TQM Activities

In addition to the role of the Quality Assurance Section to establish and maintain the Quality Management System in the Ministry, it has the TQM (Total Quality Management) activities. The Department executed a multiplicity of TQM modules running concurrently for the Ministry and for external entities (small and medium companies). These activities are intended to help any organization to continue to be successful, and help distinguish it from its competitors. The Targeted companies selected were guided towards achieving ISO 9000, as the first step in the TQM Model and then to practice the culture of continuous improvement through different programs.

In general, the two aspects or approaches of the major activities conducted for TQM in the Ministry and for the other interested companies were the: “Bottom-up” and “Top-down” activities. For initiating the TQM activities for the first time in an organization the Top-Down activities were promoted as to develop the organization’s vision and the plan for implementing TQM. The Bottom-up activities were applied as tools for continuous improvement, and were modules like  5 S, Small Group activities including Quality Control (Q.C.) Circles, and the “Kaizen Teian” Scheme. The Kaizen Teian Scheme & the 7 Q.C. tools aided to identify and solve critical problems which had either been missed or ignored, and demonstrated how small ideas could lead to superior performance. The 7 Q.C. tools being used for this, were the Histogram, Control Charts/Graphs, Cause-and-Effect Diagram, Scatter plots, Stratification, Fishbone diagram, and the Pareto diagram.