Another popular approach based on a decentralized control philosophy is Total Quality Management (TQM). TQM is an organization-wide effort to integrate quality into every activity in a company through continuous improvement of products and processes. TQM emphasizes the importance of each person in the company and requires a commitment from employees

at all levels. In traditional quality control, a separate team of experts inspect products or services for defects or errors after completion. But TQM emphasizes “quality at the source,” that is, quality inspection in all processes and at all stages of production or service output. Therefore, some quantitative techniques, such as statistical process control, and nonquantitative techniques, such as employee empowerment should be used.