Sustaining total quality management: what are the key issues?

Abstract

From both fieldwork and the academic literature a number of issues have been identified which impact negatively on the sustaining of TQM in manufacturing organizations. The issues reflect a variety of business operations perspectives including continuous improvement, organizational behaviour, human resources management, industrial relations and the labour process. They have been grouped into a five‐part categorization of internal/external environment, management style, policies, organization structure, and the process of change and configured into a TQM sustaining audit tool. Describes, in brief, these categories and issues and presents some of the findings from their examination, using the audit tool, at six manufacturing sites.