Total Quality Management

Okay okay okay, this coursework that I did in the past is not totally based on the video games industry. But it does have a reference to it near the end :p
So here below is a piece I did for a module which turned out to be my best piece of coursework I’ve ever done, gaining me 78%. Also as a reminder, if you are finding this and want to use it, reference correctly, using the references within for the source material, or if it is my own work being referenced reference me properly. To download a PDF of this please CLICK HERE it has all the fancy bells and whistles that this text version doesn’t.

Discuss the key elements of Total Quality Management within the context of the emerging business environment

Introduction

The purpose of this report is to look at the history of Total Quality Management (TQM) and identify the elements that are within this business improvement tool. With these key elements I will then be looking at how TQM is used within the current business environment and how its elements affect all levels of an organisation.

What is Total Quality Management?

Concepts developed in Japan beginning in the late 1940’s and 1950’s, pioneered there by Americans Feigenbum, Juran and Deming set the foundations of TQM. The evolution of TQM happened in a few stages easily identified as Inspection, Quality Control, Quality Assurance and now Total Quality Management.

Inspection

This method at one stage in time was the only method that was able to ensure a certain level of quality for a product or service. In manufacturing incoming goods and output would be measured and physically inspected for defaults or not meeting required guidelines. Services would be appraised at certain levels and inspected in production and delivery. The inspection process is an after-the-event measurement process that can only result in non conforming products being sent back to be re-worked or result in lower graded products that are produced in a rating system.

Bioware “MAY” not be making the game on Wii I want! [face_sad]

So in an Interview that surfaced a while back at CVG with Greg Zeschuk, co-founder of BioWare, VP at EA and group creative officer of the MMO RPG group he let drop what Bioware’s train of though for the Wii is or will be for future games.

There’s always talk of you guys being interested in the Wii. Why hasn’t a Wii game from BioWare come into fruition yet considering the Wii’s been massively successful for a fair while now?
Zeschuk: I think… we’re a little slow. No, I mean, the challenge for us has been figuring out what would be the best possible BioWare experience to deliver on the platform. We’ve done a lot of platform exploration – we’ve done our first iPhone game and we’ve done DS, so we’re always looking at platforms. But what’s been hard for us and the Wii is figuring out how to best match the kind of games that we make with the Wii experience.
The optimum Wii experience is a game where four people sit together on a couch and play.We’ve done multiplayer stuff in the past, but our optimal product always engages a player on an emotional level. I’m sure there’s ways to do that on the Wii, but we just haven’t figured that out yet. Once we do that we could very well do something on it.