Managing TQM in a large company

The quest for competitive advantage through quality excellence in recent years has led US companies to focus more and more on total quality management. They have found the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) criteria, ISO 9000 standards, and SEI Capability Maturity Model (CMM) to be effective tools for evaluating and improving their quality systems. Some companies are using these models to drive their quality initiatives. Although a company can have an excellent approach to TQM, the deployment and management of the system are critical factors for overall success. This paper reviews quality system models, introduces AT&T´s approach (TQA), and describes the TQA implementation strategy