Total quality management experiences in some New South Wales manufacturing companies

Total quality management is viewed as a continuous improvement system (CIS). Quantitative indicators to measure organizational and structural features of enterprises on their way to becoming CISs are suggested. These input indicators are related to attributes pertaining to three dimensions: quality management, quality information and human resources. To identify eventual patterns representing specific models of improvement paths, we use these indicators to analyze a small but random sample of enterprises (selected from a sampling population of enterprises that had formally embarked on a total quality management programme) and detect their strong and weak dimensions. The findings provide evidence that the input indicators (whose performance statistic is expressed here in terms of a signal-to-noise ratio) have a positive causal effect on some quality improvement benefits (output indicators) and, accordingly, that a relatively high and balanced distribution of input efforts of a company over all the defined attributes can be considered the best path towards improvement. A quantitative approach to analyze managers' attitudes towards some quality-related topics using the repertory grid technique is also presented.