Six Sigma and Total Quality Management (TQM)

💼 Business By CampusDown Wiki Editorial Team Last updated October 15, 2026

Quick answer: TQM is a philosophy of customer focus, total participation and continuous improvement; Six Sigma is a data-driven project method (DMAIC) that reduces variation toward 3.4 defects per million opportunities.

Contents

1. Quality gurus
2. TQM principles
3. Six Sigma
4. Differences
5. References

Quality gurus

Deming: most problems lie in the system; 14 points and the PDCA cycle.
Juran: quality as fitness for use; the trilogy of planning, control and improvement.
Crosby: "quality is free"; zero defects.
Ishikawa: cause-and-effect diagrams and quality circles.

TQM principles

Customer focus, leadership, total participation, process orientation, fact-based decisions, continuous improvement (kaizen) and supplier partnership, institutionalised by the Baldrige Award and ISO 9001.

Six Sigma

Introduced at Motorola in 1986 and spread by GE, it targets 3.4 defects per million opportunities, assuming a 1.5σ shift. Projects follow DMAIC (define, measure, analyse, improve, control), new designs DMADV, staffed by champions, master black belts, black belts and green belts.

Differences

TQM is an organisation-wide philosophy; Six Sigma is a project-based statistical method tied to financial results. Lean Six Sigma combines it with waste elimination, and both apply to supplier quality in supply chain management.

References

Deming, W. E. (1986). Out of the Crisis. MIT Center for Advanced Engineering Study.
Juran, J. M. (1988). Juran on Planning for Quality. Free Press.
Crosby, P. B. (1979). Quality Is Free. McGraw-Hill.
Harry, M., & Schroeder, R. (2000). Six Sigma: The Breakthrough Management Strategy. Currency.
Pyzdek, T., & Keller, P. (2014). The Six Sigma Handbook (4th ed.). McGraw-Hill.

Reports and materials that use this theory (Korean)

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This article was last updated on October 15, 2026. It is based on widely recognized original works and textbooks; when citing it in a paper, please check the original sources listed in the references.