Total quality management (TQM) is an organization-wide effort to "install and make a permanent climate where employees continuously improve their ability to provide on-demand products and services that customers will find of particular value.
While there is no widely agreed-upon approach, TQM efforts typically draw heavily on the previously developed tools and techniques of quality control.
[8] The private sector followed suit, flocking to TQM principles not only as a means to recapture market share from the Japanese, but also to remain competitive when bidding for contracts from the Federal Government[9] since "total quality" requires involving suppliers, not just employees, in process improvement efforts.
These include: "Total Quality Management (TQM) in the Department of Defense is a strategy for continuously improving performance at every level, and in all areas of responsibility.
The TQM effort builds on the pioneering work of Dr. W. E. Deming, Dr. J. M. Juran, and others, and benefits from both private and public sector experience with continuous process improvement.
TQM is based on all members of an organization participating in improving processes, products, services and the culture in which they work.
The methods for implementing this approach are found in the teachings of such quality leaders as Philip B. Crosby, W. Edwards Deming, Armand V. Feigenbaum, Kaoru Ishikawa and Joseph M.
"[17]"TQM is a philosophy for managing an organization in a way which enables it to meet stakeholder needs and expectations efficiently and effectively, without compromising ethical values.
[22] TQM, as a vaguely defined quality management approach, was largely supplanted by the ISO 9000 collection of standards and their formal certification processes in the 1990s.