Total Quality Management

Article review“Effective Total Quality Management in the textile fashion retail supply chain: A pilot survey of the UK

textile manufacturers”

By Neil Towers1 and J. McLoughlin2 (2005)

Resource Person: Dr. Zahid Mahmood

Submitted by: Muhammad Mubeen BahooEnrollment # 01-220091-009MBA 3 A

TITLE OF THE ARTICLE

“Effective Total Quality Management in the textile fashion retail supply chain: A pilot survey of the UK textile manufacturers”

AUTHORS

Neil Towers1 and J. McLoughlin2 (2005)

(1Textiles and Paper Group, School of Materials, University of Manchester, Manchester M60 1QD, UK)

(2William Lee Innovation Centre, University of Manchester, PO Box 88, Manchester, M60 1QD, UK)

About the Author

Dr Neil Towers

He is Lecturer in Fashion Supply Chain. Graduated in 1979 and worked in a number of different senior manufacturing roles for large international businesses and small regional operations. Following extensive industrial and commercial experience within Europe, USA and South Korea he gained an MBA in 1992 before entering academia in 1994. He joined the Textiles Group in 2000 as Lecturer in Fashion Supply Chain and Merchandising. His internationally rated research investigates the relationship between retail marketing opportunities and operations management requirements within the global supply chain with particular reference to small and medium sized enterprises. He has published widely in international journals and helped to develop commercial and strategic relationships for industrial businesses involved in the European retail sector. He is a Fellow of both the Institute of Operations Management and the Chartered Management Institute.

Mr. John McLoughlin BSc., CText ATI, LCGI, ACIM

John obtained his BSc. in Textile Technology and has 27 years experience in the clothing and textile industry both as a senior engineer and a production manager. He also has been a visiting Lecturer at University of UMIST and Manchester Metropolitan University for Several years and was project manager of a number of textile related projects, which included international collaborations with other Universities. John has done consultancy work both overseas and in the UK and has developed Educational and Management Software for the clothing industry

Publisher

Taylor & Francis published in year 2005

Article extracted from

Journal of the Textile Institute, 96: 2, 87 — 92

Article was downloaded by: [PERI Pakistan]On: 2 June 2010 at: 12:20

Information for the reader

This article provides a complete insight of total quality management implementation in UK textile fashion industry that is characterized by larger proportion of SME’s (small and medium enterprises) operating in UK. Total Quality management has been well defined in its four aspects, which ensures understanding its implementation at different levels of organization. The quality aspect should be maintained in all operations based on the internal and external customers’ needs. Textile business sector has shifted to the areas where they found lower cost labour and production in order to focus on all aspects of quality. In order to judge the TQM concept in UK textile industry a pilot survey revealed that TQM implementation seemed to be costly, but its proper implementation will drive to the long term success in future. Removing waste by involving everyone in an organization was the method of TQM in the industry.

Relevance of the article and analysis

This article is related to our course in a way as to cover almost all the aspects that are required to be covered to successfully implement total quality management in an organization. Total Quality Management is an approach to improving the competitiveness and flexibility of an organization for the benefit of all stakeholders. It is a way of planning, organizing and understanding each activity and of removing all the wasted effort and energy that is routinely exerted in the organization. It ensures the leaders within the organization adopt a strategic overview of quality and focus on the prevention of problems. The customer orientation provides a common goal for all organizational activities and for all the organization’s members, and incorporates both quality of the processes used in the operation as well as conformance to the product specification. The need identification and fulfillment of that need for quality perspective, These all are the aspects that we have covered in our course and reveal the importance of TQM regarding textile fashion industry and small and medium enterprises.

The findings of the research given by the author are very consistent and in a logical manner; these are understandable and provide logic of total quality aspect. He has made a best effort to cover all important aspects of Quality Management System. Conclusion of the article about managing the waste and involvement of every one in improving the way things are done convinces the reader and is very logical. The quality management in all levels and the further study of organizations at larger level is also very logical because the results may vary at larger level as compared to small level. The aspect of team work given by the author also presents logic of doing efficiently.

Author have tried to support his every point with the help of theory and models which is the major strength of the article and it gives more solid strength to his words. The use of primary and secondary data also seems to be very helpful in meeting the research objective. A base for further research is also provided by the author for larger level analysis of the organizations.

Weakness of the article is that is left with loopholes at some places which detracts the reader while reading the article. The aspect of HRM (Human Resource Management) has not been given in relevance to the quality. Although author has given team concept yet employee empowerment and job satisfaction also needed to be counted.

I agree with author’s point of view, that the Total Quality Management as a method of removing waste by involving everyone in improving the way things are done and the quality management system in operating procedures about changing attitudes and skills of people. The opinions and views of author are supported by facts obtained by research. The importance and contribution of TQM is properly highlighted in order to improve the operation of the business in all levels. The research methodology and analysis of results is presented in a logical and systematic order. It is suggested that future research investigates the impact of the fast rate market changes in textile sector on TQM and its application to customer-service performance.

The references used by author are also very supportive and to the point Dale and Duncalf (1984) studied the quality management practices in a sample of 110 small UK manufacturing companies and noted shortcomings in their use of the quality assurance approach. However, studies of SMEs within the sector have identified gaps in TQM performance. Allen and Oakland (1988) found that in a sample of 183 textile businesses the small companies were not practicing quality assurance as well as their larger counterparts in later study of (Allen and Oakland, 1991). So the references used are convincing enough to support the author’s point of view. Moreover he used Process based quality management system of (BSI, 2000) for continual improvement.