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General Systems Total Quality Management: 

Total quality is a way of managing a business. It's about increasing the value that customers receive. It's about improving the things you do right, not just cutting down the things you do wrong. It's a process, not a technical activity or a set of statistics. 

Sales growth today requires the kind of market quality that anticipates customer requirements. This is very different from reacting on a defect reduction basis--the traditional approach to quality improvement. For many companies, this is a basic transformation in their quality orientation and in their quality systems. 

Good quality costs less, not more. After all these years of cost accounting, many companies still don't know what things really cost. This has been why it has taken so long for them to recognize that the cost of delivering customer satisfaction to buyers can be their single largest cost except for material purchases. 

"The companies that have succeeded in making total quality their competitive leadership handle have greatly reduced the cost of failure in delivering customer satisfaction. This has become a centerpoint of their operating cost leadership. 

"Accomplishing total quality control means involving every man and woman in the organization in the development and implementation of work and teamwork quality processes. It's a wonderful way to bring back the fizz--the enthusiasm--to work in the organization. 

"There is always a better way, and the men and women who know what this is are the men and women closest to the work itself. A several percent quality improvement in jobs across an organization compounds at a powerful rate. It's one of the fingerprints of today's type of competitive winner." 

---Val Feigenbaum