Total Quality Management Definition Essay Example for Free

Total Quality Management Definition Essay Total Quality Management is a set of management practices aimed at meeting and even exceeding needs of customers and organizational objectives. The Japanese Industry started it in the 1950’s but it gained popularity from the early 80’s. TQM seeks to merge organizational functions like production, customer service, design and marketing, and has a strong emphasis on process measurement and controls as a way of continually improving the products or services offered by the organization. TQM describes the culture, attitude and organization of a company in the provision of products and services to satisfy needs of customers. Quality is required with efficiency and effectiveness in operations and reducing losses, minimizing defects and waste. Impact of globalization   As companies get bigger, there is an increasing demand for JIT (just-in-time) management, which TQM embraces. This makes things move faster, further pushing along globalization. This also calls for the removal of bottlenecks in production resulting in high quality. Globalization calls for things to be faster, better (because if youre not good, youre not utilizing your competitiveness), and hence comes TQM philosophy, which embraces that. However, globalization has brought about a demand for high skilled labour, which cannot be found with workers with low-level education, who are the majority. Their employment leads to low quality of work. Similar to that are organizations, which want to cut costs on wages and therefore employ workers with a poor educational background. Competitiveness is characterized by high labor costs; therefore, low labor costs are characterized by lower productivity. Women on the other hand, are unfortunately still engaging in low-wage and low-productivity jobs, especially in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia where womens participation in the global labour market is behind. Application of TQM Both the management and the employees can and should be involved in the process of TQM to improve the production of goods and services. TQM should be driven by a purpose and there should be a clear focus on the future vision of the organization. TQM can also be used as a way of encouraging the potential and creativity of an employee to be displayed as well as improving clients service. TQM calls for organizations to strive to continuously improve its processes through accumulated knowledge of workers and their experience. TQM is easily adaptable, for instance, it was at first an application of manufacturing operations but is now even applied to the service sector. According to Khurram Hashmi (2000), TQM is the foundation for activities, which include: Commitment by senior management and all employees Meeting customer requirements Reducing development cycle times Just In Time/Demand Flow Manufacturing Improvement teams Reducing product and service costs Systems to facilitate improvement Line Management ownership Employee involvement and empowerment Recognition and celebration Challenging quantified goals and benchmarking Focus on processes / improvement plans Specific incorporation in strategic planning This shows that all personnel, in Manufacturing, Marketing, Engineering, Research and Development, Sales, Purchasing, Human Resource, etc, must practice TQM in all activities. TQM is based on continuous improvement, both in strategic planning and in the execution of work. It seeks to avoid mistakes and defects and continually improve results through increasing the organizations resources. The major areas including supply generation, demand generation, technology, operations and people capability. It also maintains that mistakes can be identified and stopped and repetition prevented through change. Implementation of TQM A preliminary test, like a management audit should be done to asses the current state in terms of organizational functioning and establishing where change is needed. There should however be a positive attitude towards change or TQM would be ineffective. Other conditions are stable finances, good administrative systems and managerial skills and optimistic employee morale If these conditions cannot be met, it is advisable to postpone the implementation until when the organization is healthy enough with regard to these. Certain levels of stress, with regard to people feeling a need for change are however needed when implementing TQM. Kanter (1983) described certain building blocks, which should be present in effective organizational change. They include departures from tradition, a crisis or galvanizing event, strategic decisions, individual prime movers, and action vehicles. Departures from tradition are moving from normal operations in an attempt to solve a problem. A crisis, like reduction in finances, may prompt people to act. A strategic decision like a plan acting on the crisis may be implemented by a leader, who becomes the prime mover. The leader takes charge of the new idea or plan and leads people in its implementation. Action vehicles then used and mechanisms put in place to enabling the occurrence of the change.          References International Labour Organization Report (Dec 9, 2005) Globalization failing to create new, quality jobs to reduce Poverty. Retrieved from http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/econ/2005/1209reduce.htm on October 3, 2007 Hashmi, K. (2000) Paper on â€Å"Introduction and Implementation of Total Quality Management† Retrieved from http://www.isixsigma.com/library/content/c031008a.asp on October 3, 2007 Martin, L. (1993). Total Quality Management in the Public Sector, National Productivity Review

