What is "Total Quality"?

The term "Total Quality" by Ishikawa, refers to "philosophy, culture, strategy or management style of a company according to which all persons in the same, study, practice, participate and promote continuous quality improvement" . That is, Total Quality in the sense of Ishikawa is an allusion to continuous improvement.

According to ISO 9000, "Quality" is the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirements. That is, in this sense, quality is conformity with the specifications.

There are at least five ways of understanding Quality:

Transcendent or holistic: This is to achieve the highest standards in all activities in all aspects (product, production, customer, price, etc.).
based on the product: quality is defined as the objective measurement of product quality according to their characteristics (technical, physical, etc.).
based on the client or user: The quality is customer satisfaction (perceived quality or subjective quality)
based on the production: It takes into account not only the product result, but also how it was obtained. Are processes have been optimized? Is it environmentally friendly?
based on value: the degree of excellence at a reasonable price and control of variability at an acceptable cost

In the approach based on production quality we consider not only the product performance and customer satisfaction, but also how that product was obtained. Are resources used optimally? Have you followed the rules, guidelines, laws, etc..? Does the process is sustainable economically and environmentally?

In general, one can always improve or streamline processes. These improvements do not have to be drastic. Usually do not require large investments or major changes for improvement. We call this continuous improvement.

Continuous improvement requires a proactive, systematic, based the observation of facts. One of the tools that can be applied on continuous improvement is the Pareto diagram (diagram of frequencies)

The brain-storming is another tool used in process improvement and generated in any process of improvement.

Key Concepts of Total Quality

Here are some key ideas in relation to Total Quality:

The importance of measuring the quality of both product and process for manufacturing the product.
If you can not measure it, you can not manage it.
Continuous improvement: we can always improve. Let's do it.
Zero failures. Do it right the first time.
It is always cheaper to do it right first time.
Quality is conformity to specifications, not the goodness or elegance.
If there's no specifications (objectives), there's no success.