectations of its end or external customers who buy or pay for its services.

 

 

CONCLUSION

The model used by Zhao et al (1993) to define quality forms a useful basis upon which instruments can be developed by universities to categorize the meanings of quality. Further work will need to be done to determine how universitieschoose to select quality vehicles for investment into quality initiatives. Such analysis will also provide universities witha statement on its current 'status on quality' and the route towards focusing quality on its end or external customers.

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