A Holistic Approach for Integrating Methods in Quality Management

Quality management has become more and more important in the last couple of years. The user is faced with a multitude of methods such as Six Sigma, TQM or Theory of Constraints. Therefore quality managers are more and more engaged in the selection of an appropriate approach for achieving the quality goals as they have been defined. Due to the necessity of coordinating heterogeneous quality methods, employees usually oppose the use of more than one approach within an enterprise. However, guidelines on how to integrate several methods, while considering the strengths of the original approaches, are still missing. This problem is being dealt with in the paper at hand. The paper introduces an integration approach, supporting the user in establishing an integrated quality management method. The variety of quality management approaches within an enterprise can thus be influenced by the user.