Total Quality Management and reengineering
Total quality management (TQM) and reengineering are concepts that gained much attention and popularity in the 1980s and 1990s.
TQM has been defined as:
A philosophy and a set of guiding principles that represent the foundation of a continuously improving organization. TQM is the application of quantitative and human resources to improve the materials services supplied to an organization, all the processes within the organization, and the degree in which the needs of the customer are met - now and in the future. TQM integrates fundamental techniques, existing improvement efforts, and technical tools under a disciplined approach focused on continuous improvement.
The concept of reengineering deals with "starting with a clean state": that is, taking systems and processes, and rethinking and redesigning them in order to create significant improvements in quality, cost, speed, and service.