TQM is an abbreviation of the term Total Quality Management. It is a process, which is used by many organizations in order to look after the quality standards of their resources and the various activities conducted by them. This adherence to quality standards allow the companies to create better organizational performance as well as higher quality of products or services offered to the customer bases across the different market segments (Lasrado and Nyadzayo, 2019). However, it has been observed that among all the industrial sectors, the Construction Industry has a very limited number of applications in terms of the process of managing quality. This has created a difficult situation for the construction companies in UK, as they are failing to deliver projects that are conducted by maintaining a standard quality.
However, the use of TQM in construction companies in UK can prove to be of great benefit as it can help the organisations to check the quality of the resources and raw materials being used for construction. In addition to that, it can also aid in the process of ensuring all the activities under a construction project are conducted according to the ideal quality standards. Furthermore, having Total Quality Management can also help construction companies improve the skills and performances of the people actively taking part in different operations (Jaeger and Adair, 2016). Moreover, the coordination and communication among the workers can improve with the benefit of incorporating Total Quality Management in the organization. This, in turn, can help the construction firms to improve their revenue generation process and attain sustainability.
The process of Total Quality Management is a very beneficial procedure that can be used by various organizations to improve their quality standards for their organizational governance as well as for different activities and operations. Therefore, the researcher will focus on the topic of TQM as a Beneficial Aspect for different companies operating in the Construction Industry (Likita et al., 2018). The main reason for this research is to create a better understanding regarding the different factors related to the process of TQM as well as the major benefits of those factors on the different firms in the Construction Industry. The project will also take into account the problems that are faced by construction companies, which have not yet incorporated TQM in their daily operations. Hence, it will create a broader elucidation of the necessity of the procedure for the construction companies, while at the same time helping to create a base on which future research can be conducted focusing on similar, if not the same, topics.
Research Focus
What are major benefits procured by the companies within the Construction Industry of UK after implementing Total Quality Management?
The chief aim of this research is to elucidate the beneficial sides of incorporating TQM for the projects undertaken by the construction companies located in UK.
- To understand the basic concepts of Total Quality Management
- To analyse the positive aspects TQM can create for organisations and industries using the procedure
- To find out the drawbacks that can occur fir companies that are not using TQM
- To evaluate the benefits created by TQM for the Construction Industry of UK
- To provide some recommendations for incorporating TQM in organisational activates and projects of the construction companies within UK
H0: TQM has no major benefits to offer for Construction Industry
H1: Using TQM can create a better standard of operation for UK Construction Industry
Research Design
For the completion of research in a systematic manner, it is of utmost importance to have a form of blueprint. This blueprint can allow a researcher to take measured steps and work on various activates chronologically. This can aid in making the research work well-structured and easy to comprehend. To conduct this research efficiently, the researcher will take the aid of Research Design, within which factors like Research Paradigm and Research Strategy will be discussed. In the case of Research Design, there are Descriptive and Exploratory designs that are commonly used (Mayer, 2017). The first one helps the researcher to describe vital data using conventional methods, while the second one probes the researcher to explore new methods of data collection. The researcher will consider using the Exploratory Design, as it will help the researcher to acquire data without resorting to conventional techniques.
In addition to that, the researcher will also give importance to choosing a suitable paradigm for this study between the two major paradigms of Positivism and Interpretivism. In the former, the attention is given to collecting data that have an analytical nature, while the latter gives emphasis to interpreting data from various sources. The main paradigm in this context will be of Interpretivism, as it will allow the researcher to interpret data collected by using works conducted by other researchers or the data presented by different people in a systematic manner (Kennedy, 2017). Along with that, the researcher will focus on a proper strategic approach for the conduction of this project based on the subject matter of TQM and its various benefits for construction Industry in UK. The researcher will focus on using a Descriptive approach for the conduction of the study (Ørngreen and Levinsen, 2017). In order to analyse the data in a proper manner, the researcher will try to assess the authenticity of he collected information. After that, the researcher will use analyse the data and will attempt to provide a descriptive excerpt of the findings acquired after the analysis. Different graphs and tables will also be utilised when working on the analysis and presentation of the findings.
