Learn in the textbookManagement Techniques for Quality and Process Improvement (TQC, TQM, Six Sigma, TOC)
DefinitionTQC (Total Quality Control) is an activity in which every department and every employee, not just manufacturing, takes part in improving quality.
ExplanationRather than weeding out defective products at inspection after the fact, it reworks how design, purchasing, sales and other work is done so that defects are not produced in the first place. In Japan it spread widely together with improvement activities run by small workplace groups. Policy management (方針管理), which breaks top management's policy down into departmental goals and action plans to drive improvement, is a representative TQC technique.
AnalogyThink of a restaurant where, instead of one inspector opening the boxes at the very end, everyone from kitchen prep to the front of house nips mistakes in the bud at their own station.
Memory hookThe T stands for Total: quality is not the business of one corner of the factory, and the whole company owns it.