World Class Quality and Performance Improvement

The shortage of resources during this difficult economic period has led to extensive discussions about reprioritizing our resources and learning to manage them better. At the same time, there has been an increased desire by people in organizations to be involved in the decisions that affect their work. As people in organizations carried out their penetrating searches for ways to create more responsive and healthy organizations, new ideas were studied, adapted to local needs, and eventually adopted. The next step was one of becoming more adept than those from whom we got the ideas initially. Many of the ideas that have been implemented in the name of Total Quality Management (TQM) have come about in just this way. The whole area of “quality sciences” is coming to be recognized as a separate field of study and application. This article discusses world-class quality and performance improvement and provides examples from industry and education.