United States General Accounting Office Washington, D.C. 20548 General Government Division
B-249779 March 30, 1993 The Honorable The Secretary Mike Espy of Agriculture
Dear Mr. Secretary: Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management approach that strives to achieve continuous improvement of quality through TQM also organizationwide efforts based on facts and data. focuses business processes on meeting the needs of customers, Although TQM traditionally has both internal and external. been associated with private sector organizations and their efforts to remain competitive and profitable, in recent years have been attempting to implement TQM to federal organizations cope with budget restrictions and better serve the public. We …show more content…
Maturity definitions ranged from Phase 1, preliminary TQM efforts, to Phase 5, institutionalized efforts that are achieving significant benefits (see enc. I for definitions). As figure 3 shows, 51 percent of the total federal installations responding to the survey reported being in Phase 1 or 2, while 61 percent of the Agriculture installations reported still being in these early phases. The fact that many Agriculture installations are in the early phases of TQM reflects the relative newness of Agriculture's efforts; 67 percent of the installations implementing TQM reported beginning TQM efforts within the past 3 years. 3 …show more content…
B-249779 Fiaure 7: Reswondents Reoortina Internal Operatina Conditions Positive Imoact on
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BARRIERS TO TOM We asked all the federal installations we sent our recent survey to about the significance of 21 potential barriers to implementing TQM that had been identified through our research. Nine barriers were said to be moderate to very major problems by 39 percent or more of the total federal respondents. As figure generally the total barriers. from Agriculture respondents were 8 shows, the replies consistent with the category of barriers identified by federal survey and the extent of impact of these It should be noted that many of these barriers are
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B-249779 related to employee issues, such as (1) employees do not believe they are empowered to make changes, (2) employees lack sufficient information on how to use TQM tools, and (3) employees lack information and training on TQM concepts and theory. Fiaure 8: Respondents Reportina Barriers Are Moderate to Verv Major Problems to Imolementina TOM
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