S. Belous-Sergeeva, O. Mashtakova, Research of "hard" and "soft" approaches of Total quality management.

Abstract

Recently, quality improvement and management systems have developed rapidly. In recent decades, simple inspection activities have been replaced or supplemented by quality control and quality assurance standards. Numerous studies have been conducted to determine the effectiveness of the implementation of total quality management (TQM) and total productive maintenance (TPM). TQM provides organizations with a range of tools to ensure sustainable development and competitive advantage, with the path to successful continuous improvement focused on the use of strategy, data and effective communication to instill quality discipline in the culture and processes of the organization. The work has a review character. In this paper, the influence of soft and hard TQM practices on production performance is investigated. There is considered the development of Total Quality Management as a system, which covers all functions and departments, all employees and which aims to consistently meet customer needs. The factors relating to the soft and hard approaches are identified. The characteristic and features of each factor related to the corresponding approaches are given. The interrelation of factors of soft and hard approaches, and also influence of factors of hard approach on soft factors of TQM is investigated. The prospects of regulation of the enterprise and quality management system using various factors of soft approach are presented.