From Total Quality to Total Care

Abstract

Total quality found its finest hour in the 1980s; that hour has passed. This does not mean that there is an inherent fault in the concept of total quality, far from it. Improvements in the function and durability of products over the last decade owe much to the application of statistical quality assurance and other techniques of total quality. The reasons for its obsolescence are that in the 1990s there is a growing need to involve the customer in the processes of manufacturing and, to a greater extent, service industries; companies have to operate as open systems, not closed ones — customers are the new quality controllers.