Total Quality Management

A central concept of Total Quality Management (TQM) defines a long-term, customer service management approach. All members of an organization participate in a TQM effort to improve processes, products, services and the culture in which they work. Total quality control seeks to keep all manufacturing stakeholders responsible for the overall quality of the finished product or services. William Deming, a management consultant whose research had a significant effect on Japanese manufacturing, founded TQM. While TQM shares the Six Sigma improvement process much in common, it is not the same as Six Sigma. TQM focuses on ensuring that mistakes are minimized by internal guidelines and procedure requirements while Six Sigma seeks to reduce defects.