An Analysis of Relationship between Total Quality Management and Kaizen

Total Quality Management (TQM) and Kaizen- a continuous change toward betterment are two fundamental concepts directly dealing with continuous improvement of quality of processes and performance of an organization to achieve positive transformation in mindset and action of employees and management. For clear understanding and to get maximum benefit from both of these concepts, as such it becomes mandatory to precisely differentiate between TQM and Kaizen. TQM features primarily focus on customer's satisfaction through improvement of quality. It is both a top down and bottom up approach whereas kaizen is processes focused and a bottom up approach of small incremental changes. Implementation of TQM is more costly as compared to Kaizen. Through kaizen, improvements are made using organization's available resources. For the effective implementation of kaizen, the culture of the organization must be supportive and the result of continuous improvement should be communicated to the whole organization for motivation of all employees and for the success of continuous improvement program in the organization. This paper focuses on analyzing the minute differences between TQM and Kaizen. It also discusses the different tools and techniques under the umbrella of kaizen and TQM Philosophy. This paper will elucidate the differences in both these concepts as far as their inherent characteristics and practical implementations are concerned. In spite of differences in methodology, focus and scale of operation in both the concept, it can be simply concluded that Kaizen is one of the Technique of the T QM for continuous improvement of quality, process and performance of the organization. (Muhammad Saleem, Nawar Khan, Shafqat Hameed, M Abbas Ch. An Analysis of Relationship between Total Quality Management and Kaizen. Life Science Journal. 2012;9(3):31-40) (ISSN:1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite.com . 5