Management Tools
What Is Total Quality Management (TQM)?
Total Quality Management (TQM) is an organization-wide, customer-focused mindset and data-driven approach to eliminating, reducing, or preventing errors. Total Quality Management emphasizes a whole-company approach across functions and departments. Senior leadership leads TQM through goal setting, training, and effective communication.
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A fundamental part of TQM is assessing and redefining processes, monitoring performance, and using the results to drive further improvements. Improvement ideas should be identified holistically beyond function-specific activities. Each area should feel accountable for the overall quality of the final product or service. This creates a virtuous cycle of continuous improvement that boosts production, customer satisfaction, and profits.
How Is Total Quality Management Implemented?
To succeed, TQM requires companies to:
- Assess current customer satisfaction and demands
- Understand present and future customer needs
- Map the critical processes through which the organization meets its customers’ needs
- Develop solutions to deliver quality
- Identify the key problem areas in processes and work on them until they approach zero-defect levels
- Design products and services that cost-effectively meet or exceed customer needs
- Align the organization to a TQM approach and build key enablers
- Assess current culture and quality management systems
- Identify core values and principles and communicate them across the organization
- Train and coach employees on new processes and problem-solving techniques
- Develop effective measures of product and service quality
- Create incentives linked to quality goals
- Promote a zero-defect philosophy across all activities
- Encourage management to lead by example
- Develop feedback mechanisms to ensure continuous improvement
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What Are Common Uses of Total Quality Management?
TQM improves profitability by focusing on quality improvement and addressing associated challenges within an organization.
TQM can be used to:
- Increase productivity
- Lower scrap and rework costs
- Improve product reliability
- Decrease time-to-market cycles
- Decrease customer service problems
- Increase competitive advantage
Management Tools & Trends 2023
On the 30th anniversary of our survey, managers seem surprisingly upbeat.