Total Quality Management (TQM)

TQM (Total Quality Manangement) 

Total Quality Management is a term first coined by the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command to describe its Japanese-style management approach to quality improvement.

Since then TQM has taken on many meanings, but at its core it’s a management approach to long-term success through customer satisfaction.

In a TQM effort, all members of an organization participate in improving processes, products, services and the culture in which they work.

The methods for implementing this approach come from the teachings of such quality leaders as Philip B. Crosby, W. Edwards Deming, Armand V. Feigenbaum, Kaoru Ishikawa and Joseph M. Juran.

A core concept in implementing TQM is Deming’s 14 points, a set of management practices to help companies increase their quality and productivity:

1. Create constancy of purpose for improving products and services.
2. Adopt the new philosophy.
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality.
4. End the practice of awarding business on price alone; instead, minimize total cost by working with a single supplier.
5. Improve constantly and forever every process for planning, production and service.
6. Institute training on the job.
7. Adopt and institute leadership.
8. Drive out fear.
9. Break down barriers between staff areas.
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets for the workforce.
11. Eliminate numerical quotas for the workforce and numerical goals for management.
12. Remove barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship, and eliminate the annual rating or merit system.
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement for everyone.
14. Put everybody in the company to work accomplishing the transformation.

The term “Total Quality Management” has lost favor in the United States in recent years: “Quality management” is commonly substituted. “Total Quality Management,” however, is still used extensively in Europe.