Abstract—This paper suggests that Total Quality Management (TQM) is undergoing a revival under a new name, six-sigma. Many organizations have discovered that such methodologies under appropriate leadership can be applied in such a way as to restore the strength of quality initiatives. The basic tenants of TQM include strong customer focus, elevated employee involvement, continuous improvement, enlightened leadership, and management by fact. There is concern, however, that TQM has lost its luster and has become less effective under the pressures of competing business priorities. Six-sigma provides a highly disciplined approach to quality improvement, assures follow-through using a five step process, and clearly assigns personnel responsibility. Specific customer oriented metrics are identified and tracked until a control system is in place to maintain the improved processes. All required features of TQM are found in the correct application of six-sigma. This paper examines the problems associated with total quality management and suggests a revival under a newer name, the rather odd reference to a statistical feature of the normal distribution known as ‘six-sigma’.

Index Terms—Total quality management, Involvement, Methodologies

Cite: Ashutosh S Khandekar and Vishal N Sulakhe, "Six Sigma - The Revival of TQM," International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 50-58, January 2014.