Total Quality Management (TQM) uses tools such as Pareto charts, scatter plots, flow charts, and tree diagrams to evaluate a company’s operations and improve its processes. Pareto charts identify the most important factors in quality control, scatter plots define relationships between variables, flowcharts evaluate tasks, and tree diagrams aid in decision-making.
Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management philosophy that seeks to create a continuously improving business environment. Total quality management tools represent specific elements that a company can use to evaluate the effectiveness of the process. Some common TQM tools include Pareto charts, scatter plots, flow charts, and tree diagrams. Each allows for a specific review of a company’s operations. Companies can use these tools together or individually, depending on the scope of a company’s total quality management.
A Pareto chart combines information from a bar chart and a line chart. The graph presents the individual data of the specific activities in the total quality management process in the graph bars. The cumulative total of all the activities represented in the bars is found in the line covering the graph. The line typically runs from the lower left corner of the graph and up to the upper right, although some variation may exist. The chart is common among total quality management tools, identifying the most important factors in the quality control process.
Scatterplots are diagrams that place information in a spreadsheet graph. TQM tools include scatter plots as tools so that companies can define the relationships between two variables over time. For example, the graph can identify items sold over multiple days, months, or years. While there are no lines in the scatterplot, businesses can see how these items match up and whether there is a cluster. This tool can provide insight into product sales and quality, among other things.
Flowcharts are physical representations of activities. Total Quality Management tools use flow charts to evaluate how a business completes the various tasks in its operations. This improvement process aims to remove duplicate activities and check or remove rejections. Compared to other tools, flowcharts are often easier to understand. It may take multiple managers to put the chart together as each department has its own flowchart, leading to an overall chart for the business.
Tree diagrams are similar to flowcharts in that they are physical representations of certain activities. Total Quality Management tools use tree diagrams to determine the best decision based on certain factors or predicted future actions. Owners and executives often use these diagrams when making overall business decisions about products or product lines. Tree diagrams have other uses as well. For example, a company may add numbers or figures to the diagram to determine the likelihood of goods being sold with some competition in the marketplace.
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