Total quality management

What it means

TQM, total quality management, is a management philosophy in which quality is every employee's responsibility, not just that of the inspection department. All processes are continuously improved with the customer and their needs in mind, from development and purchasing to sales and service.

The ideas behind TQM were developed mainly by Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran and other experts who influenced Japanese industry after the Second World War. The ISO 9001 standard for quality management systems and methods such as Six Sigma grew out of TQM.

Its core principles include customer focus, involvement of all employees, a process approach, fact-based decision-making and continuous improvement, often following the PDCA cycle. Quality should be built into the product through well-designed processes rather than added by inspection at the end.

How it works in practice

In practice TQM means the company measures what matters to the customer, such as timeliness, accuracy and satisfaction, and reviews this data regularly. When errors occur, the search is not for a culprit but for the cause in the process, for example through root cause analysis.

In an accounting firm this might mean standardised procedures for processing documents, checklists before filing returns, double checks on risky tasks and regular reviews of mistakes. Small improvements in the spirit of kaizen gradually reduce corrections and complaints.

TQM complements lean, which focuses on eliminating waste. ISO 9001 certification can provide a formal framework, but the standard alone, without genuine involvement of people and management, will not deliver the improvement TQM promises.

What to watch out for

The most common reason for failure is a lack of management support. If managers talk about quality but prioritise speed and short-term savings in their decisions, employees quickly notice and the programme loses credibility.

TQM can degenerate into bureaucracy when documents and records are produced only for the sake of audits. What matters is that procedures and measurements help people in their work and bring the customer obvious benefit, rather than becoming ends in themselves.