THE COMPARISON OF THE TQM PRACTICES AND QUALITY PERFORMANCE BETWEEN MANUFACTURING & SERVICE SECTORS

This paper seeks to carry out an empirical comparison of the TQM Practices and Quality Performance between manufacturing and Service Sectors in Thailand The research was conducted using primary data collected from the 525 respondents from the manufacturing and service sectors. The data was analyzed using MANOVA analysis, t-tests analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM), with SPSS and AMOS software. For RQ1, the study conducted MANOVA analysis and found out that there is a significant difference between the manufacturing and service sector, in terms of TQM and quality performance. An extended analysis of t-test revealed that TQM and quality performance of the manufacturing sector was different from that of the service sector for the 6 variables (leadership, strategic management, customer focus, information analysis, people management, and process management) but no significant difference between the two sectors for product quality variable. The structural equation modelling was applied to answer RQ2 and RQ3. The results revealed that both the manufacturing and service data effectively fit within the model, and that there was significant difference within the two groups of the model. The results also indicated there no significant difference between the strength of the relationship between TQM practices and quality performance between the manufacturing and service organization in Thailand This study supports the application of the TQM in the organizations. The study observes that for effective performance, firms should consider adopting TQM practices and quality measures which are suitable to their sectors and organizations.