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    TQMTotal Quality Management

    Also known as: Total quality, Total Quality Leadership

    Definition

    Total Quality Management: a management approach that aims for continuous improvement of quality through organisation-wide effort based on facts and data. It is not a standard and carries no certificate.

    Editorial definition: The QHSE Standard, updated 3 October 2026 · https://qhsetech.com/glossary/tqm

    Scope: No single standard text defines TQM, and this page relies on a 1992 GAO report. It is related to ISO 9001 but is not the same thing, and the evidence for its results is mostly self-reported.

    Example for your evaluation: Pick one customer complaint trend and follow it from the data, through the improvement team's actions, to the measured result and the leadership review.

    Sources checked: . Examples are editorial illustrations.

    What GAO, NIST and ISO say about total quality management

    TQM has no single standard text, so this page uses the description in a 1992 report by the US General Accounting Office (GAO), report GGD-93-9BR. GAO calls it a management approach that strives for continuous improvement of quality through organisation-wide efforts based on facts and data, advanced by the teachings of W. Edwards Deming, Armand Feigenbaum, Kaoru Ishikawa and J. M. Juran. For its survey GAO also counted efforts with the same goals under other names, such as Total Quality Excellence and Total Quality Leadership. It says early US interest came mainly from private firms under competition from Japan. This is general information, not legal or certification advice.

    GAO's survey shows what TQM looked like in practice, and its limits. It sent questionnaires to the heads of more than 2,800 civilian and Department of Defense installations, about 80 percent responded, and it visited a judgmental sample of 30. About 68 percent said they were working on TQM, and about 13 percent of employees took part in its activities. Around 60 percent reported a positive to very positive effect on organisational performance, a third said it was too early to judge, and no significant negative effects were reported. Installation heads assessed their own results, so these are self-reports from one set of US federal sites in 1992 and do not show that TQM caused them. GAO grouped TQM activities using the Baldrige and Federal Quality Institute award criteria: leadership, training and recognition, planning, empowerment and teamwork, measurement and analysis, customer focus and quality assurance.

    NIST's Baldrige Program publishes the Baldrige Excellence Framework, which NIST dates to 1988 and which organisations use for self-assessment. NIST's pages do not use the term TQM, so any link is this page's reading. NIST calls Baldrige, Lean, Six Sigma and ISO complementary, sharing a focus on results, teamwork, management by fact, customers and continuous improvement. It describes the Baldrige Criteria as a comprehensive framework for performance excellence and ISO 9000 as a series of standards for a quality conformance system, and says ISO 9000 registration covers less than 10 percent of the Baldrige Criteria, in wording that predates ISO 9001:2026.

    ISO says ISO 9000 defines seven quality management principles on which the family's other standards rest, including customer focus, involvement of top management, a process approach and continuous improvement. ISO/TC 176 says certification to ISO 9001 is not a requirement and self-declaring conformity does not lead to certification. Its site states that a third party manages the content, so confirm points with a certification body. Neither ISO page mentions TQM. On this page's own reading, TQM and ISO 9001 share themes but differ in kind: ISO 9001 is a requirements standard a system can follow and an auditor can assess, while the sources opened give TQM no requirements text or certificate.

    Sources opened :

    What a TQM programme record holds in software

    • Quality goals, each with an owner, a measure and the customer requirement it serves.
    • Improvement projects: the problem, the data used, the team, the actions and the result.
    • Measure definitions, data sources, baselines, targets and review dates.
    • Customer feedback and complaints linked to the projects they prompted.
    • Training and participation records for improvement teams.
    • Leadership review decisions and follow-up, and any self-assessment findings with the actions taken.

    TQM, ISO 9001, Baldrige and QMS

    TQM is an approach to running an organisation. A QMS is the system of processes and records the organisation operates, and ISO 9001 is one set of requirements such a system can follow. The Baldrige Excellence Framework is NIST's framework for assessing performance. Lean and Six Sigma are improvement methods NIST says can be used with it. Certification, where it exists, is an audit result for a standard, not for an approach.

