Total quality management is a much broader concept than just controlling the quality of the

product itself. Total quality management is the coordination of efforts directed at improving customer
satisfaction, increasing employee participation, strengthening supplier partnerships, and facilitating an
organizational atmosphere of continuous quality improvement. TQM is a way of thinking about
organizations and how people should relate and work in them. TQM is not merely a technique, but a
philosophy anchored in the belief that long‐term success depends on a uniform commitment to quality in
all sectors of an organization.

The concept of quality started in Japan when the country began to rebuild after World War II.
Amidst the bomb rubble, Japan embraced the ideas of W. Edwards Deming, whose methods and theories
are credited for Japan’s postwar recovery. Deming’s management system was philosophical, based on
continuous improvement toward the perfect ideal. He believed that a commitment to quality requires
transforming the entire organization, in which he emphasized surveying customers, consulting
production‐line workers to help solve quality problems, and teamwork. His philosophy is based on a
system known as the Fourteen Points. He saw businesses as bedrock institutions in a society—much like
churches and schools. Companies attain long‐term success only if business leaders make their employees’
contributions matter. If organizations use their employees’ ideas, they will improve efficiency and
productivity. Deming’s system made such an impression that he is known at the Father of TQM.

Joseph Juran started out professionally as an engineer in 1924. He conducted seminars for top‐
and middle‐level executives. His lectures had a strong managerial flavor and focused on planning,
organizational issues, management’s responsibility for quality, and the need to set goals and targets for
improvement. He emphasized that quality control should be conducted as an integral part of management
control. Intrinsic to Juran’s message is the belief that quality does not happen by accident; it must be
planned. Juran sees quality planning as part of the quality trilogy of quality planning, quality control, and
quality improvement. Juran’s formula for results is to establish specific goals to be reached, and then to
establish plans for reaching those goals; assign clear responsibility for meeting the goals; and base the
rewards on results achieved. He believes that the majority of quality problems are the fault of poor
management, not poor workmanship, and that long‐term training to improve quality should start at the top
with senior management.

Philip Crosby is another major contributor to the quality movement. Whereas Deming and Juran
emphasized the sacrifice required for a quality commitment, Crosby takes a less philosophical and more
practical approach, asserting instead that high quality is relatively easy and inexpensive in the long run.
He is responsible for the zero defects program, which emphasizes “doing it right the first time,” (DIRFT)
with 100 percent acceptable output. Unlike Deming and Juran, Crosby argues that quality is always cost
effective. Like Deming and Juran, Crosby does not place the blame on workers, but on management. He
also developed a 14‐point program, which is again more practical than philosophical. It provides
managers with actual concepts that can help them manage productivity and quality. His program is built
around four Absolutes of Quality Management.

References:
Major contributors to TQM. (n.d.). https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/principles-of-management/
productivity-and-total-quality-management/major-contributors-to-tqm