This paper presents a discussion of total quality management (TQM) designed to achieve quality assurance engineering in electronics manufacture. TQM is a system of production management that requires the involvement of every facet of a company's operation and the active involvement of each company employee in the effort to promote high product quality. TQM, therefore, is a system that seeks to produce incremental quality gains, as opposed to dramatic, one shot improvements.
Product quality came to the forefront in the American economy in the late 1980s, as the top managements in American companies learned that American product quality was generally perceived by Americans and foreign consumers alike to be inferior to products from other countries particularly Germany and Japan.
Retention of a company's customer base is just one advantage associated with improved quality. Operating profits may be expected to improve along with productivity, as quality levels rise (Hammonds and DeGeorge, 1991, p. 34). "Companies that embrace quality have an edge of up to 10( on every sales dollar over rivals," according to General Systems Co. management (Hammonds and DeGeorge, 1991, p. 35). The general estimate is that profitability rises after each customer retention rate increase of five percent (Armstrong and Symonds, 1991, p. 102). Improved customer satisfaction is the route to greater customer retention, and, in the 1990s, greater product quality is the best way to build consumer satisfaction levels Armstrong and Symonds, 1991, p. 100 101). Improved quality costs money in the short run (Armstrong and Symonds, 1991, p. 101). In the long run, however, improving quality generates greater profitability. Poor quality means poor sales in the long run. Therefore, expenditures on quality control may not be looked at as some sort of add on cost. Rather, they must be considered as integral production costs whether the product being produce...