TQM
Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management strategy aimed at embedding awareness of quality in all organizational processes. TQM has been widely used in manufacturing, education, government, and service industries, as well as NASA space and science programs.
Total Quality provides an umbrella under which everyone in the organization can strive and create customer satisfaction at continually lower real costs.

As defined by the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO):

"TQM is a management approach for an organization, centered on quality, based on the participation of all its members and aiming at long-term success through customer satisfaction, and benefits to all members of the organization and to society."

In Japan, TQM comprises four process steps, namely:

Kaizen – Focuses on "Continuous Process Improvement", to make processes visible, repeatable and measurable.
Atarimae Hinshitsu – The idea that "things will work as they are supposed to" (for example, a pen will write).
Kansei – Examining the way the user applies the product leads to improvement in the product itself.
Miryokuteki Hinshitsu – The idea that "things should have an aesthetic quality" (for example, a pen will write in a way that is pleasing to the writer)

A Comprehensive Definition

TQM Total Quality Management is the management of total quality. We know that management consists of planning, organizing, directing, control, and assurance. Then, one has to define "total quality". Total quality is called total because it consists of 3 qualities : Quality of return to satisfy the needs of the shareholders, Quality of products and services to satisfy some specific needs of the consumer (end customer) and Quality of life - at work and outside work - to satisfy the needs of the people in the organization. This is achieved with the help of upstream and downstream partners of the enterprise. To this, we have to add the corporate citizenship, i.e. the social, technological, economical, political, and ecological (STEPE) responsibility of the enterprise concerning its internal (its people) and external (upstream and downstream) partners, and community. Therefore, Total quality management goes well beyond satisfying the customer, or merely offering quality products (goods and/or services). Note that we use the term consumer or end customer. The reason is that in a Supply Chain Management approach, we don't have to satisfy our customers' needs but the needs of our customers' customers' all the way to the end customer, the consumer of a product and/or service. By applying this definition an enterprise achieves Business Excellence, as suggested by the Malcolm Baldrige (American) and the EFQM (European) Performance Excellence Models. To do that, one has to go well beyond ISO 9000 Standards series as suggested by these standards (ISO 9001, then ISO 9004, then Total Quality