Streamlining TQM

Notes that many companies have abandoned total quality management (TQM) implementation efforts and that a few have even dismantled TQM after winning major quality awards. Points out that this is generally blamed on changes in top management, financial pressures or the bureaucracy of TQM. Focuses on Lucent Technologies’ Power Systems business, which has avoided these problems by dramatically streamlining its award winning TQM system and making it the key management tool for meeting its next major business challenge. Describes the process used to evaluate the existing TQM system and to create the streamlined approach, the new streamlined TQM system, and the results obtained to date.