Quality Management Explained: From TQM to Modern QMS

Organizations across industries are constantly seeking ways to meet customer expectations, ensure consistency, and achieve long-term success. At the heart of these efforts lies quality management — a set of principles and practices that guide businesses in maintaining and improving standards throughout their operations. But what exactly does quality management involve, and why is it so essential to organizational achievement?

In this article, we’ll explore the core concepts of quality management, examine key frameworks like TQM and QMS, and introduce some of the most widely used methodologies and tools that help organizations achieve and maintain high standards.

What is quality management?

Organizational activity is dependent on quality management. Quality Management consists of the overall approaches, principles, frameworks, policies, processes, and practices that consistently:

• Ensure that all products and services meet or exceed customer expectations (customer satisfaction).
• Meet regulatory standards and other stakeholder requirements.

Customer satisfaction is deeply linked to the quality of a product or service. Quality matters whether you’re producing physical products, software and database solutions, knowledge-based offerings, or digital content. For our purposes, quality refers to how well a delivered item meets (or exceeds) expectations for performance, excellence, suitability, and consistency.

High-quality products and services lead to customer loyalty, revenue, and business success. Low-quality products and services lead to customer dissatisfaction, low revenue, and business failure.

(Related reading: data quality.)

Quality management frameworks

There are several different frameworks and methodologies for quality management with the most widely referenced frameworks being total quality management (TQM) and quality management system (QMS). TQM and QMS are based on similar concepts but employ different approaches to quality management.

In recent years, quality management system (QMS) has been considered the successor to TQM systems, providing a modernized framework for achieving quality policies, practices, and objectives.

Here’s a closer look at TQM and QMS, the key principles involved in each framework, and the methodologies and tools used in quality management environments.

Total quality management (TQM)

Total quality management has been the dominant quality management framework for much of the last century. TQM is a management-based approach to long-term success based on meeting or exceeding customer expectations through continual quality improvement. Originally used for improving manufacturing quality, TQM has been employed in every imaginable type of organization.

TQM is holistic. All members of an organization must be engaged and involved in the continuous improvement of processes, products, services, and the overall culture that drives quality and customer satisfaction.

TQM is based on the guiding principles described below. Over time, these principals have become so basic to quality management that they are incorporated into all other Quality Management Systems in one form or another.

1. Customer focus: TQM’s primary goal is to meet or exceed customer expectations in all system outputs. A strong customer focus creates, enhances, and delivers organizational value.
2. Employee involvement: All employees participate in quality improvement efforts. Employees are tasked with quality ownership including training, empowerment, and accountability. This principle may also extend to business partners, suppliers, customers, and other outside entities and stakeholders.
3. Process approach: Defining, understanding, and managing interlinked processes to improve performance and overall quality.
4. Integrated systems: All organizational systems work together towards common quality objectives. Departmental goals and functions are aligned across teams to allow for consistent organization-wide performance and quality. Silos should be eliminated or minimized.
5. Strategic and systematic approach: Total quality management aligns with organizational strategic goals and long-term objectives.
6. Continual/continuous improvement: Products, services, processes, and the overall culture continually improve over time. Quality improvements are achieved incrementally (including short cycles, sprints, and updated versions) or through breakthrough improvements that happen all at once (such as a new product release).
7. Fact-based decision making: Organizations make decisions based on gathering accurate data and performing objective analysis, rather than using gut feelings or making unfounded assumptions. Statistical tools and analysis are significant inputs for decision making.
8. Communications: All organizational members (management, employees, outside entities) must be aware of and connected to the goals, plans, strategies, tactics, methods, and other information used to improve overall performance and quality.

Quality management system (QMS)

A quality management system (QMS) differs in its approach, focus, and implementation towards enhancing quality. The American Society for Quality (ASQ) uses this definition:

A quality management system (QMS) is a formalized system that defines and documents an organization’s processes, procedures, and responsibilities for achieving quality policies, practices, and objectives. It helps an organization coordinate and direct its activities to meet customer and regulatory requirements, as well as continuously improve its effectiveness and efficiency.

The primary goals of a QMS are to improve customer satisfaction, increase efficiency, and reduce waste.

QMS guiding principles echo and modify TQM principles. They can differ slightly according to the QMS implementation, but they usually contain these seven principles as stated in the ISO 9001:2015 standard.

1. Customer focus: Customers determine the quality of the product. Meeting and exceeding customer requirements drives more value, increases repeat business and revenue, and enhances brand reputation.
2. Leadership: Great leaders create an environment where excellence and quality flourish utilizing teams that are energized to achieve quality goals.
3. Engagement of people: Empowering and enhancing employee competence is critical for creating an organizational structure where quality thrives.
4. Process approach: Focus on inter-related processes that produce consistent and predictable results. Employ processes that reduce waste, improve efficiency, and proactively address risks to optimize overall quality.
5. Improvement: Focus on continuous improvement to react to changes, enhance innovation, and dig deeply into root causes for problem analysis. Turn every lesson into fuel for improved quality and innovation.
6. Evidence-based decision making: To minimize risk and maximize potential, business decisions are based on critical analysis and evaluation of reliable data and information.
7. Relationship management: Managing external partner relationships including suppliers, consultants, customers, and investors. Build strong partnerships that support an efficient supply chain and enhance organizational quality and performance.
8. (Related reading: risk management frameworks.)

Quality management methodologies and tools

All organizational quality management initiatives address their own specific needs using different methodologies and tools. Some of the more common quality management methodologies and tools include:

Agile: Enables quality deployments by breaking projects into small manageable cycles (sprints) that allow for rapid testing, customer feedback, modification, and deployment.

ISO 9001: Specifies requirements and guidance for meeting quality management goals.

Kaizen: Focusing on applying small, daily changes that improve quality over time.

Lean management: Practices focusing on maximizing customer value while minimizing waste, improving quality, and speed.

Six sigma: A data driven methodology for reducing and eliminating process variability that can lead to errors, mistakes, and defects.

Lean six sigma: Combines waste reduction techniques from Lean management with Six Sigma defect elimination techniques.

FAQs about Quality Management