TQM is a management philosophy — not a certification you apply for. It means quality is everyone's responsibility, driven by customer focus, continuous improvement, and data-based decision making. It is the foundation on which ISO 9001, Six Sigma, and Lean are built. If you are pursuing any of these, you are already implementing TQM principles.
Philosophy
Not a licence — a way of running operations
Customer focus
Quality defined by what the customer needs
Continuous
Every process always improvable
TQM means your role in quality is not limited to the quality department. Every person in the organisation — from the shop floor to senior management — is responsible for quality in their own work. Catching a problem early, raising an issue, and suggesting a better way are all TQM contributions.
Everyone
Quality is not just QC's job
Continuous
Always looking for a better way
Customer
Ultimately serving the customer
Quick reference. TQM founded on work of Deming (14 Points, PDCA), Juran (Quality Trilogy, Cost of Quality), Crosby (Zero Defects, Cost of Non-Conformance), and Feigenbaum (Total Quality Control). Kaizen (Japanese: continuous improvement) is the operational expression. Deming Prize (Japan) and RBNQA / CII-EXIM Award (India) are the formal TQM excellence recognitions.
Deming
14 Points, PDCA cycle
Juran
Quality Trilogy, Cost of Quality
India award
CII-EXIM Business Excellence Award
Total Quality Management emerged from post-World War II reconstruction of Japanese industry. W. Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran brought statistical quality control to Japan in the 1950s. The resulting quality movement transformed Japanese manufacturing and spread globally through the 1980s-90s as the basis for ISO 9001, Six Sigma, and Lean.
1950s
Deming and Juran in Japan
1980s
TQM spread to Western industry
ISO 9001
TQM principles formalised
Philosophy and approach — not a certification or licenceFoundation of ISO 9001, Six Sigma, and LeanDeming Prize and RBNQA are the recognised awards for TQM excellence
What’s on this page
01 —What it isUnderstanding TQM
The management philosophy behind every quality standard — continuous improvement, customer focus, and data.
TQM (Total Quality Management) is not a standard you certify against — it is a management philosophy. Its core principles: quality is defined by the customer, quality is everyone's responsibility (not just the QC department), and every process can always be improved.
TQM is built on the work of W. Edwards Deming (14 Points, PDCA cycle), Joseph Juran (Quality Trilogy, Cost of Quality), and Philip Crosby (Zero Defects concept). These principles are embedded in ISO 9001:2015, Six Sigma DMAIC, and Lean manufacturing — if you are implementing any of these, you are implementing TQM principles.
In India, the CII-EXIM Bank Business Excellence Award and the Rajiv Gandhi National Quality Award (RBNQA) are the formal recognition frameworks for TQM excellence. These are awards, not certifications — organisations apply by demonstrating TQM implementation maturity.
TQM implementation without data is just slogans. "Quality is everyone's responsibility" without stage-wise defect data, customer feedback tracking, and trend analysis produces meetings, not improvement. The operational expression of TQM is structured data collection, cross-functional review, and measurable action.
👥 Illustrative case — details changed for confidentiality
The business
Commercial printing company Delhi · 90 employees, supplying publishers and corporates
The trigger
Customer complaints about colour consistency had doubled over 12 months. Repeat orders from two major accounts were at risk.
The challenge
The quality team knew complaints were rising but had no structured way to identify root causes across departments. Pre-press, press, and finishing all blamed each other. No cross-functional quality review process existed.
Where Clicarity came in
They implemented TQM principles with Clicarity tracking each production job through pre-press, press, and finishing stages. Stage-wise rejection data showed that 68% of colour complaints originated at the press stage — specifically on jobs that had skipped the first-run colour check. A cross-functional TQM initiative was launched with the stage data as the baseline.
The result
Customer complaint rate reduced by 54% over two improvement cycles. Both major accounts renewed.
We stopped guessing which department was responsible. The stage data made it objective. That changed the entire conversation.
02 —Who needs itIs it right for you?
Do you actually need it? Honest answer.
