Total Quality Management (TQM)

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management strategy that enables higher levels of customer satisfaction, improved quality of products and services, reduction of waste and rework, and improved profitability.

The fundamental tenets of TQM are:

1. Customer Satisfaction is set as the primary goal of the organization.  The Customer defines Quality.  Customer satisfaction leads to customer loyalty, repeat business, lower marketing costs and improved competitiveness.  This is achieved by:
2. Attention to processes. TQM seeks to improve all processes using an arsenal of Quality tools, and through:
3. Cross-functional thinking. The creation of cross-functional Quality improvement teams allows the process to be viewed in its entirety, the root causes of defects and time traps to be identified, and corrective action taken.  The effectiveness of these teams depends on a culture that enables:
4. Empowered employees. Customer-facing employees must have the ability and competence to address customer concerns on the spot, characterized by a spirit of:
5. Continuous improvement.  This attitude, when fostered and rewarded by management, promotes and on-going atmosphere of improvement, higher productivity and invigorated employee morale.

There are many tools and skills that help to move the corporate culture toward the TQM ideal, and these can be measured and introduced in stages.  Above all, a successful TQM implementation requires not only the verbal commitment, but also the active involvement of senior management.

Our approach utilizes the Six Sigma and Lean processes to train and integrate TQM. This process depends on factors individual to your company culture, but consistent with the steps above.  We look forward to talking to you more to design a training program that will benefit your organization.