Total quality management (TQM) consists of organization-wide efforts to "install and make permanent climate where employees continuously improve their ability to provide on demand products and services that customers will find of particular value."[1] "Total" emphasizes that departments in addition to production (for example sales and marketing, accounting and finance, engineering and design) are obligated to improve their operations; "management" emphasizes that executives are obligated to actively manage quality through funding, training, staffing, and goal setting.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_quality_management
TQM was developed by William Deming, a management consultant whose work had a great impact on Japanese manufacturing. While TQM shares much in common with the Six Sigma improvement process, it is not the same as Six Sigma. TQM focuses on ensuring that internal guidelines and process standards reduce errors, while Six Sigma looks to reduce defects.
Total Quality Management (TQM) is a revolutionary concept in the management of quality. Foremost, it is a recognition that quality not only depends upon tangible investments in machines, processes or facilities, but also on intangibles such as the integration and management of these resources, the corporate and cultural environment, personnel motivation, etc.
Source: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4615-2055-9_2
TQM can be summarized as a management system for a customer-focused organization that involves all employees in continual improvement. It uses strategy, data, and effective communications to integrate the quality discipline into the culture and activities of the organization. Many of these concepts are present in modern quality management systems, the successor to TQM. Here are the 8 principles of total quality management:
Customer-focused: The customer ultimately determines the level of quality. No matter what an organization does to foster quality improvement—training employees, integrating quality into the design process, or upgrading computers or software—the customer determines whether the efforts were worthwhile.
Total employee involvement: All employees participate in working toward common goals. Total employee commitment can only be obtained after fear has been driven from the workplace, when empowerment has occurred, and when management has provided the proper environment. High-performance work systems integrate continuous improvement efforts with normal business operations. Self-managed work teams are one form of empowerment.
Process-centered: A fundamental part of TQM is a focus on process thinking. A process is a series of steps that take inputs from suppliers (internal or external) and transforms them into outputs that are delivered to customers (internal or external). The steps required to carry out the process are defined, and performance measures are continuously monitored in order to detect unexpected variation.
Integrated system: Although an organization may consist of many different functional specialties often organized into vertically structured departments, it is the horizontal processes interconnecting these functions that are the focus of TQM.
Micro-processes add up to larger processes, and all processes aggregate into the business processes required for defining and implementing strategy. Everyone must understand the vision, mission, and guiding principles as well as the quality policies, objectives, and critical processes of the organization. Business performance must be monitored and communicated continuously.
An integrated business system may be modeled after the Baldrige Award criteria and/or incorporate the ISO 9000 standards. Every organization has a unique work culture, and it is virtually impossible to achieve excellence in its products and services unless a good quality culture has been fostered. Thus, an integrated system connects business improvement elements in an attempt to continually improve and exceed the expectations of customers, employees, and other stakeholders.
Strategic and systematic approach: A critical part of the management of quality is the strategic and systematic approach to achieving an organization’s vision, mission, and goals. This process, called strategic planning or strategic management, includes the formulation of a strategic plan that integrates quality as a core component.
Continual improvement: A large aspect of TQM is continual process improvement. Continual improvement drives an organization to be both analytical and creative in finding ways to become more competitive and more effective at meeting stakeholder expectations.
Fact-based decision making: In order to know how well an organization is performing, data on performance measures are necessary. TQM requires that an organization continually collect and analyze data in order to improve decision making accuracy, achieve consensus, and allow prediction based on past history.
Communications: During times of organizational change, as well as part of day-to-day operation, effective communications plays a large part in maintaining morale and in motivating employees at all levels. Communications involve strategies, method, and timeliness.
Source: https://asq.org/quality-resources/total-quality-management#Elements
Based on the corporate philosophy of 'customer first' and 'quality first' since its founding, Toyota Motor Co., Ltd. won the Deming Application Prize in 1965 and the Japan Quality Control Award in 1970, following the introduction of statistical quality control (SQC) in 1949, and has conducted Total Quality Management (TQM) based on the unchanging principles of 'customer first', kaizen (continuous improvement), and 'total participation'.