Sqm Core Concepts

IJQRM 13,4

8
Received May 1994 Revised November 1994

Strategic quality management, Malcolm Baldrige and European quality awards and ISO 9000 certification
Core concepts and comparative analysis
V.M. Rao Tummala
City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, and

C.L. Tang
Q-Mark Council, Federation of Hong Kong Industries, TST, Hong Kong
Introduction Reduction of variation, continuous improvement of products and services to meet customers’ needs, costs of quality or costs of poor quality, breakthrough projects, zero defects, cross functional management, systematic approach to quality, and strategic focus to quality with respect to customer satisfaction, competitiveness, profitability, quality planning, and organization-wide commitment are the major concepts that are introduced by the quality gurus like Deming, Juran, Crosby, Feigenbaum, Ishikawa and Garvin. The advancement of these concepts over a period of time covering the latter part of the twentieth century paved the way for the evolutionary development of quality management, namely, from inspection, to statistical quality control, to quality assurance, to total quality control and finally to total or strategic quality management. Successful implementation of strategic quality management is not an easy task. As Deming stated, “Everyone doing his best is not the answer. It is necessary that people know what to do. Drastic changes are required. The responsibility for changes rests on management”[1]. Thus, Deming put the responsibility for continuous improvement of products and services to meet customer needs and to stay ahead of competition squarely on management. In fact, the major emphasis of Deming’s philosophy on quality management is that top management must orient themselves to innovate and commit resources constantly to support innovation and continuous improvement[2]. Building

International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 13 No. 4, 1996, pp. 8-38, © MCB University... [continues]

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