| IDENTIFYING AND UNDERSTANDING FAILURES AND BARRIERS AGAINST TQM IMPLEMENTATION: A CASE OF SELF-ASSESSMENT USING THE EFQM EXCELLENCE MODEL Chee Yew Wong & Jens J. Dahlgaard Issue 26 (Vol. 13, No. 2), December 2003, pp. 219-233 This paper provides empirical documentation for the use of a survey approach to self-assessment to identify failures, weaknesses and prioritized improvement areas related to the implementation of TQM and the performance of an aluminium extrusion company. The root causes of the performance gaps pinpointed in this assessment were analyzed, and various improvement enablers were recognized using the diagnostics path method. As a supplement to the nine criteria from the EFQM Excellence Model, the same survey approach was extended to identify inter-departmental relations, which enabled a deeper understanding of departmental resistance to improvement efforts. |