Outline of Data Collection
One of the most crucial aspects for the conduction and completion of any type of research project is the procedure of collecting relevant and accurate information. Data is the building block for any comprehensive research. Therefore, without proper methods or procedures of acquiring data, a research project can lose its importance and it can be considered as a non-seminal work. In order to collect data for this research project, the researcher will consider a mixed method, where both the Primary and Secondary method of data collection will be amalgamated (Brown and Rhoades, 2019). In case of the first method, surveys and interviews are conducted under quantitative and qualitative processes. On contrary to this, the second method leads the researcher to collect data by reviewing different literary sources. The quantitative process often guides a researcher into collecting data from human participants, while using close-ended questions for surveys. In the quantitative process, learned individuals are interviewed based on their knowledge and learning, and the questions are kept open-ended for receiving appropriate information.
In the Primary method, the researcher will take the aid of a semi-structured interview of 20 employees, 8 team leaders and 4 managers from different construction companies of UK. This is a mixed method; where the positive aspects of surveys and interviews are merged into create a fast-paced method for collecting authentic and informative data (Monzon et al., 2020). In addition to that, the researcher will also conduct a thorough review of different sources of literature relevant with the topic of TQM and its beneficial aspects on the construction companies of UK. The semi-structured interviews will be conducted at the convenience of the respondents and the researcher in order to avoid the risk of Covid-19. Therefore, the overall process of interview will be done via email.
Ethical Consideration
The researcher will take into consideration the various ethical aspects while conducting different activities for the completion of the project. In order to ensure no people were forced to take part in the data collection process, the researcher will ask for permissions from each of the respondents via a written consent sent via email in the form of an image. In addition to that, no personal or inappropriate questions will be asked during the overall process of semi-structured interview as well as asking about sensitive issues. Moreover, the researcher will mark all the respondents using anonymous codes in order to protect their identity as well as to prevent the data collection process to jeopardize their professions. The guidelines of Data Protection Act of 2018 will be followed in this project (Regulation, 2018).
Work Plan and Research Timeline
| Tasks/ Weeks | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| Acquiring Permission based on the topic | To Be Done | ||||||||
| Designing the aim and objectives | To Be Done | ||||||||
| Moving forward with a literature review | To Be Done | To Be Done | |||||||
| Selection of Methodology | To Be Done | To Be Done | |||||||
| Analysing the collected data | To Be Done | To Be Done | |||||||
| Concluding the project along with recommendations | To Be Done | ||||||||
| Submission of the project | To Be Done |
Table -Time Horizon
For this project, the researcher will present the topic to the instructors at the initial phase and only after getting, approval from the instructor will seek for permission of organizations and people, from whom different information would be, collected (Grewal et al., 2016). Then the researcher will create the aim and objectives for the research and dive into conducting a thorough review of the literary sources related to TQM and the benefits it could yield for Construction Industry of UK. Following this, the methods used for the research will shortlisted and a consecutive analysis will be done. Lastly, the project will be concluded with some recommendations for future and submitted for evaluation.
References
Brown, S. and Rhoades, G., 2019. Q methodology. Using Innovative Methods in Early Years Research: Beyond the Conventional, p.202.
Grewal, A., Kataria, H. and Dhawan, I., 2016. Literature search for research planning and identification of research problem. Indian journal of anaesthesia, 60(9), p.635.
Jaeger, M. and Adair, D., 2016. Perception of TQM benefits, practices and obstacles. The TQM journal. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/TQM-10-2014-0091/full/html
Kennedy, A.M., 2017. Macro-social marketing research: philosophy, methodology and methods. Journal of Macromarketing, 37(4), pp.347-355.
Lasrado, F. and Nyadzayo, M.W., 2019. Improving service quality: Examining the drivers and outcomes of TQM internalization in organizations. https://ro.uow.edu.au/dubaipapers/1108/
Likita, A.J., Zainun, N.Y., Rahman, I.A., Awal, A.A., Alias, A.R., Rahman, M.A. and Ghazali, F.M., 2018, April. An Overview of Total Quality Management (TQM) practice in Construction Sector. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 140, No. 1, p. 012115). IOP Publishing.
Mayer, C.H., 2017. Research Design and Methodology. In The Life and Creative Works of Paulo Coelho (pp. 143-179). Springer, Cham.
Monzon, A., Julio, R. and Garcia-Martinez, A., 2020. Hybrid methodology for improving response rates and data quality in mobility surveys. Travel Behaviour and Society, 20, pp.155-164.
Ørngreen, R. and Levinsen, K., 2017. Workshops as a Research Methodology. Electronic Journal of E-learning, 15(1), pp.70-81.
Regulation, P., 2018. General data protection regulation. INTOUCH. https://www.into.ie/app/uploads/2019/10/GDPR_FAQ.pdf