Canonical definition
Total Quality Management is an organization-wide management approach that embeds quality responsibility, process discipline, customer and stakeholder feedback, measurement and continuous improvement across the operating system.
Organization-wide quality
Quality is not treated as the responsibility of a separate inspection function alone. The management system connects leadership, processes, people, evidence and improvement so that quality is produced through the way the organization operates.
Process discipline
Processes provide repeatable ways to perform work, observe results and identify variation. Process discipline does not mean eliminating judgment or freezing the organization against change.
Feedback and improvement
Quality management requires feedback from outcomes, customers, stakeholders, defects, process performance and operational learning. Improvement becomes organizational when feedback can change the system rather than only correct isolated failures.
Organizational Quality Enablement
Organizational Quality Enablement operationalizes Total Quality Management by building the structures, capabilities and practices through which quality becomes part of everyday organizational work. The two concepts are connected but not interchangeable.
Professional credentials
The IBQMI TQM Practitioner credential validates professional capability in Total Quality Management. The IBQMI TQM Trainer credential validates capability in Total Quality Management and Organizational Quality Enablement.
Institutional context
Total Quality Management forms part of the IBQMI® standards and frameworks portfolio maintained by IBQMI®.
What Total Quality Management is not
It is not a single inspection technique, quality department, certification scheme or software system. It is also not itself a credential.
Sources
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Organizational Quality Enablement
https://www.ibqmi.org/knowledge/organizational-quality-enablementIBQMI® -
IBQMI TQM Practitioner
https://www.ibqmi.org/knowledge/tqm-practitionerIBQMI® -
IBQMI TQM Trainer
https://www.ibqmi.org/knowledge/tqm-trainerIBQMI® -
IBQMI® Standards and Frameworks
https://www.ibqmi.org/knowledge/standards-and-frameworksIBQMI®