How much does quality, or the lack thereof, costs? It is substantial. The cost of quality is basically the sum of all that would disappear if we did everything right the first time. Lack of quality would be the sum of all defects done from the beginning of the process.

Total Quality Management thus worked its way to be a formidable concept in management techniques. However, the emphasis directed towards achievement of quality in satisfaction of customer's has long been the focus of business entities aside from earning profit. The philosophy is that guaranteed quality establishes a trust relationship between customer and supplier. Nevertheless, management concepts such as Total Quality Management leave their traces, as their core ideas can be valuable. Total Quality Management encourages participation amongst rank-in-file workers and managers. There is no single theoretical formalization of total quality, but the core assumptions are provided as the."..discipline and philosophy of management which institutionalizes planned and continuous... improvement... And assumes that quality is the outcome...

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Cost Accounting, Tradition and Innovations. Barfield, Raiborn and Kinney. (2001).

Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia. Total Quality Management. (2007).

Retrieved May 21, 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Quality_Management

Dexter a. Hansen. Total Quality Management. (2007).

Retrieved May 22, 2007. http://home.att.net/~iso9k1/tqm/tqm.html.

Free Management Library. Total Quality Management. (2007).

Retrieved May 22, 2007. http://www.managementhelp.org/quality/tqm/tqm.htm