✓ TQM principles apply to you
Any organisation pursuing ISO 9001 — TQM is the philosophy behind it
Manufacturers with persistent quality issues across departments
Service businesses with high customer complaint rates
Organisations where quality is treated as "QC's problem"
∼ TQM awards worth pursuing
Large manufacturers wanting to benchmark TQM maturity (CII-EXIM or RBNQA)
Businesses in quality-sensitive export markets
— TQM is not a substitute for
ISO 9001 (if your buyer or tender requires a certificate)
IATF 16949 (if you supply automotive)
03 —What it requiresWhat is checked
The core TQM principles — what they mean in practice.
1
Customer focus — quality defined by customer requirements
Every quality decision starts with the question: what does the customer need? Customer complaints, returns, and feedback are the most important quality data in the business.
E.g. Monthly review of customer complaints by category. Voice of Customer data fed into process improvement priorities.
2
Total employee involvement
Quality is not the responsibility of the QC department alone. Every person in every function contributes to or detracts from quality.
E.g. Suggestion schemes where operators raise improvement ideas. Cross-functional quality teams for improvement projects.Most common failure: Management declares TQM but quality decisions remain centralised in the QC department. Operators have no channel to raise quality issues.
3
Process approach and data-based decisions
Decisions based on measurement, not opinion. Stage-wise defect data, cycle time trends, and cost of poor quality tracked and reviewed.
E.g. Monthly quality review meeting with stage-wise rejection data. Decisions on improvement priorities backed by data, not seniority.
4
Continuous improvement — Kaizen
Every process is always improvable. Improvement is not a project that ends — it is the normal state of operations.
E.g. Monthly Kaizen events where cross-functional teams improve one specific process step.
5
PDCA cycle — Plan, Do, Check, Act
The fundamental improvement cycle from Deming. Plan the change, implement it, check whether it worked, then act to standardise or adjust.
E.g. Any quality improvement follows PDCA: plan the change → pilot it → measure result → update SOP if successful.
6
Leadership commitment
TQM cannot be delegated. Senior management must visibly lead quality, set the quality policy, review quality data, and make decisions based on quality outcomes.
E.g. Managing Director chairs the monthly quality review. Quality metrics on the management dashboard alongside financial metrics.Most common failure: TQM implemented at middle management level. Senior management disengaged. Culture never changes.
What inspectors really check
There is no regulatory audit for TQM. ISO 9001 auditors verify that TQM principles are embedded in the QMS. CII-EXIM and RBNQA awards involve a formal assessment by examiners who evaluate TQM maturity across all business dimensions.
Gap analysis checklist — tick what you already have
Customer complaint data collected, categorised, and reviewed monthly
By category, by product, by trend.
Quality KPIs tracked and shared across all departments
Not just in the QC department.
Improvement suggestions collected from all staff
Formal channel for ideas from the shop floor.
Cross-functional quality review meeting held monthly
With data. Decisions documented.
PDCA cycle used for all quality improvements
Plan → Do → Check → Act before standardising.
Senior management visibly engaged in quality review
If pursuing formal recognition: begin the application process after 2+ years of TQM maturity.
▶Where to begin: Use the checklist in Section 3 to assess your readiness before contacting any CB.
TQM vs ISO 9001
Complementary
ISO 9001 is the framework. TQM is the culture that makes it work.
Time to results
6 to 18 months
First measurable quality improvements typically visible within 6 months.
Awards
Annual application
CII-EXIM and RBNQA accept annual applications.
Cost
Internal investment
No external certification fee — investment is in staff time and data systems.
TQM without senior management commitment fails every time. If quality review data goes to the QC manager but not to the MD, TQM remains a department programme. The cultural shift requires visible leadership engagement.
06 —Find certified companiesHow to verify
How to find and verify certified organisations.
TQM is a philosophy — there is no national register of TQM-certified organisations. Formal TQM recognition (CII-EXIM, RBNQA, Deming Prize) award past winners are published by the awarding bodies.
