Assessment of total quality management TQM) implementation barriers in construction firms in tanzania

The TQM has been recognized as an enabler for performance improvement in construction industry in most of the countries. In Tanzania the embracement of TQM which has potential to improve performance or eliminate the current construction industry bottlenecks is still very low. Consequently, Tanzania construction industry is still behind in terms of quality performance and generally, cost and time performance and yet to harness these benefits. Despite the TQM potentiality, the construction industry in developing countries has been slow to embrace the concept of TQM. Construction firms have been continually struggling with its implementation and reluctant to implement change. In order to assess the implementation barriers of Total Quality Management in Tanzania, using questionnaire send through mail, the construction industry stakeholders were requested to provide opinions on implementation level of TQM, implementation barriers of TQM in the construction industry and proposal for the best way of implementing TQM. The findings indicated that the majority of the construction firms do not implement TQM in entirely. Most firms do not implement TQM and some implements it not in full and the procedures implemented are very basic and very common even to firms not intending to implement TQM. The top most barriers found are lack or shortage of qualified professionals, training programs, changing behaviour and employees do not perceive TQM as part of their firms. Strategies identified as the key ways for implementing the TQM programs are training programs to drive the improvement process, standardize all procedures and techniques in construction. Therefore, methods and techniques to implement the Quality Management programs in the industry are still to be developed with help of government through its institutions