Total quality management originated after the end of World War II. In the 1940s, scientific and technological breakthroughs, productivity development, market competition intensified, consumers' requirements for product and service quality increased. People realized that statistical quality control alone was not enough to effectively control quality, and total quality management began to emerge. In 1951, Dr. Zhu Lan compiled quality management ideas and papers into the "Quality Control Manual", which became popular all over the world. During the same period, Bell Laboratories in the United States carried out comprehensive quality assurance program activities. In 1956, Faganburg of General Electric Company of the United States published a paper "total quality control" in the Harvard Business Review, proposing the concept of TQC (total quality management) for the first time. In 1961, Feigenberg published a book of the same name, promoting the development of quality management from statistical quality control in the manufacturing process to controlling and managing all aspects that meet customer requirements.

Since then, total quality management has been gradually promoted in the service industry and various industries. Japan has made outstanding achievements in this process. Its economic development and high-quality reputation of "Made in Japan" are both due to total quality management. The development of total quality management has gone through four stages: from the introduction of the United States into Japan, the widespread adoption of statistical technology and computer technology, the standardization of content and requirements, and the rise to the level of business management. In 1986, the International Organization for Standardization ISO standardized the content and requirements of total quality management, and officially promulgated the ISO 9000 series standards in March 1987.

The basic point of Total Quality Management (TQM) is: In order to achieve real economic benefits, management must be based on identifying customers' quality requirements, ultimately making customers satisfied with the products in their hands, and centered on this, and ultimately Make the enterprise organization develop healthily. Total quality management is a management system that comprehensively considers and acts on the organization's activities to achieve this goal.

GB/T6583 - 1994 (idt ISO 8402:1994) defines “Total Quality Management” as: an organization is quality-centric and based on full participation, with the aim of satisfying customers and all members of the organization and management paths that benefit society and achieve long-term success.

"All employees" refers to all personnel in an enterprise or organization.

A necessary condition for success in Total Quality Management is the strong and continuous leadership of the top managers, as well as education and training for all members of the organization.

Quality is not only related to the effectiveness of physical products or services, but also closely related to the entire organizational management.

"Social requirements" means that the organization must consider meeting relevant laws, regulations, systems, and social requirements such as environmental protection, life safety, social security, rational development and protection of energy and natural resources, and pay attention to social benefits.

Total quality management revolves around business activities and operates to achieve business management goals. It is a broad quality system integrating product quality, production cost, delivery time, after-sales service, etc., mainly including the following four aspects:

Quality management of product design process: refers to the quality management of technical preparation work before the formal production of the product. The purpose is to ensure the quality of product and process design and prevent congenital deficiencies.包括做好市场调查研究，提出合理设计方案；重视产品设计审查、工艺验证和试制鉴定工作；加强产品质量的经济可行性分析，确定产品质量最佳点，提高企业和社会经济效益。

Quality management of the production and manufacturing process: It is the central link of total quality management. The task is to ensure the formation of a production management system that can produce qualified and high-quality products, focusing on six types of people, machines, tools, raw materials, methods, measurement means and methods, and environment. Production factors are unfolded. It includes strictly implementing production processes and implementing clean production; strictly implementing technical inspection work, strengthening the management of unqualified products; mastering quality dynamics and conducting quality analysis; taking different measures to carry out process quality control.

Quality management of auxiliary processes: Auxiliary processes include material supply, tool preparation, equipment maintenance, transportation and storage activities. The quality management department needs to promote these links to improve work quality and ensure the stability of the production system. For example, the supply of materials must ensure quality and strengthen warehouse management; tools must ensure quality during use; equipment must be maintained and repaired.

Quality management of the use process: to ensure that the product plays a normal role in use and meets the needs of use. It includes actively carrying out after-sales technical services; investigating and collecting product usage effects and improvement requirements, and feedbacking them to relevant departments to improve products; carefully dealing with the quality of the factory products and establishing the idea of ​​thinking about users.

全面质量管理由结构、技术、人员和变革推动者四个要素组成，只有这四个方面全部齐备，才会有全面质量管理这场变革。 Its structural characteristics are low vertical variation, wide management span, low labor division, and decentralization; technically focusing on flexible processes; personnel emphasize workers' education and training, supportive performance evaluation and reward system; change promoters promote comprehensive quality Implementation of management.

Requirements for the whole process: Product quality is ensured through effective control of the entire process from market research, development and design, production and manufacturing to sales and services.

