What is Total Quality Control?

Total quality control is a broad-ranging set of techniques that are employed to minimize errors throughout an organization. By doing so, an organization can greatly improve both its profits and customer satisfaction. It requires the involvement of employees across the organization who are empowered to make changes. This approach involves a number of concepts, which include:

Management support. A foundational issue is that senior management must fully support the total quality control effort, providing oversight, funding, and other resources as needed.
Customer orientation. The customer's perception of quality is what matters, so you need to understand quality from the customer’s viewpoint.
Process orientation. A key focus is in viewing a business as a set of processes, each of which must be continually examined and refined in order to achieve higher quality levels.
Process improvement. Processes must continually be improved, so there is no end to the total quality control effort. This can be accomplished by implementing the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle.
Employee engagement. All employees throughout the organization should participate in the ongoing task of improving processes. This frequently involves the use of teams to resolve issues as they are uncovered.
Training. Employees must be provided with sufficient training to understand how they can participate in the quality improvement effort.
Feedback. There must be continual feedback loops and close integration of motivational tools with the quality improvement goal.