A TQM case of Centralized Sequential Decision-making Problem

This paper considers that a public department under specialized TQM manpower constraints have to implement multiple total quality management (TQM) policies to promote its service performance (fundamental goal) by adopting a centralized sequential advancement strategy (CSAS). Under CSAS, the decision-makers (DMs) start off by focusing specialized TQM manpower on a single policy, then transfer the specialized TQM manpower to the next policy when the first policy reaches the predetermined implementation time limit (in terms of education and training). Suppose that each TQM policy has a different desirous education and training goal. When the desirous goals for all TQM policies are achieved, we say that the fundamental goal will be satisfied. Within the limitation of total implementation period of time for all policies, assume the desirous goals for all TQM policies cannot be achieved completely. Under this premise, the optimal implementation sequence for all TQM policies must be calculated to maximize the weighted achievement of the desirous goal. We call this optimization problem a TQM case of "centralized sequential decision-making problem (CSDMP)". The achievement of the desirous goal for each TQM policy is usually affected by the experience in prior implemented policies, which makes solving CSDMP quite difficult. As a result, this paper introduces the concepts of sequential effectiveness and path effectiveness. The structural properties are then studied to propose theoretical methods for solving CSDMP. Finally, a numerical example is proposed to demonstrate CSDMP′s usability.