Total Quality Management

Every organization, both for profit and non-profit, can benefit from Total Quality Management (TQM). One definition for TQM is a management strategy aimed at embedding awareness of quality in all organizational processes. It has been widely used in education, government, manufacturing, and service industries. This paper will look at three very different organizations; the military, a church, and a store.

TQM is a comprehensive and structured approach to organizational management that seeks to improve the quality of products and services through ongoing refinements in response to continuous feedback. TQM requirements may be defined separately for a particular organization or may be in adherence to established standards. TQM is based on quality management from the customer’s point of view.

TQM processes are divided into four sequential categories: plan, do, check, and act. In the planning phase, people develop and implement a solution, and decide upon a measurement to gauge its effectiveness; in the checking phase, people confirm the results through before-and-after data comparison; in the acting phase, people document their results, inform others about process changes, and make recommendations for the problem to be addressed in the next PDCA cycle.

This method has also been used in the military. In 1988, when the Secretary of Defense directed all the Services to incorporate Total Quality Management (TQM) principles throughout their organizations, the Army has implemented various management initiatives to improve the way we do day-to-day business. They also teach the importance to total quality approach to management. Includes quality military commitment; seven-step continuous improvement process; quality environment, tools, metrics, roles,