2JN is a large manufacturing organisation which is structured with a number of supervisors every responsible for their own work production unit. Supervisors report to a team of senior managers who in turn are accountable to a Managing Director (MD). Operations are supported by 2JN's own finance, sales, distribution and human resource units.

 Within the past two years, 2JN has executed a series of initiatives aimed at reducing product defects and customer complaints. The initiatives have included the appointment of a few quality control inspectors to support supervisors. Despite these efforts, 2JN has lost some of its major customers to its competitors and its profits are declining.

Explain the requirements for achieving a Total Quality Management (TQM) approach within 2JN.

Total Quality Management (TQM) is one of many approaches to achieving quality. TQM gained popularity in Japanese industry in the 1950's and later in the west from the early 1980's onwards. CIMA's Official Terminology defines it as follows:

 'An integrated and comprehensive system of planning and controlling all business functions so that products or services are produced which meet or exceed customer expectations. TQM is a philosophy of business behaviour, embracing principles like employee involvement, continuous improvement at all levels and customer focus, as well as being a collection of related methods aimed at improving quality like full documentation of activities, clear goal setting and performance measurement from the customer perspective'.