Total Quality Management is best described as

• A. Continually focusing on improvement in all business functions
• B. Using inspections at different points during the production process
• C. Using a system to achieve certain standards
• D. Inputs are only ordered when they are needed

Answer: (A)

Total Quality Management is about improving quality continuously across the whole business, with everyone involved. It focuses on making small, ongoing changes to processes in all areas of the organization, so defects are prevented and customer needs are met over time. This long-term, company-wide effort contrasts with simply using inspections to catch problems after they happen or with just meeting a set Standard through a system. It also isn’t about inventory timing or ordering inputs only when needed, which relates to different concepts like just-in-time. So the description that captures ongoing, across-the-board improvement best reflects what TQM is.