Total Quality Management Paper
Producing a quality product, whether a tangible item or a service, is the goal of all
organizations, how this goal is achieved will be the challenge. Quality of the end product
has been an obstacle in America for decades. In the post World War II era as production of
products in America rose, the quality of those products diminished. At the same time other
countries such as Japan were not experiencing the same quality issues.
The secret to successful quality control was in the method of product management the
Japanese were using. The Japanese organizations used an approach, which motivated all
employees and organizational functions to provide a consistently high quality product.
America took some time in developing the same dedication to quality control. The slow
response of American businesses was due to the initial excuse making phase, and the
inability to clearly define what Total Quality Management (TQM) meant.
Until 1990 there was not a clear definition of what Total Quality Management (TQM) truly
meant. In an effort to provide a single definition that would include the entire process of
TQM the SEMATECH (Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology Consortium),
developed a definition that cannot be challenged. The definition is represented as, “Total
Quality Management is a business management methodology that aligns the activities of
all employees in an organization with the common focus of customer satisfaction through
continuous improvement in the quality of all activities, goods, and services”, (Burrill &
Ledolter, 1999).
The American Society for Quality (ASQ) has established another definition of TQM as a
