Implementation of Self Assessment Evaluation for Total Quality Management: A Case Study of Retail Sectors

A good strength of the retail sector in Thailand is closely related to social communities, especially in small villages. In the capital city, Bangkok, modern traders have a major policy of establishing small shops in crowded places such as fresh markets, government-owned buildings, universities, railway stations and hospitals. These strategic establishments have affected traditional retail sector negatively. The focal point of this paper is to know the areas traditional retail sector needed to improve so that it can increase its competitiveness in the market. Using the implementation of self assessment evaluation for total quality management (TQM), the study focuses on shop owners as respondents. Statistical tools were then used to interpret numerical data. The result shows that there are many tasks to be improved including technology, knowledge/knowhow transferring and operation factors. Continuous improvement, breakthrough and standardization using total quality management (TQM) play a key role as impact procedure to increase competitiveness in this sector to modern trade. A big gap was found between modern trade and traditional retail sectors when analyzed using self assessment evaluation. In addition, TQM in four models of traditional retail sectors including Nong Nut (NN), Wall Super Center (WS), Mae Pu (MP) and Two Way Mart (TWM) were improved together with wholesale stockholder by workshop, on the job training, self assessment evaluation, implementation and standardization.