TQM as a support for societal development--experiences from a Swedish community

Abstract

Total quality management (TQM) is a management philosophy traditionally connected with business, and industry. Today's society is complex but with a strong connection between business, public and private spheres. One example is the impact that negative economic and demographic trends have on communities. Implementing improvements can also be a way of improving life in a local community by its residents. There are communities that have transferred parts of the TQM philosophy to community issues. The outstanding example in Sweden is the community of & seda. Here, non-profit organizations, companies and the public sector have collaborated. They have established common core values, worked with quality methodologies, and achieved positive results during the last few years. The residents are organized in a form of improvement groups, working according to the PDSA cycle, and covering all situations a resident might be confronted with in a community. In this paper, results from a study of the experiences from & seda are presented. The author discusses how the work is organized and how residents in the community work with improvements, and also illustrates the experienced benefits and difficulties. Some indicators for successfully implementing TQM on community issues have been observed and are presented, such as the roles of leadership and of the improvement groups.