Total Quality Management: The Philosophy Of Total Quality Management

757 Words2 Pages

Total Quality Management
Making its first appearance in the 1950’s and continuing to grow each day since its increase in popularity in the 1980’s, Total Quality Management is another trend effecting Cost and Managerial Accounting (American Society for Quality, 2016). Total Quality Management is a philosophy that focuses on quality in every part of the business in order to meet stakeholders’ needs with efficiency and effectiveness, all without compromising ethical values (Chartered Quality Institute, 2016; American Society for Quality, 2016). It is important to note that Total Quality Management is not a means to an end, but instead is the end goal itself. Meaning that Total Quality Management is not a process used to achieve a goal, but instead …show more content…

However, not all of these effects are foreign to accountants. A good example of this is that Total Quality Management focuses on fact based decision making and Cost and Managerial Accountants use this decision making process on a daily bases (Chartered Quality Institute, 2016; American Society for Quality, 2016). Realizing that total quality management does not just effect the decisions and policies of an organization is necessary for successful implantation. Since total quality management focuses on eliminating waste in all aspects of an organization, this includes how we collect and use production data, and internal controls on accounting …show more content…

Total quality management believes that it is more expensive to rework products than it is to do them right the first time (Chartered Quality Institute, 2016). In other words, with total quality management a product’s quality cannot be compromised for the sake of saving money. This is well illustrated by budget variances and how accountants must look at them under total quality management. One may believe that a favorable price variance is automatically a good thing; however, this drop in price is often a result of a lesser quality product. The same idea can be applied to the rate variance, while not always the case a favorable rate variance can mean unskilled workers. The unskilled workers increase the chance of errors which ultimately lowers the quality of a product. Accountants must look at variances carefully and not take everything at face value when making product

Open Document