The Rosetta Stone :: essays research papers fc

Introduction The Rosetta stone the key to the Egyptians I chose the Rosetta stone because of its mysteries and unsolved scripts and hieroglyphics. It occurred to me when I was reading up on Egyptians. I hope to learn the guarded secrets it holds so I can know to decipher the ancient texts and to reveal the secrets of the Egyptians. The Rosetta stone is found in a British museum in London. The Rosetta stone is three feet nine inches long, two feet four and a half inches wide, and eleven inches thick. The Rosetta stone was discovered in 1799 that may mean that it has been lost for almost 1400 years. Athanasius kircher, a German priest of the 1600s, wrote the first grammar and vocabulary of Coptic, the language of the Christian Egypt. The French general Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt with an army of 38,000 soldiers. Egyptians wrote on stones called slabs. In 1802, the Rosetta stone was shipped to England. On august 1st the British army caught the French fleet off guard and completely destroyed Alexandria. After almost one hundred years of deciphering the Rosetta stones hieroglyphics were translated in 1850. The Rosetta stone has three different scripts. People who could write in ancient times were called scribes. Scribes wrote on paper called papyrus. The advance language called Coptic replaced the ancient Egyptians language. Coptic had then had been replaced by a further advanced language called Arabic. Egyptians wrote in sign called hieroglyphics. Instead of the word people in Egyptian language it was called demotic. On July 1,1798 Napoleons army captured the city Alexandria. Napoleon entered the Egyptian capital, Cairo in July on the 21st. Egyptian text that was enclosed in an oval outline is called a cartouche. Cartouche a French word meaning cartridge. French surrender to British September 1801. Jean Franà §ois Champollion was born 1790. Champollion graduated in 1807. Champollion, in 1822 was reserved a position on deciphering the hieroglyphics on the Rosetta stone. Thothmes was a pharaoh who ruled from 1501 to 1447 B.C. A book on hieroglyphics was published in 1824. On March 4, 1832 Champollion died in series of strokes. By 2500 B.C. complete sentences began appearing on tomb inscriptions. Demotic was first known as hieratic. The French discovered the Rosetta stone in 1799. Conclusion The researcher learned that the Rosetta stone is one of the most important artifacts of the Egyptians. It was written in three ancient scripts and is located at the British museum in London.

Parent and Teen Relationships

Children are raised differently each day. The way parents raise their children can affect them throughout life, and make them who they become as an adult. This is why it is important for parents and teens to have com/%EF%BB%BFtechnology-effects-of-human-relationships/">healthy relationships. Some parents whip their children for doing something wrong, some scold their children and whip them, but some do not even care about what their children do and in the future, this could be a major problem, especially for teenagers. When it comes to parents having to understand what their teenager is doing with their lives sometimes, it is unbearable for the parents.The teenage years of young men and young women are sometimes the most experimental years of one’s life. A teenager becomes more curious about sexual activity, alcohol, drugs, and beauty; this is especially true for teenage women because they try to find ways to make their bodies look even more beautiful although there can be har mful effects in the end. These four curiosities alone can drive parents crazy, but there are some methods that parents can use to help cope with the hard times that parents and teenagers may go through during the teenage years. Stories like â€Å"Two Kinds† by Amy Tan can sometimes help us learn from their mistakes.In class, we read and discussed â€Å"Two Kinds† by Amy Tan. This story is about a young girl named Jing-Mei who has a very controlling mother that wants her daughter to be just like many famous young actors of their time. So many things go on in this young ladies life, for example her mother takes her out to the beauty shop and makes her get a Shirley Temple hair cut, and in the end her mother hates the hair cut and then tells her daughter it looks awful, she says â€Å"you look like a Negro Chinese.† (468) she acted on this as if the child had done it on purpose. This adjustment in itself can affect the behavior of young men and young women because as they get older they may not care what their parents say and their children start to rebel against their parents leading to many dangerous paths.The difference between my life and this story is that I was told as a child that I could do anything with my life that I wanted to do. I was never made into anything that I did not want to become. My dad always had the dream of me becoming an awesome soccer player because that is what my brother wanted  to do but I had other plans. I wanted to become a dancer, and go to school for dance one day, and that is what I did and I am here today. This little girl did not have that chance, her mother ruled her life and she became what her mother wanted her to become.A relationship is the key element in any mother daughter’s relationship. We see in this story that the mother is very controlling and that affects the daughter in many ways. Many children today do not have good relationship with their parent’s because of certain issues. These issue the child’s issues or the parents. Some parents may take control of their children like in â€Å"Two Kinds.† However, other situations are the children can control the parents. We see this every day on television such as MTV, with Teen Cribs. This is a show where the parents pretty much give their children anything and everything they want in life. As in â€Å"Two Kinds† sometimes the child can be so rambunctious that the parent cannot be in control of their child but the child controls the parent.There are also many ways that parents can fix these types of situations, so these issues do not result into a problem. Parents are not supposed to be your best friend they are supposed to tell you what to do. Ways to fix this is to sit down and talk with your kids and lay down the rules and requirements that need to be dealt with. Others may have to take drastic measures and send their children off to get help because they cannot control them, such as boar ding schools, military schools, religious schools, and even juvenile hall. If you teach your children at an early age to listen and be obedient then it will stick with them.Your child should respect you and look up to you from an early age. Children know what they can and cannot do at an early age, but when children know they can get away with anything when it comes to the parents; they push the limit and don’t think about who they’re hurting in the long run. These kids have never been scolded, whipped, or said no to and know that their parents either do not care or care but do nothing about it.As we grow older, we learn that our parents only told us what to do because they loved us and probably have gone through the same thing. I, for  example, look back on my childhood as an adult now and think how my parents were doing me a favor and doing what was best for me. Knowing this now, I see why my parents treated me the way they did and disciplined me for doing things t hat I was told not to do. As a society, we can learn from stories like â€Å"Two Kinds. These stories can be eye opening for parents in the future, and how we raise our children, I hope to be a good parent one day and teach my kids the lessons my parents taught me.

