Total Quality Management In Construction
The major new element in world market competition is quality. During
the 1970's and 1980's, the Japanese and their U.S. companies demonstrated that
high quality is achievable at lower costs and greater customer satisfaction. It
was the result of using the management principles of total quality management
(TQM). More and more U.S. companies have demonstrated that such achievements
are possible Using TQM as a new way to manage. Such companies also found that
they were recognized with everyone pulling in the same direction. Improvement
had become a way of live.
Improving competitive position and profit has always been the
responsibility of management. Before the 1980's, U.S. management was broadly
successful. Until then the dominant management model was that of the autocrat.
Management, primly senior management, decided how the business was to operate,
including what the policies and objectives were; how it was organized; what jobs
were established; and how should they be done. It was an unquestioned axiom
that if everyone did what the upper management required, the business would be
successful.
Organizations are composed of the people in them and the managers who
lead them. People respond strongly to leadership expectations and rewards. If
they are given little power in their jobs, they have little interest in
improving them. If leaders exhort the members for better output but reward
(promotions, bonuses, recognition) for mostly higher output, they get the
behavior they reward. Quantity over quality has been a common management
philoso ...