Development of a total quality management framework in a company of the project management sector

Abstract

[EN] It is worldwide accepted that small and medium companies are playing a vital role in economy. In the European Union, a 99.9% of the establishments have fewer than 500 workers (Cagliano, Blackmon, & Voss, 2001). Nowadays, companies can offer their services in the global market independently from their size, which generates a very competitive situation. Companies are forced to reduce costs innovating, improving operations and speeding up their processes. Consequently, firms -no matter its size- should develop techniques which allow them to anticipate to changes and improve their performance in a continuous way (Sinha, Amir Bolboli, & Reiche, 2013). Much of this can be achieved with Total Quality Management (TQM) and Business Excellence (BE) (Cagliano et al., 2001; Singh, Singh, & Gunasekaran, 2015). The company which is object of this thesis is included inside this frame of small or micro companies. It operates in the field of project and building management in a national scale. Although it already uses some quality management practices, there is a lack of structure or scheme which articulates and develops those ones. The objective of this thesis was to study the concept of TQM and to create a conceptual framework for its implementation in a particular situation. The results of this work could be used by the company as a starting point in the way to BE, or as a guideline in the implementation of TQM in small and micro enterprises. The development of the framework consisted of analyzing the current status of the company by using self-assessment procedures and the description of an implementation plan. This plan contains the steps, which the firm should follow, to implement the results of the self-assessment process in the company’s context. It is important to clarify that this work was done with a limited support from the company. Therefore, the content is based on the observation and experience obtained by working during six months in the firm and the interviews that were held by some of the workers.