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How can I implement a Total Quality Management approach within my business?

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It’s important to remember that TQM isn’t a one-size-fits-all tool kit that produces exactly the same results in any company that adopts the approach. In other words, while you may learn the basics of process sampling by perusing the work of Deming and other statisticians, the implementation of a TQM approach will require a great deal of preparation and planning on your part. Specific implementation procedures fall outside the confines of this brief article, but some general considerations should include:


  • Meshing TQM with your business vision: Before you rush headlong into the systematic and significant changes that accompany the adoption of a TQM approach, you should revisit your vision for your business. What exactly is that vision, and how can you use TQM principles to help your business realize that vision?

  • Customer identification: One of the key principles of TQM is customer focus. You’ll want to establish parameters that define your customer base so that you can accurately gauge the desires of those customers. Additionally, you’ll develop procedures that offer you the opportunity to determine precisely how your customers use those products.

  • Creation of a TQM tool kit: Businesses use a number of tools within a TQM approach. Tools as varied as employee surveys and flowcharts are utilized in order to effect the wholesale changes demanded by a business engaged in TQM, so it’s important that you identify tools that you and your employees can use in order to build teamwork and achieve consistent excellence in all facets of your business.

  • Commitment to sustained training: Because a TQM approach attempts to distribute the testing and decision-making processes among a greater number of employees, the adoption of the TQM philosophy means that some of your employees will take on new responsibilities and make decisions that they haven’t previously faced. Training for those new responsibilities should thus begin before a TQM approach is even adopted, and your desire for continuous improvement of your business means that employee training will require frequent updates.



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