Application of Concept of TQM

This study examined the application of the concept of total quality management (TQM) in the areas of facilities design and construction engineering. Literature relevant to TQM and the application of the concept is reviewed in this chapter.

Product quality came to the forefront in the American economy in the late1980s, as the top managements in American companies learned that American product quality was generally perceivedby Americans and foreign consumers aliketo be inferior to products from other countriesparticularly Germany and Japan. The initial emphasis in the quality reawakening in the United States was on manufactured goods, as opposed to services. In the service, professional, and construction sectors, American companies were generally competing against other American companies; thus, the pressures to improve product quality were not perceived to be as significant as they were in the manufacturing sector. The advent of the longestduration economic recession in the United States since the 1930s, however, has changed the appreciation of quality outside of the manufacturing sector of the economy.1 Companies in service, professional, and construction firms in the United States are now aware that quality must be emphasized in their operations, if they are to retain their customers bases.2

1Larry Armstrong, and William C. Symonds, "Beyond 'May I help you?'" Business Week, 29 October 1991, 100.

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