Quality as a

Management
Framework
Principles of Total Quality
• A focus on customers and stakeholders

• Participation and teamwork by everyone in the

organization

• A process focus supported by continuous

improvement and learning

Source: Evans & Lindsay (2010)

1. Customer and Stakeholder Focus
• The customer is the principal judge of quality.
o Companies must design new products that truly
delight the customer and respond to changing
consumer and market demands.

• Internal customers are as important in assuring

quality as are external customers who purchase the
product.

• Employees and society represent important

stakeholders.

Source: Evans & Lindsay (2010)

2. Participation and Teamwork
• When managers give employees the tools to make
good decisions and the freedom and encouragement
to make contributions, they virtually guarantee that
better quality products and production processes will
result.

Source: Evans & Lindsay (2010)

2. Participation and Teamwork
• Teamwork focuses on customer-supplier relationships
and encourages the involvement of the total
workforce in attacking systemic problems, particularly
those that cross functional boundaries

Source: Evans & Lindsay (2010)

3. Process Focus and Continuous
Improvement
• Work gets done (or fails to get done) horizontally or
cross-functionally, not hierarchically.

• A process perspective links together all necessary

activities and increases one’s understanding of the
entire system, rather than focusing on only a small
part.

Source: Evans & Lindsay (2010)

3. Process Focus and Continuous
Improvement
• Continuous improvement refers to both incremental
changes, which are small and gradual, and
breakthrough, or large and rapid, movements.
o Enhancing value to the customer through new and
improved products and services
o Reducing errors, defects, waste, and their related cost
o Increasing productivity and effectiveness in the use of
all resources
o Improving responsiveness and cycle time performance
Source: Evans & Lindsay (2010)