The strategy Total Quality Management (TQM) has been launched in attempt to

increase quality in all work and achieve customer satisfaction within organizations. It

has been proved that a successful TQM program can increase efficiency for

companies, but still, many organizations have failed to achieve any advantages by

using this strategy. The reason to failure is said to depend much on the diffuse and

time demanding implementation practices. In opposite to TQM, Business Process

Reengineering (BPR) is a strategy known for its clear implementation practices when

inventing organizational change. But BPR as strategy has been criticized for being too

radical and leaving the people within the organizations behind. This factors became

the foundation to the research question: Can an implementation of TQM combined

with BPR increase efficiency within a medium sized company, and if yes, how?

The purpose with this study is to investigate how medium sized companies can

increase efficiency in their working processes through connecting TQM and BPR. By

impregnating aspects related to TQM in the implementation technique promoted in

BPR, a new quality strategy will be developed in this thesis. The motivation is to find

a simple way to implement quality within an organization, suitable for companies that

lack the time and resources that currently are required to succeed with increased

efficiency.

This study was conducted on FG Nordic; a medium sized Swedish company that is

selling air conditioners to other businesses in Sweden. A mixed research method has

been used to gather the empirical data. Participant observation was the major source

of information, as well as conversations and interviews with all employees. A survey

directed to FG Nordic’s customers contributed with an external view of the

organization. All data was analysed simultaneously with existing theory, in order to

come up with a realistic quality strategy for implementation. A t-test helped me to

analyse the quantitative material from the survey, by giving the answers from the

survey a deeper meaning.

The analysis and results in this thesis show that by connecting TQM and BPR, a new

quality strategy can be developed. By eliminating requirements of comprehensive

documentation, the focus turns to pointing the attention externally. By continuously

evaluating the internal business processes and externally delivered quality,

sensitiveness for external customer needs and internal business performance can be

reached. By creating an awareness of everyone’s work and strive for correspondence

between the internal performance and the external expectations, medium sized

companies can continuously increase their efficiency.