TQM: a good fit for the food industry ... if the program is tailored with conviction.

The Total Quality Management business strategy is readily adaptable to the food industry. A quick glance at the business environment in which the food industry operates establishes a need for some systematic process. Consider, for example, just 10 of the top issues faced by every supplier of

1. A competitive marketplace with many suppliers

2. A continuous need for noticeably better products

3. New and emerging food technologies

4. Consumer demand for greater variety

5. Heightened health concerns about both nutritional issues and overall food safety

6. A rapidly changing regulatory environment

7. Retail and wholesale customer demands for higher levels of service

8. A recognized need for quality partnerships with other suppliers

9. Growing emphasis on quick response, just-in-time inventories, continuous replenishment and electronic data interchange

10. A rapidly changing work force, both on the factory floors and throughout the management ranks

This list is not intended to be all-inclusive. But it does make the point that the current operating environment for the food industry requires some different approaches if we are to continuously improve the way we manage.

TQM offers a viable approach. The concept is so simple, it contains so much motherhood and apple pie, that it is difficult to argue against its logic.

Ideas are easy, executing them isn't

The simplicity of the concept and the seeming complexity of its implementation present a paradox. TQM has met with disappointment in many food companies, while many others trumpet it as their key to success.

That success seems to lie in the focus and leadership provided during initial introduction of the concept. In any successful model, the company's management always provides great leadership and focuses on the business results most important to the firm's long-term success. And it's a going-in expectation that the TQM efforts will be directed at those most important business results.

When a top management team cannot or will not identify the key business results needed for long-term success, then trying to implement TQM is a bit like the Chinese proverb: "Man must sit with mouth wide open for very long time before roast duck fly in." Attempting to use TQM concepts without establishing and communicating a vision for the organization and for its long-term success is most likely to deliver short-term and insignificant results, unworthy of the time and effort required to introduce TQM.

When there is great leadership and sharp focus, however, the results are almost always staggering. What's more, the Total Quality Management approach is really very adaptable to just about any longer-term endeavor. To illustrate that point, list in your own mind three or four key longer-term results for your business. Some commonly mentioned in the food industry are listed above.

A TQM approach calls for us to really look at and analyze how we are trying to get those results. When that is done with care and openness, we often don't like what we see. The processes in place often are patch-works from past generations of management. As depicted in the chart above, we might find fragmented direction from different parts of the company. We might be experiencing much do and re-do, resulting in waste, scrap and the deployment of too many resources. Very often, departmental attitudes and short-term crisis management results in a quick mounting up of distrust throughout the organization.

Total Quality Management requires us to continue to focus on the same most important results, but to dramatically improve the way we are trying to get those results.

You gotta believe

The backbone of TQM is the belief in continuous improvement. It requires an absolute conviction that no matter how good we are today, we have to be better tomorrow. That basic belief, partnered with great leadership from throughout the organization, a continuous focus on improving customer satisfaction and some basic training for the organization to improve skills in teamwork, process management, problem solving and empowering, provides a fairly complete view of TQM at work.

Certainly, this system for continuous improvement is as applicable to the food industry as to any other industry. It is wise to remember that implementation is more difficult than just grasping the concept. False starts are all too frequent and are always very costly in monetary terms as well as to overall employee morale.

One successful strategy (and it's one our consulting firm recommends) is implementation through "natural management teams." The natural management team approach utilizes the existing organization structure and avoids the pitfalls of parallel organizations working on TQM without clear focus and ownership of the results. This tends to keep the focus of all TQM efforts directed at the most important business issues.

Carl Glass is former senior vice president of quality management and logistics for ConAgra Frozen Foods and now senior consultant for Tennessee Associates International, Maryville, Tenn