Total quality management (TQM) revolutionized Japanese industry and has created a modern revolution in American companies as well. The implementation of TQM is not without its pitfalls, however. The TQM approach, which focuses on customer satisfaction, is useless if a company misinterprets its customers' needs.
The goal of TQM philosophy is to deliver the highest value for the customer and to guarantee 100 percent customer satisfaction: " . . . it is ultimately the customer who decides if the product is quality and desirable. In this light, quality definitely is customer satisfaction because the goods and services produced are driven by customer desire and tailored to their exact needs" (Johnson, 1993, p. 15).
A quality gap exists if there is discrepancy between what the customer wants and what a company actually provides. Customer requirements should drive business strategy and serve as the ultimate measure of quality in assessing performance. TQM philosophy urges a company's employees to listen to its customers and to be willing to form partnerships with them.
The TQM attitude of success is that a company's customers sign its paycheck and make it possible for the company to stay in business. Without the customer, the company could not exist: "TQM practitioners see a focus on the customer as the starting point, and indeed, the raison d'etre, of the whole quality philosophy" (Hill and Jones, 1995, p. 150). In too many American companies, the customer service function is relegated to employees near the bottom of the corporate ladder. Not so with TQM: "Customer complaints and rework of products should be given to the brightest people" (Aggarwal, 1993, p. 66).
In their efforts to emulate the success of the Japanese quality revolution, some American companies have blindly initiated quality programs without maintaining their focus on customer satisfaction. These companies became caught up with narrow statistic...