Quality Management, Overview

Abstract

Abstract Quality management involves assessing, planning, improving, and controlling work that people accomplish to achieve their shared objective of service to their customers. Quality management requires attention to detail at each level of the organization: leaders must focus on concerns of shareholders and the community; managers must focus on commercial objectives for their targeted markets; and operational teams must focus on the daily work routine of the organization. Each level is responsible for contributing a unique element of the overall quality program. Quality management delivers a consistent system of working that establishes criteria for challenging aspirations for the desirable behavior of the organization, plans improvement objectives based on gaps in performance between the desired state of performance and the current observations of performance, improves work by executing projects that change the way that the routine work processes perform, and defines standards of performance for continuing control of these routine work processes. The components of a quality management system are usually derived from the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria for business excellence, external benchmarking studies, total quality management, Six Sigma, and lean production methods, and then these components are packaged into a structure that adheres to the ISO 9000 standard for a quality management system (or other appropriate quality system structure).