Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management approach that requires quality in all phases of the company’s operations, by doing things right the first time. All waste and defects must also be eliminated.

As a long-term methodology, TQM has customer satisfaction as its final goal, and continuous improvement, quick response, and employee and management buy-in as its core aspects.

W. Edwards Deming, the father of modern quality, believed that to achieve the highest level of performance, the company must change behavior. He developed 14 points of management practices that are heart of TQM:

1. Create constancy of purpose

2. Adopt the new philosophy

3. Cease inspection, require evidence

4. Improve the quality of supplies

5. Continuously improve production

6. Train and educate all employees

7. Supervisors must help people

8. Drive out fear

9. Eliminate boundaries

10. Eliminate use of slogans

11. Eliminate numerical standards

12. Let people be proud of their work

13. Encourage self-improvement

14. Commit to ever-improving quality

Resources:

http://www.1000advices.com/guru/quality_tqm_14points_deming.html

http://www.johnstark.com/fwtqm.html

http://www.asq.org/learn-about-quality/total-quality-management/overview/overview.html