In business and industry, in government and education, the watchword these days is quality, often heard as total quality management or TQM. What is TQM, and where did it come from? Are colleges and universities using TQM? Are business schools teaching TQM in their MBA programs? Which college have TQM resources available on the Internet?

To put it simply, this web resource hub directs the user to a number of resources intended to address these issues.

History and Definition of TQM:

TQM means different things to different people. What first captured the attention of American managers was a Japanese "import" called quality circles. The idea was to have workers meet occasionally to discuss work problems. As a result, workers developed ideas about how to solve problems. Between 1962 and 1980, there were over 100,000 quality circles in operation in Japan. American corporations began to use quality circles in the mid - '70's. By 19986, quality circles were so common that Business Week listed them as the fad of the '80's (Business Week, Jan. 20, 1986, p.60). In looking more closely at the what and how of Japanese quality, American managers stumbled across W. Edwards Deming. He first gained widespread attention in the 1980's after being featured in an NBC documentary titled "If Japan Can, Why Can't We?"

Deming:

After earning a doctorate at Yale in the 1920's,  Deming accepted a position with the US Department of Agriculture. Deming refined and improved on the ideas of Walter Shewhart who had discovered that quality can be measured, and that there are measures of variability. Deming improved on Shewhart's work and invented what is known as the Deming Cycle of Plan - Do- Check - Act.

Definition:

TQM means that the organization's culture is defined by and supports the constant attainment of satisfaction through an integrated system of tools, techniques, and training. This involves the continuous improvement of processes, resulting in high quality products ans services (Sashkin, Putting TQM to Work, San Francisco, 1993, p. 39). As popularized by Deming and later Juran, TQM's premises center on intrinsic quality control, removal of adversarial relationships, constancy of purpose, continual in-service training, and attention to customer preferences. It holds that change is inevitable, desirable, and welcome, and that it must be planned for with participation by the greatest number of constituencies.

TQM in Higher Education:

Because TQM focuses on process instead of outcome, it matches the thinking of many process-oriented administrators. Because it holds that the colleges's customers are not only the students but also the local schools, employers, and public agencies, it suggests the consumer orientation that has been written into the goals of many colleges. TQM received a great deal of attention in the early 1990's, but it remains difficult to ascertain whether or not it will prove a lasting innovation. It does suggest good common sense management technique and it is a process of continual attention to what is going on in the institution. It builds on individual values, enhancing everyone's sense of dignity and cooperation. One question debated on the campus is the TQM principle of holding customer preference as the highest virtue and defining quality as the extent to which the customers are satisfied.

Links:

Juran   www.juran.com
TQM   wissago.uwex.edu/00/joe/1995april/a3
Deming www.deming.org/