Total Quality Management Practices in Manufacturing and Service Industries : A Comparative Study

Total quality management (TQM) practices can be described as best ways in which organisations and their employees undertake business activities in all key processes. These practices have a positive impact on business results in manufacturing and service industries. This paper seeks to investigate the sets of TQM practices in two different sectors and identifies a set of common TQM practices applicable to both the sectors, by reviewing the literature on TQM practices followed by manufacturing and service industries. The methodology adopted was a survey of published research studies on manufacturing and service industries were selected and their TQM practices were compared. The studies selected for this purpose focused on the TQM principles and practices used by them. The finding showed no significant difference in the level of most of TQM practices and broadly the same set of identified TQM practices do exist and are applicable to both the sectors except few inconsistencies as reported by the study. The results of this paper provide guidance for managers and practitioners of quality to implement TQM in their organisations, effectively through the use of the proposed set of identified TQM practices