Title: Soft TQM practices in Indian cement industry - an empirical study

Authors: Tripti Singh; Rameshwar Dubey

Addresses: School of Management Studies, Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, 211004 Allahabad, India. ' Centre of Supply Chain Research, Asian Council of Logistics Management, 504 Queens Manasion, 5th Floor, 12th Park Street, 700071 Kolkata, India

Abstract: Total quality management (TQM) has evolved as a widely acceptable philosophy and practice for achievement of organisational objectives (Singh et al., 2011). It is a business strategy to achieve superior performance by offering quality product or services. The present research proposes a soft TQM framework and empirically tested the impact of soft dimensions of TQM on its performance in context to Indian cement industry. Indian cement industry is now becoming more competitive in order to sustain profitability by reducing cost by minimising wastages and improve market share by improving quality of the product and services offered to the customer. Here researcher(s) aim to propose a soft TQM framework which can help them to improve their 'return on investment' (ROI) which has been the subject of debate.

Keywords: total quality management; TQM; leadership; relationships; partners; return on investment; ROI; India; cement industry; organisational objectives; business strategies; superior performance; quality products; quality services; soft frameworks; soft dimensions; profitability; cost reduction; wastages; waste minimisation; market share; improved quality; customers; human resource management; HRM; Tripti Singh; Rameshwar Dubey; productivity management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPQM.2013.050566

International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, 2013 Vol.11 No.1, pp.1 - 28

Published online: 31 Mar 2014 *

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