Total Quality Management is an approach to the art of management that originated in Japanese industry in the 1950's and has become steadily more popular in the West since the early 1980's.

Total Quality is a description of the culture, attitude and organization of a company that aims to provide, and continue to provide, its customers with products and services that satisfy their needs. The culture requires quality in all aspects of the company's operations, with things being done right first time, and defects and waste eradicated from operations.

Total Quality Management is an approach to the art of management that originated in Japanese industry in the 1950's and has become steadily more popular in the West since the early 1980's.

Total Quality is a description of the culture, attitude and organization of a company that aims to provide, and continue to provide, its customers with products and services that satisfy their needs. The culture requires quality in all aspects of the company's operations, with things being done right first time, and defects and waste eradicated from operations.

TQM is a strategy that focuses the entire organisation on continuous improvement. It arose in the 1980's in response to the Japanese competition with the US, and the writings of W Edwards Deming. Six Sigma started in the US at Motorola and became prominent in the mid 1990's due to its adoption by General Electric. The goal of Six Sigma is to improve a company's quality to only three defects per million , through incremental change in processes and statistical measurement of outcomes.

While both TQM and Six Sigma focus on techniques for solving problems and rely on statistical assessment, TQM encourages firm-wide employee involvement but Six Sigma's approach is to train experts (green belts and black belts) who work on solving problems and teaching others in the company.