Total Quality Management Application of Interior Contractors in Thailand

In Thai interior industry, there is no clear evidence related to quality of interior works, and it is one of the main problems which can be faced by the interior contractors. From site survey, the defects, reworks, and poor quality products can be found and it is realized to be serious problems in the project site and also in the interior company. These problems directly affect company reputation because of customer complaints. Furthermore, most of customer‘s complaints are related to interior works such as door, marbles, plaster and paint, tiling, timber flooring, wardrobe, see Figure 2.

Due to the specific and costly materials for decorating and finishing, the small defects influence to cost. However, the quality management concepts tend to prevent quality problems. Consequently, the benefit of increasing this prevention can be gained in term of money as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Costs and benefits of quality management

(Source: Low & Ke-Wei, 1996)

Figure 2: The percentage of customer complaints regarding defects in each unit

(Source: CDL; real estate development company in Singapore,

Illustrated in Oakland and Marosszeky, 2006)

These can be a few examples of the quality problems which are usually interfaced in the interior decorated project. The common quality problems such as defects, reworks, and poor quality products, reflect the poor quality management in organizations. In conclusion, TQM will help to reduce the amount of work for employees if they no longer need to attend to customer complaints and defect problems (Low & Teo, 2004).

Ms. Nichapa Nirasok made a study aimed to:

1. understand the application of TQM of interior contractors in Thailand

2. develop TQM framework which is applicable in interior contractors in Thailand;

and

3. identify the barriers in implementing TQM of interior contractors in Thailand

Conclusions

Objective 1: To understand the application of TQM of interior contractors in

Thailand

In interior industry in Thailand, the term TQM has not been known well. However, the implementations of TQM in the case studies are observed. Most of the companies have already implemented TQM implementations, but they have not used the term TQM.

The top managements of interior contractors need to understand the importance of TQM application. The aim of TQM implementation is to increase external and internal customer satisfaction with a reduced amount of resources. In order to implement TQM in practice, the top management commitment is the key. Without the support from top management commitment, the implementation of TQM is not possible.

Employees are considered as the key asset for the interior contractor. People management is one of the essential factors for implementing TQM in interior contractor. By the nature of the interior works, the workmanship is the most important since the aesthetic is one of the good quality meanings. The importance of investment on human resources is realized by the top management. In order to improve the workmanship, the organization learning is conducted.

As the aim of TQM which is to increase external and internal customer satisfaction with a reduced amount of resources, the effective quality control system and effective working process are needed. Roles and responsibilities of employee in working process have to be clear. For example, the wood work team needs to know what are the requirements of the next team; assembly team. The wood work team has to deliver their products with the quality which is the assembly team required. In this case, the assembly team is the wood work team‘s customer. So, the wood work team needs to satisfy their customer by delivering the quality product. The details of requires of each team. This working climate could be gain the internal customer satisfaction. Once, the interior contractors can assure the quality requirements. The external customer satisfaction could be gained as well.

Besides, the effective working process, the quality information should be collected. The information should be the documents with photos. The key is this data should be used for improvement. It does not matter how big is the improvement but keep improving is the crucial. The employees have to learn and participate in any improvement.

Suppliers and subcontractor in the interior industry are the main parties as well. Without the good quality of raw materials, the quality of any interior works could not be good. For the subcontractors, in practice, sometimes, interior contractor buy the raw materials for them and pay only for the wages, for example, the glass or mirror works, which are fragile and expensive. Subcontractor may not be able to bear such risk. In the traditional approach, interior contractor companies hire the outsource subcontractors to do some parts of the works. Still, the partnering subcontractor which is mentioned as in-house subcontractor approach is successful in some companies. Some companies, they hire the in-house technicians to do all the works. This approach is also successful for some companies due the quality requirements could be easier to control but higher cost.

Equally important, the customer is one of the main parties. It could be seen that the customer service, relationship, and partnership are directly related to the top management commitment. The top management develops, and gives the priority to customer management. The specific team has assigned to work on the customer services. Especially, the process to solve the customer complaint is managed properly. The personal relationship would be developed by the top management as well. The customer feedback is the key for improvement. The customer satisfaction on the works also would be recorded and it would become to the tomorrow‘s provisions.

Objective 2: To develop TQM framework which is applicable in interior contractors in Thailand

The key dimensions of TQM and the application of TQM in interior contractors in

Thailand has been shown in Table 1. Since, there is no TQM completed implementation

company. So, these applications have been justified by the qualitative assessment as good

TQM practices by comparing among five qualified interior contractors. 

Her thesis abstract is copied below.

Abstract

The Total Quality Management (TQM) aims to increase the external and internal customer satisfaction. The key aspects of TQM are (1) top management commitment and leadership; (2) customer management; (3) organizational learning; (4) people management; (5) process management; (6) continual improvement; (7) quality information management; and (8) supplier and subcontractor management.

In this study, the qualitative approach is conducted. The applications of TQM in interior contractor in Thailand were studied. The five qualified interior contractors in Thailand are chosen to be the case study. The interviews, observations, and documentation were used as the data collection tools. In data collection and analysis, the key aspects of TQM have been a guideline.

The practices of each interior contractor are common and different. The common and unique applications are discuss in Chapter 4. Among the five case studies, the good practices which could be justified by the qualitative assessment are used to develop the framework for TQM application in interior contractor in Thailand. Also, the difficulties in implementing TQM in interior contractors are identified.

Keywords: Total quality management, TQM, Application, Framework, Interior contractor, Thailand