Total Quality Management

A major element in world market competition is quality. During the 1970’s and 1980’s, the Japanese and their U.S. companies demonstrated that high quality is achievable at lower costs and greater customer satisfaction. It was the result of using the management principles of total quality management (TQM). U.S. companies have demonstrated that such achievements are possible using TQM as a way to manage. Such companies also found that they were recognized with everyone pulling in the same direction. Improvement had become a way of life. Before the 1980’s, U.S. management was broadly successful. Prior to that, the dominant management model was that of the autocrat. Management, primarily senior management, decided how the business was to operate, including what the policies and objectives were; how it was organized; what jobs were established; and how they should be done. It was an unquestioned axiom that if everyone did what the upper management required, the business would...