Total Quality Management (TQM) is a business management strategy aimed at embedding awareness of quality in all organizational processes. TQM has been widely used in manufacturing, education, call centers, government, and service industries, as well as NASA space and science programs.
TQM is composed of three paradigms:
Total: Involving the entire organization, supply chain, and/or product life cycle
Quality: With its usual definitions, with all its complexities
Management: The system of managing with steps like Plan, Organize, Control, Lead, Staff, provisioning and organizing.
As defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO):
"TQM is a management approach for an organization, centered on quality, based on the participation of all its members and aiming at long-term success through customer satisfaction, and benefits to all members of the organization and to society."
One major aim is to reduce variation from every process so that greater consistency of effort is obtained.