TQM for manufacturing excellence: Factors critical to success

The critical success factors of TQM can be described as best practices or ways in which firms & their employees undertake business activities in all key processes. TQM is seen as a relatively new concept and a way for the organizations to improve the quality of their products and services. TQM has been playing an increasingly important role in the survival and growth of companies in manufacturing sector. Many firms have arrived at the conclusion that effective TQM implementation can improve their competitive abilities and provide strategic advantages in the marketplace. Many approaches have been used for implementation of TQM. These approaches form an integral part of several International Quality Awards/National Quality Awards developed by governments of various countries as well as many frameworks developed by individual researchers. Further each Quality Award/framework has its own different set of critical success factors. It therefore creates a lot of confusion for the manufacturing firms, as to which critical success factorsto choose and which not, so as to implement the concept of TQM for achieving manufacturing excellence. The purpose of this paper is to identify a set of critical success factors of TQM implementation by comparing a set of 24 awards/frameworks as given by various agencies and researchers. The outcome of this study is a comprehensive list of most important critical success factors of TQM implementation required for sustaining or achieving manufacturing excellence.