Due to the importance of the growth of biotechnology in Taiwan, the question of how the operation performance of the industry can be upgraded to sustain its competitive advantages has become an important question for Taiwanese biotechnology insiders. Recently, a growing number of organizations have implemented TQM in order to give them a competitive advantage [Chan, T. H., & Quazi, H. A. (2002). Overview of quality management practices in selected Asian countries. Quality Management Journal, 9(1), 172–180; Nilsson, L., Johnson, M. D., & Gustafsson, A. (2001). The impact of quality practices on customer satisfaction and business results: Product versus service organizations. Journal of Quality Management, 6, 5–27]. Meanwhile, quality related awards are also appearing for examining and identifying whether or not the overall quality of a firm is high. Each award, however, focuses only on examining certain items. It is impossible for a firm to make each examined item perfect. In addition to this, since the overall quality of the technology and products of some Taiwanese biotechnology corporations has been decreasing, the prestige of the Taiwanese biotechnology industry as a whole has decreased in the global market. Thus, in order to solve the above difficulties, this study attempts to find the most suitable measurement model for the biotechnology industry to enact quality improvement. The study first reviews a substantial body of literature on total quality management and categorizes measurement criteria. The study then proceeds with in-depth interviews with relevant background experts in order to extract and verify the most suitable measurement criteria. In addition to this, a FANP is utilized in order to analyze the weights of different measurement dimensions and criteria. The value of this study is its construction of a TQM measurement model for the Taiwanese biotechnology industry that can be used to improve its quality as well as to regain a higher market share of the global market.
Industries have come to understand that, in order to stay competitive globally, a continuous improvement in organizational quality performance is a necessity (Mele and Colucio, 2006 and Sitalakshmi, 2007). Thus, a body of organizations started to implement total quality management (TQM) in order to generate a competitive advantage (Chan and Quazi, 2002 and Nilsson et al., 2001). In Taiwan, the importance and growth of the biotechnology industry has, in recent years, increased dramatically; it is now Taiwan’s second most profitable industry, the high-tech industry being the highest. Moreover, with the large amount of capital investment by the Taiwanese government, biotechnology related corporations are flourishing; nevertheless, due to the poor quality of products and technology from some of them, both the prestige and market share of Taiwanese biotechnology corporations are decreasing in the global market. In this regard, a precise and effective way to measure and operate quality improvement is necessary today.
Measuring overall quality is complex. A great number of quality awards exist, such as the European Quality Award, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the Asia-Pacific Business Excellence Standard, the Vietnam Quality Award, QS 9000, and IS 9000 (Dinh, Barbara, & Tritos, 2006), all of which are trying to play a role in standardizing the overall quality of an organization. Each award, however, focuses on certain examined items. It is impossible for a firm to make each item perfect. Although the national quality award (NQA) is widely used in different industries in Taiwan, there is little evidence that it can improve a specific industry’s overall quality, due to each industry’s different features.
In light of this, a literature summarizing method is adapted in order to integrate related measurement criteria. A fuzzy analytic network process (FANP) was used to overcome the problem of dependence and feedback among dimensions or criteria. This is a general form of the FAHP that relieves hierarchical structural restrictions (Liou, Tzeng, & Chang, 2007). In this study, a literature summarizing method that is based on the NQA is utilized by combining it with FANP to create a new TQM measurement model.
Because of the increasing emphasis on the biotechnology industry in Taiwan, the government has invested a great amount of capital in order to turn it into one of the most profitable Taiwanese industries of the future. There is, consequently, a growing body of studies on such corporations over the past few years. Recently, however, the poor quality of some of those corporations has resulted in dangerous products and decreased the prestige of these corporations around the world. Upgrading the quality of the biotechnology industry is necessary for Taiwan if it is to reclaim prestige and market share in the global market. In the past, the national quality award has been the most useful tool for tackling different kinds of industries. Due to different characteristics between each industry, however, it is necessary for Taiwan’s newest profitable industry to construct a suitable quality measuring model for assessments. Based on several quality measurement criteria proposed by numerous researchers, we utilized in-depth interviews and FANP to develop a TQM measurement model that considers interdependence between a range of dimensions and criteria and their weighting. The study, reflecting on the results, proposes a new TQM measurement model for the Taiwanese biotechnology industry.
