Main schools of TQM: “the big five”

Abstract The early development of the total quality movement was substantially influenced by only a few quality "pioneers": Deming, Juran, Feigenbaum, Crosby and Ishikawa. This article discusses their key contributions about quality. Argues that these US and Japanese quality "gurus" contributed a number of important ideas to today's understanding of total quality management (TQM). Points out, however, that TQM is not merely a set of statistical tools and methods for improving the company's product and service quality level and a quality management system like BS 5750 and ISO 9000, as suggested by these quality pioneers. TQM rather comprises a business strategy for harnessing the full capacity of all the company's resources – not only technical – in order to achieve world‐class quality at minimum costs. Comes to the conclusion that the role of the human resource issue and the importance of the individual employee were hardly recognised by these classical quality "gurus".