    A hypothetical example: late deliveries at a small distributor

    Everything in this case is invented and describes no real company. A distributor ships 4,000 orders in a quarter and receives 120 late-delivery complaints, or 3.0 percent. A cross-functional team pulls the order data. Seventy complaints trace to a picking cut-off set too late in the afternoon, 30 to one carrier and 20 to address errors at order entry, which is 70 plus 30 plus 20, or 120.

    The team moves the cut-off, adds an address check and raises the carrier issue in writing. Next quarter the firm ships 4,200 orders, 5 percent more, and receives 44 complaints, or 1.0 percent. The team compares rates, not counts, because volume changed, and records that one quarter is too short to credit the actions. The same record links the data, the actions, the result and the review minutes. A customer's request for an ISO 9001 certificate is handled as a separate decision.

    Common misunderstandings about TQM

    • TQM is not a standard. The sources opened give no requirements text for it, and GAO counted several names as the same approach.
    • ISO 9001 certification is not TQM, and TQM does not require it. ISO/TC 176 says certification is not a requirement of the standard.
    • Baldrige is not a certificate. NIST describes a framework and an award, and says the award is no endorsement of a recipient's products.
    • Reported benefits are not proof. GAO's figures are self-assessed, and a third of respondents said it was too early to judge.
    • TQM is not the quality department's task alone. GAO describes organisation-wide effort.

    How TQM relates to other glossary terms

    TQM sits above the routine records of a quality system, so these terms cover the standard, the system and the improvement steps it draws on.

    • ISO 9001: a requirements standard for a quality management system, which shares themes with TQM without being it.
    • QMS: the system of processes and records a TQM programme works through.
    • Quality control: the checks on products that sit inside the wider effort.
    • CAPA: the cycle from cause to effectiveness check that improvement projects often use.
    • Management review: where leaders examine results and record decisions.

    Records and evidence that usually exist for a TQM programme

    • Goals, measures and targets with owners and review dates.
    • Improvement project records with the data used and the result achieved.
    • Customer feedback and complaint trends.
    • Training and participation records.
    • Leadership review minutes with decisions and follow-up.

    What a software tool needs to capture for TQM

    • Measures with a stated definition and data source, so a trend can be traced to its records.
    • Improvement projects linked to the complaint, nonconformity or goal that prompted them.
    • Results recorded as rates as well as counts, with the period and volume shown.
    • Actions kept open until a result is recorded.
    • A review record naming who examined the results and what was decided.
    • Export of a project's full history for an auditor or assessor.

    Catalog profiles documenting QMS, nonconformance, CAPA or document-control records

    The list follows the QMS, nonconformance, CAPA or document-control rule used by the quality management software guide. It does not show that a product supports improvement projects, goal tracking or self-assessment, so test it with your own records.

    Same rule for every product: tagged “Quality Management”, with a sourced QMS, nonconformance, CAPA or document-control capability in its record, or one the vendor stated to us, labelled as vendor-stated. Documented and conditional capabilities qualify; check the linked scope before treating a module as included.

    Tekmon pays for a sponsored placement (above); its place in this list follows the same rule as every entry. How lists are ordered

    All 33 matching profiles are shown. Documentation review, not hands-on testing or a claim of compliance.

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    Frequently asked questions

    Is TQM the same as ISO 9001?

    No. GAO describes TQM as a management approach to continuous improvement through organisation-wide efforts based on facts and data. ISO 9001 is a requirements standard for a quality management system, and ISO/TC 176 says certification to it is not required. They share themes such as customer focus and improvement, but no page opened says one is the other.

    Is there evidence that TQM works?

    GAO's 1992 survey of US federal installations found about 60 percent reporting a positive or very positive effect on performance, with a third saying it was too early to judge. Those were self-reports and show association, not cause. No later studies were opened for this page.

    How does TQM relate to the Baldrige framework?

    NIST calls Baldrige, Lean, Six Sigma and ISO complementary, and describes the Baldrige Criteria as a framework for performance excellence. GAO used the Baldrige criteria to group TQM activities. NIST's pages do not use the term TQM, so the link is this glossary's reading.

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