How to verify: To confirm whether any organisation holds a current TQM certification, use the official register. Verify the issuing CB's accreditation at nabcb.qci.org.in.
Start measuring customer complaints by category and stage-wise rejections this month
You cannot manage what you do not measure. Two numbers to start: monthly customer complaint rate and stage-wise rejection rate. Everything else follows from these.
2
Hold a cross-functional quality review with all department heads — with data, not opinions
One meeting with actual numbers changes the quality conversation more than any training programme.
3
Run one PDCA cycle on your biggest quality issue and document it end to end
Plan the change. Implement. Measure. Update the SOP. That single completed cycle demonstrates TQM in action.
08 —How Clicarity fitsProcess tracking
Good records are the foundation. A process tracker builds them automatically.
Clicarity — Live Job Process Tracker & Bottleneck Identifier
Clicarity doesn't implement TQM for you. It gives every department the same stage-by-stage view of what's happening — the shared operational visibility TQM depends on.
TQM requires data that crosses departmental boundaries — stage-wise quality performance, customer complaint rates by product type, and yield trends over time. In Clicarity, every job moves through stages that cross departments. Rejects at each stage are captured with reason codes. Bottlenecks — where jobs are held and for how long — are visible in real time. When a TQM improvement initiative splits across departments, each department tracks its own action plan as a sub-job. When they rejoin at the results review, the performance improvement of every department is captured in one initiative record.
Stage-wise rejection data across departments gives TQM teams objective baseline data — eliminating the departmental blame that characterises quality discussions without data.
When a TQM initiative spans multiple departments, each department's action plan runs as a sub-job. Progress tracked independently. Results consolidated at review.
Bottleneck visibility — which stage holds jobs, for how long, and how often — surfaces the Lean waste categories (waiting, overprocessing) that TQM initiatives target.
Clicarity shows trends over time — rejection rates by stage, cycle time by job type — which is the continuous measurement TQM requires to sustain improvement between formal review cycles.
▼ Job splits — each component tracked independently
#TQM-2026-Q2-A
Department A improvement actions
▼Department head
#Actions due
#Actions closed
▼Status
#TQM-2026-Q2-B
Department B improvement actions
▼Department head
#Actions due
#Actions closed
▼Status
▲
Components rejoin as #TQM-2026-Q2 — complete record of every branch, every data point, every sign-off preserved.
Results review
#Customer complaint rate post (PPM)
#First-pass yield post (%)
#On-time delivery post (%)
▼Reviewed by sponsor
📅Review date
→
Lessons learnt
✎Key learnings
▼Documented by
📅Date
▼Shared with all departments
→
Next cycle planning
✎Next focus area
▼Assigned owner
📅Next cycle start
▼Management sign-off
Wastage tracked:▰ Baseline measurements captured before improvement actions begin▰ Each department tracked independently through its action plan▰ Results reviewed against baseline — improvement quantified
ⓘ Fields and stage names are fully customisable. This illustrates a typical TQM continuous improvement initiative setup.
👥 Illustrative case — details changed for confidentiality
The business
Commercial printing company Delhi · 90 employees, supplying publishers and corporates
The trigger
Customer complaints about colour consistency had doubled over 12 months. Repeat orders from two major accounts were at risk.
The challenge
The quality team knew complaints were rising but had no structured way to identify root causes across departments. Pre-press, press, and finishing all blamed each other. No cross-functional quality review process existed.
Where Clicarity came in
They implemented TQM principles with Clicarity tracking each production job through pre-press, press, and finishing stages. Stage-wise rejection data showed that 68% of colour complaints originated at the press stage — specifically on jobs that had skipped the first-run colour check. A cross-functional TQM initiative was launched with the stage data as the baseline.
The result
Customer complaint rate reduced by 54% over two improvement cycles. Both major accounts renewed.
We stopped guessing which department was responsible. The stage data made it objective. That changed the entire conversation.
Clicarity is a process tracking tool. It does not provide certification, consulting, or audit services.