Requirements for the entire enterprise: The quality management functions are distributed in all management classes and functional departments, and all levels and departments of the enterprise are required to assume quality management responsibilities.

Requirements for all employees to participate: Product quality is a comprehensive reflection of the quality of all work of all departments, links and types of employees of the enterprise. All personnel of the enterprise are required to care about product quality and participate in quality management activities.

Requirements of management methods: There are various factors that affect product quality. Companies that promote TQM should use a variety of management technologies and methods to effectively control them according to different factors.

Customer-centered: The organization depends on customers, and the total quality management continuously improves quality through the PDCA cycle to meet customer needs.

The role of leadership: Enterprises must participate in quality management from the general manager to the employee level, and the attention of the decision-making level is particularly important. For example, my country's "Quality Management Law" stipulates that the quality department must be directly led by the general manager.

All-staff participation: All-staff participation is the core of the idea of ​​total quality management. The QC group in Japan and the large number of registered QC groups in my country and the benefits it brings prove this.

Process method: The resources and activities involved in total quality management are managed as a process. The PDCA cycle is the method of researching the process, and attention should be paid to the entire process of product production and quality management.

System management: When carrying out quality improvement activities, we must formulate, identify and determine goals, uniformly manage interrelated process systems, and organize all departments to participate to meet customer needs.

Fact-based: Effective decision-making is based on the analysis of data and information, and total quality management must be based on facts.

Mutually beneficial supplier relationship: maintaining mutually beneficial relationships between the organization and supplier can enhance the ability of both parties to create value, and total quality management has penetrated into supplier management.

Working methods for implementing PDCA cycle: The basic methods of total quality management can be summarized into four sentences and eighteen characters, namely one process, four stages, and eight steps. A process refers to the process of enterprise management; four stages are the PDCA (planning, execution, inspection, processing) cycle; eight steps are the refinement of the PDCA cycle, including investigating and researching, analyzing the current situation, finding problems, analyzing the causes, Formulate plans, implement plans, check implementation status, summarize experiences and lessons, deal with legacy issues, etc., and each cycle promotes organizational progress.

Do a good job in quality management of manufacturing processes and auxiliary production processes: The quality management of manufacturing processes revolves around production factors, including performing processes, inspection work, mastering quality dynamics, and carrying out process quality control; the quality management of auxiliary production processes must ensure the supply of materials and tools Quality of work in preparation, equipment maintenance and other aspects.

Strengthen the management of 4M: 4M refers to people (Man), equipment (Machine), materials (Material), and methods (Method), which are the main factors affecting product quality during the production process. Management of people includes skills training and improving quality awareness; equipment management should detect problems as early as possible and carry out preventive maintenance; material management should strengthen acceptance inspection and storage; operation method management should standardize the best methods and explain them to workers.

Promote the "5S" activity: Through the "5S" activity (organization, rectification, cleaning, cleaning, and literacy), the work can be orderly, efficiency, guarantee product quality, reduce equipment failure rate, reduce waste, improve safety level, and improve interpersonality. Relationships and improve people's qualities.

Carry out QC group activities: The QC group is the main body of comprehensive quality management activities, with obvious autonomy, extensive mass nature, high democracy and strict scientific nature. Its functions include developing intelligence, improving service quality, and realizing full-staff management. To form a QC group, we must adhere to the principles of voluntary participation, combining top and bottom, seeking truth from facts, flexibility and diversity, and selecting a good team leader. At the same time, leaders should attach importance to support, improve employee participation awareness, cultivate business backbones, and strengthen management.

Implementing ISO9000 quality system standards: The ISO 9000 series standards are consistent with the purpose, requirements and role of TQM. It is a guide for establishing an organizational quality system. Implementing this standard is an effective method and means to carry out comprehensive quality management and lay the foundation for comprehensive quality management.

Strengthen the management of team leaders: Team leaders assume important responsibilities in quality management, including ideological education for team members, organizing quality inspection activities, implementing process discipline, organizing production, carrying out technological innovation, and being responsible for unqualified products.

在应用PDCA循环解决质量问题时，常用的七种统计方法包括排列图、因果图、直方图、分层法、相关图、控制图及统计分析表，这些方法以数理统计为理论基础，科学可靠And intuitive.

