Total Quality Management and Theory of Constraints Implementation in Malaysian Automotive Suppliers: A Survey Result

Abstract The automotive industry is one of the most important and strategic industries in the Malaysian manufacturing sector. It supports a large number of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The Malaysian automotive industry, especially the suppliers, must be able to stay competitive and be in business. In order to be able to achieve the above goals, suppliers should apply Total Quality Management (TQM) to improve the quality of products and services in satisfying the customers. Theory of Constraints (TOC) is a systems methodology that has been developed to assist people and organizations to think about their problems, develop breakthrough solutions and implement those solutions successfully. TOC can be assimilated into TQM implementation as a mechanism to assist TQM and to enhance its implementation. This paper relates to a survey conducted to determine the extent of TQM and TOC implementation in Malaysian automotive suppliers. A questionnaire was sent to 250 automotive suppliers in Malaysia. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software was utilized to perform the required statistical analysis of the data from surveys. This paper reports on the findings of the survey conducted. It was found that Malaysian automotive suppliers have achieved quite a high level of their quality implementation programs, although most of them are still in the early stage of implementing TQM. However, there were still problems in their implementation of TQM. It shows that TOC is still something very new in Malaysian automotive suppliers. Its implementation is at a ‘low’ level of practice. The findings culminate with conclusions together with some proposed future research directions.