All About Carbon Fiber and How Its Made

Also called graphite fiber or carbon graphite, carbon fiber consists of very thin strands of the element carbon. Carbon fibers have high tensile strength and are very strong for their size. In fact, carbon fiber might be the strongest material there is. Each fiber is 5-10 microns in diameter. To give a sense of how small that is, one micron (um) is 0.000039 inches. One strand of spider web silk is usually between 3-8 microns. Carbon fibers are twice as stiff as steel and five times as strong as steel, (per unit of weight). They also are highly chemically resistant and have high-temperature tolerance with low thermal expansion. Carbon fibers are important in engineering materials, aerospace, high-performance vehicles, sporting equipment, and musical instruments--to name just a few of their uses. Raw Materials Carbon fiber is made from organic polymers, which consist of long strings of molecules held together by carbon atoms.  Most carbon fibers (about 90 percent) are made from the polyacrylonitrile (PAN) process. A small amount (about 10 percent) are manufactured from rayon or the petroleum pitch process.  Gases, liquids, and other materials used in the manufacturing process create specific effects, qualities, and grades of carbon fiber. The highest grade carbon fiber with the best modulus properties are used in demanding applications such as aerospace. Carbon fiber manufacturers differ from one another in the combinations of raw materials they use. They usually treat their specific formulations as trade secrets. Manufacturing Process In the manufacturing process, the raw materials, which are called precursors, are drawn into long strands or fibers. The fibers are woven into fabric or combined with other materials that are filament wound or molded into desired shapes and sizes. There are typically five segments in the manufacturing of carbon fibers from the PAN process. These are: Spinning. PAN mixed with other ingredients and spun into fibers, which are washed and stretched.Stabilizing. Chemical alteration to stabilize bonding.Carbonizing. Stabilized fibers heated to very high temperature forming tightly bonded carbon crystals.Treating the Surface. ​The surface of fibers oxidized to improve bonding properties.Sizing. Fibers are coated and wound onto bobbins, which are loaded onto spinning machines that twist the fibers into different size yarns. Instead of being woven into fabrics, fibers may be formed into composites. To form composite materials, heat, pressure, or a vacuum binds fibers together with a plastic polymer. Manufacturing Challenges The manufacture of carbon fibers carries a number of challenges, including: The need for more cost-effective recovery and repair.The surface treatment process must be carefully regulated to avoid creating pits that could result in defective fibers.Close control required to ensure consistent quality.Health and safety issuesSkin irritationBreathing irritationArcing and shorts in electrical equipment because of the strong electro-conductivity of carbon fibers. Future of Carbon Fiber Because of its high tensile strength and lightweight, many consider carbon fiber to be the most significant manufacturing material of our generation. Carbon fiber may play an increasingly important role in areas such as: Energy: Windmill blades, natural gas storage, and transportation, fuel cells.Automobiles: Currently used just for high-performance vehicles, carbon fiber technology is moving into wider use.  In December 2011 General Motors announced that it is working on carbon fiber composites for mass production of automobiles.Construction: Lightweight pre-cast concrete, earthquake protection.Aircraft: Defense and commercial aircraft.  Unmanned aerial vehicles.Oil exploration: Deepwater drilling platforms, drill pipes.Carbon nanotubes: Semiconductor materials, spacecraft, chemical sensors, and other uses. In 2015, carbon fiber had a $2.25 billion market size. Projections have the market expanding to $31 billion by 2024. To accomplish this, costs must be reduced and new applications targeted.