Total Quality Management (TQM)
Total quality management can be summarized as a management system for a customer-focused organization that involves all employees in continual improvement. It uses strategy, data, and effective communications to integrate the quality discipline into the culture and activities of the organization (TQM, 2015). * Customer-focused. The customer ultimately determines the level of quality. * Total employee involvement. All employees participate in working toward common goals. * Process-centered. A fundamental part of TQM is a focus on process thinking. * Integrated system. Although an organization may consist of many different functional specialties often organized into vertically structured departments, it is the horizontal processes interconnecting these functions that are the focus of TQM. * Micro-processes add up to larger processes, and all processes aggregate into the business processes required for defining and implementing strategy. * An integrated business system may be modeled after the Baldrige National Quality Program criteria and/or incorporate the ISO 9000 standards. * Strategic and systematic approach. A critical part of the management of quality is the strategic and systematic approach to achieving an organization’s vision, mission, and goals. * Continual improvement. * Fact-based decision making. In order to know how well an organization is performing, data on performance measures are necessary. * Communications.
These elements are considered so essential to TQM that many organizations define them, in some format, as a set of core values and principles on which the organization is to operate (TQM 2015).
Loyalty, Quality & Control
ACI's mission is to achieve business excellence through quality by understanding, accepting, meeting and exceeding customer expectations.
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