Total Quality Fundamentals

Learn the fundamentals, history, and key concepts of the total quality movement. This course will teach you how to increase the value of your company through motivational models, leadership, teamwork, and quality standards.

6 Weeks / 24 Course Hrs

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California State University - San Marcos

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Learning method

Self-Guided

$139

No instructor. Study on your own schedule

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Instructor-Moderated

$139

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Starting April 16 | May 14

Details + Objectives

Course code: tqf

In this course you will learn how to effectively apply the fundamentals of total quality. You will gain understanding of what quality is and learn about the history of the quality movement. You will discover the role of customers in quality and determine the major elements of a quality system. This course will show you how to master key concepts such as the cost of non-quality, variation, and total employee involvement (TEI). Increase your value to your company by learning about various motivational models, leadership, and teamwork. Determine how to effectively apply quality standards by creating and implementing internal and external auditing activities. Learn the ins and outs of ISO 9000, ISO 14000, and the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

In this online course, you will learn how successful organizations apply quality to their everyday activities. You will find out how to use teamwork to make the most of your employees' abilities and potential. You will learn to manage the process of change, reduce customer complaints, and increase customer service. You will learn of a number of quality fallacies and how to lessen their impact.

What you will learn

Learn the concepts and components of Total Quality Management
Learn to minimize customer complaints
Discover the cost of non-quality and its components: internal failure, external failure, appraisal, and prevention costs
Learn how you can use statistical process control to meet customer requirements
Discover how the concepts of distinctive competency, competitive advantage, and organizational assessment position your organization for success
Learn why people resist change and how you can manage change
Learn how to build a strong team and effectively deliver training
Explore the basics of standards and auditing and learn the difference between internal and external auditing and how your firm can use each to improve company operations
Increase your knowledge about quality standards and systems
Learn to identify the most common quality fallacies

How you will benefit

Learn to effectively apply the fundamentals of total quality
Discover how to use teamwork to make the most of your employees' abilities and potential

How the course is taught

Instructor-Moderated or Self-Guided online course
6 Weeks or 3 Months access
24 course hours

Outline

The first lesson will discuss the concept of professional quality certification as defined by the American Society for Quality (ASQ). Next, it will provide you with a universal definition of quality, a challenging proposition because so many people have different ideas of what quality is and what it isn't. You'll learn about the history of the quality movement and see how Six Sigma fits in. The lesson will finish up by examining Total Quality Management (TQM) and discuss its concepts and components.

Quality is best viewed as a total customer satisfaction package. You satisfy customers by effectively combining products and services. To help you get to know customers better, this lesson will discuss different customer types and how you can minimize customer complaints. You'll discover the role that your organization plays in providing high customer satisfaction by maintaining a quality philosophy and creating quality systems.

Companies often don't pay enough attention to problems until they begin to see sales and profits drop. Because of this tendency, an effective way to get top management's attention and hopefully increase their commitment to quality is to express problems in terms of costs. This lesson will discuss the cost of nonquality (also called the "cost of quality") and its components—external failure, internal failure, appraisal, and prevention costs. You'll also explore the concept of variation and discuss how you can use statistical process control (SPC) to meet customer requirements.

Companies grow by entering new markets and meeting unmet customer needs. To achieve and maintain this growth, it's important to have a healthy organization that has the right mix of leadership and power. In this lesson, you'll learn about the basic leadership styles and two leadership models. You'll also discover how the concepts of distinctive competency, competitive advantage, and organizational assessment position your organization for success.

In this lesson, you'll learn what makes people tick and how to manage change. Reaching quality levels you desire will require dedication from everyone in the organization, so you need to know what motivates people in order to successfully work with and direct them. Also, as you work with people, you're faced with change. You'll learn about forces for change, why people resist these forces, and how to manage change.

It seems as if teams are everywhere. Despite the popularity of teams, far too many people report that their experience hasn't been too fulfilling. Six Sigma and quality projects rely on high-performing teams, so it's vital that you learn the secrets of team building. Many companies fail to devote enough time to training. After you complete this lesson, you'll be able to play a large role in making sure that employees receive the right type of preparation. When you finish, you'll have a solid understanding of how to build a strong team and effectively deliver training.

When companies decide to improve quality and better satisfy customers, they won't succeed unless all employees are behind these goals. Once you get employee commitment, you need to measure your progress. In this lesson, you'll examine a concept called "total employee involvement" (TEI) that will help you get the most out of every single person at your firm. You'll learn about the role that management and employees play in TEI. You'll also learn how to determine progress by using traditional and progressive performance measurements.

Standards and auditing work hand-in-hand. The first helps you plan and the second makes sure that you follow your plans. Firms that conform to standards are more capable of competing. In this lesson, you'll explore the basics of standards and auditing. The lesson will talk about how standards are used and how they're developed. You'll also explore their benefits and discover how they're defined. Regarding auditing, you'll examine their features, explore the different types of audits, and look at why auditing is a challenging activity.

In this lesson, you'll explore how your firm can use external auditing to assess suppliers' capabilities and internal auditing to improve company operations. You'll learn the difference between external and internal auditing. The lesson will also share the nuts and bolts of auditing and show you how to plan and conduct an audit and write a final audit report.

