Title: Barriers to the successful implementation of TQM in Iranian manufacturing organisations

Authors: Mohammad Abdolshah, Saeed Abdolshah

Addresses: Department of Engineering Faculty, Islamic Azad University, Semnan Branch, P.O. Box 35136-93688, Semnan, Iran. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

Abstract: TQM is a set of management practices throughout the organisation, geared to ensure the organisation consistently meets or exceeds customer requirements. This research tries to investigate the most important barriers to successful TQM implementation in Iranian manufacturing organisations. The authors have studied samples of manufacturing organisations, comprising those that have invested on TQM after the end of March 2009 and were located in Iran. This descriptive and cross-sectional research is carried out via two questionnaires – general questionnaire for success of TQM principles and specific questionnaire for barriers to successful TQM implementation. The statistical population of this research consists of all managers of manufacturing organisations who implemented TQM in their organisations. Results showed that the main root causes of unsuccessful implementation of TQM were the lack of management commitment, resource problem and failure to use the right framework for TQM. In addition, there is a significant coincidence between the results of two questionnaires. Finally, regarding the findings of this research, we offer a relation between TQM principles and barriers to successful TQM implementation. Therefore, in order to reduce the barriers to successful TQM implementation, some suggestions were proposed.

Keywords: total quality management; managerial effectiveness; barriers; TQM implementation; Iran; manufacturing industry; customer requirements; managers; management commitment; barrier reduction; productivity.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPQM.2011.039352

International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, 2011 Vol.7 No.3, pp.358 - 373

Published online: 31 Mar 2011 *

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