A growing awareness of these limitations led organizations to search for a more viable solution, one which permeated the total structure throughout, and could become a way of life, or in-house culture, rather than a system of control, and therefore the concept of total quality management (TQM) was created.
Initially, many organizations concentrated on improving customer service, as the main platform of the process, but quickly came to realize that this element was only a part of a far greater problem, because to achieve 100 per cent customer satisfaction requires a major change in the way in which things are done, within the company, and, perhaps more importantly, a radical change of attitude, at all levels, in accepting that 100 per cent fault-free status is the only way to operate.