Statistical analysis table method and measure plan method: Quality management focuses on scientificity and requires statistical analysis of original quality data. Commonly used statistical analysis tables include bad project questionnaire, part size frequency distribution table, etc., and also used to formulate improvement measures. Measures plan.

Arrangement method: It is an effective method to find out the main factors affecting product quality.

Causal analysis diagram method: also known as characteristic cause diagram, branch diagram or fish bone diagram, it is an effective tool to find the causes of quality problems. By convening a technical democratic meeting, jointly discuss and draw, and determine the main causes.

Hierarchical method: also known as classification method, by classifying collected data by different purposes, the facts reflected by the data are more obvious, making it easier to find problems. It can be classified according to various principles such as time, operator, equipment, operating methods, and raw materials.

Histogram method: also known as mass distribution map, the quality of the production process is judged by delineating and analyzing the product quality distribution status during the production process.

Control chart method: judges and predicts whether the quality status fluctuates during the production process in the form of a control chart, can monitor the process quality dynamics, and plays a role in stabilizing production, ensuring quality and actively preventing.

Spread chart method: By analyzing and studying the relationship between data of two factors, we control the relevant factors that affect product quality.

In order to successfully implement TQM in total quality management, the company needs to pay attention to eight key elements: ethics, honesty, trust, training, teamwork, leadership, appreciation, and communication. These elements can be divided into four categories:

Foundation: Including ethics, honesty and trust. Ethics are composed of corporate and personal ethics; honesty means integrity, ethics, etc.; trust is a by-product of honesty and ethics behavior and is the basis of comprehensive quality management, encouraging all employees to participate and ensuring customer satisfaction.

Building bricks: Including training, teamwork and leadership. Training is very important to improve employee productivity and can improve employees' various abilities; team collaboration is conducive to solving problems and improving business efficiency. The organizations that implement comprehensive quality management mainly include three types of teams: quality improvement group, problem solving group, and ordinary working group; Leadership is the most important factor in total quality management, requiring managers to provide strategic decisions, instill values, guide employees, and ensure that the concept of total quality management is implemented.

Adhesive cement: refers to communication. Communication is an important link in all aspects of total quality management, including downward communication, upward communication and horizontal communication. Smooth communication and correct information sharing are crucial.

Roof: refers to appreciation. Appreciation provides advice and performance to teams and individuals, which can improve employee self-esteem, productivity and quality, and there are diverse ways, places and times for appreciation.

Whether to perform ISO9000 certification: ISO9000 can be considered the cornerstone of TQM. There are two opposing views on the impact of whether an enterprise performs ISO9000 certification on the successful implementation of TQM, one believes that it has an impact and the other believes that it has no impact.

Enterprise size: Different enterprise sizes will affect the enthusiasm of implementing TQM. There are some obstacles for small enterprises to implement TQM, such as difficulty in building customer information feedback mechanisms, but the success of TQM implementation is not positively correlated with the enterprise size. Relevant measures can eliminate this kind of influence.

Time to import TQM and time to implement TQM: Enterprises that imported TQM earlier have won market opportunities and accumulated experience. The length of implementation will also affect the successful implementation of TQM. Large enterprises often have human and financial advantages in implementing TQM. The probability of success is relatively high.

The degree of understanding of TQM by TQM operators: The understanding of TQM and the understanding of its principles by senior managers play an important role in the successful implementation of TQM. Implementers need to have a motivation to implement in-depth understanding of the implementation purpose.

The importance of senior managers and the degree of participation of employees: Senior managers’ emphasis on TQM can ensure the resources required for implementation, and the implementation of TQM requires participation of all employees.

Can TQM become an important path to improve organizational performance: TQM is not the only path to improve organizational performance, but successful implementation requires high-level managers to attach great importance to it, believing it is an important path to improve organizational performance and has a strong implementation motivation.

The business goals of the company and the degree of understanding of TQM as a strategic issue: If quality management is regarded as an important strategic issue, quality issues will be taken seriously. Enterprise employees should know the company's main goals, otherwise they do not know whether their behavior is conducive to achieving the goal. .

【APL is an active advocate of Total Quality Management (TQM) and is committed to promoting TQM within the company. The goal is to continuously improve work quality through full participation, meet customer needs, and become a world-class high-quality transportation company].

APL's total quality management system and performance:

Work practice of APL Quality Improvement Group: In 2000, APL Nanjing Branch established a QI group for the transfer and delivery delays of imported goods.