The role of TQM in a Malaysian manufacturing firm

In the last four decades, TQM has won considerable attention from both industry practitioners and academics. TQM has become progressively more effective as organizations focus more on improving the quality of their products, services and internal operations to increase value to customers and gain competitive advantage. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyse these TQM components in a semiconductor manufacturing firm in Malaysia and to determine its role in terms of engineering project performance. These components include leadership, customer/supplier focus and relations, employee relations and teamwork. Semi-structured interviews are conducted with project team leaders in the semiconductor manufacturing firm to obtain insights on the role of TQM on engineering project performance. It is found that although leadership, customer/supplier relations and employee relations play an overwhelmingly significant role in enhancing engineering project performance, more emphasis is still needed on these components in order to further improve or maximize the implementation of TQM to its´ fullest extent.