Total Quality Management (TQM) is not just a series of improvement methods as implied by BS 7850 part 2, but a change in an organisation's culture and philosophy. It is concerned with changing attitudes and skills so that the culture of the organisation becomes one of preventing failure (c. f Simson 1995). According to Honeycutt (1993) TQM involves: Holistic change; satisfy the customer; understand the process; measurement ("if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. "); team building and training; and continuous improvement. Another definition of TQM is given by Goetsch and Davis (1995). They define TQM as: "an approach to doing business that attempts to maximise the competitivenesso f an organisation through the continual improvement of the quality of its products, services,p eople, processes,a nd environments"
TQM is a customer-orientated management system which seeks to meet or exceed customer expectations by providing defect-free goods or services the first time, on time, all the time. Although the ultimate goal is to satisfy external customers, TQM recognises that it will be difficult to satisfy external customers without meeting the requirements of internal customers as well. Therefore, it seeks to meet or exceed the expectations of both internal and external customers.