ISO 9000 is one of the main reasons why organizations continue to focus on quality. It's difficult for companies to disregard quality once they make a decision to adopt the ISO 9000 standard. This lesson will start out with some background about ISO, discuss what ISO 9000 represents, identify the challenges of implementing it, and show you a recipe for successfully putting ISO in place. It will also talk about each section of the ISO 9001:2000 standard.

In this lesson, you'll tackle a number of topics that will increase your knowledge about quality standards and systems. Although ISO 9000 has a high profile, other methods and structures also play a vital role in quality improvement. First, you'll finish your study of ISO by looking at a series of standards to manage the environment—ISO 14000. Next, you'll dive into the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA), an esteemed award given for quality excellence in the United States. Finally, you'll explore three systems that apply to many companies: QS-9000, the Advanced Quality System (AQS), and the Conformité Europeenne (CE) mark.

After you implement everything from the lessons of this course, you can safely say your organization has a quality culture. Without a quality culture, it's difficult to satisfy customers, improve processes, and reduce costs. In addition to learning about quality culture, you'll also examine quality fallacies. You'll finish up the lesson by learning about the most common quality fallacies and what beliefs should take their place.

Instructors & Support

Tony Swaim

Tony Swaim has helped many clients, colleagues, and students reach their professional and personal goals. He has been an online instructor since 1998 and has taught at colleges and universities across the United States since 1981. His focus areas are project management, Six Sigma, and supply chain management. Tony manages a successful consulting firm, and his industry experience includes 20 years of supply chain management. He earned a Doctorate in Business Administration from Kennesaw State University and holds professional certifications in six disciplines, including the Project Management Professional (PMP)® certification from the Project Management Institute (PMI)® and Certified Six Sigma Black Belt (CSSBB)® from the American Society for Quality (ASQ)®.

Instructor Interaction: The instructor looks forward to interacting with learners in the online moderated discussion area to share their expertise and answer any questions you may have on the course content.

Requirements

Prerequisites:

There are no prerequisites to take this course.

Requirements:

Hardware Requirements:

This course can be taken on either a PC, Mac, or Chromebook.

Software Requirements:

PC: Windows 8 or later.
Mac: macOS 10.6 or later.
Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox are preferred. Microsoft Edge and Safari are also compatible.
Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins.

Other:

Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.

Instructional Material Requirements:

The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.

FAQ

Instructor-Moderated: A new session of each course begins each month. Please refer to the session start dates for scheduling.

Self-Guided: Your course begins immediately after you enroll.

Instructor-Moderated: Once a course session starts, two lessons will be released each week for the 6 week duration of your course. You will have access to all previously released lessons until the course ends. You will interact with the instructor through the online discussion area. There are no live sessions or online meetings with the instructor.

Self-Guided: You have 3 months of access to the course. After enrolling, you can learn and complete the course at your own pace, within the allotted access period. You will have the opportunity to interact with other students in the online discussion area.

Instructor-Moderated: The interactive discussion area for each lesson automatically closes two weeks after each lesson is released, so you're encouraged to complete each lesson within two weeks of its release. However, you will have access to all lessons from the time they are released until the course ends.

Self-Guided: There is no time limit to complete each lesson, other than completing all lessons within the allotted access period. Discussion areas for each lesson are open for the entire duration of the course.

Instructor-Moderated: Students enrolled in a six-week online class benefit from a one-time, 10-day extension for each course. No further extensions can be provided beyond these 10 days.

Self-Guided: Because this course is self-guided, no extensions will be granted after the start of your enrollment.

Reviews

Excellent Instuctor! Very informational class. Met my reasons for taking the class.

I consider this an excellent introduction to Six Sigma. The topics are really fascinating to me and I just look forward to get more knowledge in the next course and pursue the Six Sigma certification.

I found this on-line course to be well laid out, and the materials supplied second to none. Instruction from Tony was both informative and in depth.

Mr. Swaim, I really enjoyed the course, and really appreciate all of the information found through supplementary Info. links. Looking forward to Six Sigma: Quality Management Applications.

Mr.Tony Swaim obviously enjoys his work and is passionate on sharing it with others. From the class lessons and test questions he is gifted in writing and communicating, having the ability to share his skills with others. His prompt interaction to questions along with discussions with others made the class seem friendly.

Thank you so much for a great course! I really enjoyed the course and found the material provided very useful and applicable to job situations. The supplementary materials are awesome.

Thank you Tony for all your hard work. Since taking this course, I am seriously thinking of going for my Green Belt or CQM. This will definitely help from a knowledge perspective in my current position and I hope to really use it in the next position I get. Thanks!

The course was a very good introduction to the concepts and history of quality management. I look forward to taking the next course where we really get to the "nuts and bolts" of ISO and lean management. Tony's lessons were clear and concise.

This course reaffirmed basic knowledge of quality systems. Thank you Tony for your instructional guidance. I will recommend this course to others.

Tony, awesome course! My company may want to include this course in their training program.