Total Quality Management

The very idea of total quality management (TQM) is controversial. This is so for a variety of reasons, inter alia, the concept of “quality” (which is the key part of the theory of TQM) is an unusually slippery concept that is easy to visualize yet is exasperatingly difficult to define. So to clearly conceptualize the concept of TQM, it is therefore necessary to start with a variety of meanings that the word quality carries.

Quality has been defined, for example, as being about value; conformance to standards, specifications, or requirements; fitness for use; excellence; meeting or exceeding customer expectations and more prosaically as delighting the customer; having a predictable degree of uniformity and dependability; and at low cost and suited to the market. In light of ...