Relationship between QS 9000 and TQM

The purpose of QS 9000 is to encourage automotive manufacturers and suppliers to build quality systems that focus on the continuous improvement of processes and thereby product quality. This characteristic forces organisations to transform their cultures toward total quality management (TQM). Although QS 9000 and TQM effectively complement one another, their
stated objectives/goals, evaluation methodologies and improvement strategies are idiosyncratically different. QS 9000 is mainly aimed to meet goals and targets and achieve certification whereas TQM is focused on the continuous path in the improvement of product/process/service quality. It is important to note that an organisation that is already operating under a TQM culture will likely meet both the ISO 9001 and QS 9000 registration requirements typically with relatively small changes in documentation (Bramorski, et al., 2000).
ISO 9000 does not properly address specific areas that need to be improved. It lacks the practical advice to the company regarding what should be done from the standard. QS 9000 has more detailed explanations regarding what a company can do and where they can improve. For instance, element 4.2.5.2 (quality and productivity improvement) and 4.2.5.3 (techniques for
continuous improvement) lists out the examples of situations which might lead to improving projects and possible techniques that could be used for making such improvements.

The motive of implementation of QS 9000 and ISO 9000 is passive in that many companies
are requested to register to these standards by their customers to maintain the business as
certified suppliers. It might have negative effects on the company which is forced to conform to these standards without adequateunderstanding and sloppy implementation of the system. On the other hand, the TQM approach is rather active and preventative because it is a philosophy consisting of core values, tools and techniques rather than a system and does not require any auditing.
It is good for an organisation to have a quality system such as ISO 9000 and use this as a stepping stone for QS 9000 and TQM respectively (Ho, 1994). Moreover, a recent study has shown that companies that systematically adopt best practice starting with ISO 9000 and moving towards a TQM culture achieve significantly higher performance levels (Prabhu, et al., 2000).
This claim can be further reinforced by means of another study performed by Hongyi based
on the survey of 316 private companies. The study reveals that in companies with ISO
9000 certification, the availability of quality information, quality assurance of the process/
product etc. are significantly higher. The authors believe that if a company starts with
ISO 9000 and then moves towards QS 9000 and TQM, it then provides some advantages
such as compliance of documented procedures and work instructions, integration of process steps across functional boundaries, awareness of quality within the organisation, prevention of non-conformance, early detection of defects and so on. The requirements in QS 9000 cover more elaborative quality control and improvement methods (capability analysis, SPC, PPAP,
FMEA, etc.) when compared to ISO 9000.
These tools and techniques for continuous improvement can also be applied to the TQM philosophy which is primarily focused on customer satisfaction. The stepping stone from ISO 9000 to TQM with QS 9000 as an intermediate stage can be demonstrated by a simple figure (See Figure 1). It is important to note that the successful implementation of QS 9000 requires management commitment, employees’ involvement, teamwork, training, quality awareness, document and data control, culture change, etc.
The quality slope is used by the organization to determine where the process can be improved from time to time and therefore take actions and push the quality system upwards to meet further requirements. The method used here is called plan-do-check-act or PDCA cycle. ‘‘plan-do-check-act’ ’ refers to the Deming cycle of continuous improvement, which is a fundamental concept of TQM philosophy (Cohen, 1995).